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WHEN WILL AI OUTTHINK HUMANS?

If AI's growth rate were to remain consistent, its synthetic thought-hours will surpass human thought-hours by volume in about 10 years.

CHALLENGERS ARE COMING FOR NVIDIA'S CROWN

AMD and Intel are looking to use their own GPUs to rival Nvidia while upstarts like Cerebras and SambaNova have developed radical chip architectures that drastically improve the efficiency of generative AI training and inference.

TIKTOK'S OWNER WANTS TO DESIGN ITS OWN AI CHIPS

ByteDance has designed two chips with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company that are planned to be mass-produced by 2026.

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SPACEX POLARIS DAWN CREW RETURNS HOME AFTER HISTORY-MAKING MISSION

SpaceX's Polaris Dawn mission has returned to Earth, splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico early Sunday morning. The four astronauts made history as the mission reached a higher altitude than any human has traveled in five decades and also included the first spacewalk completed by a privately funded and operated mission. This was the third trip to space for the specific Crew Dragon capsule used in the mission. Besides the spacewalk, the crew carried out nearly 40 science experiments and research.

TIKTOK IS ABOUT TO GET ITS DAY IN COURT

On September 16, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia will hear oral arguments for TikTok's First Amendment challenge to legislation that it claims amounts to a ban. The US government argues that TikTok is a clear national security threat but says that revealing why would be a threat. Its claims rely on dozens of pages of redacted classified material that likely focus on the potential that the Chinese government could compel ByteDance to hand over the data of US users or push specific content onto US users. These risks are reportedly so significant that they override TikTok's First Amendment claims.

AN INJECTABLE HIV-PREVENTION DRUG IS HIGHLY EFFECTIVE — BUT WILDLY EXPENSIVE

The results from a landmark pair of major clinical trials of lenacapavir, an injectable HIV-prevention drug that only requires dosing every six months, show that it is 89% more effective at preventing HIV than daily oral preventative medication among gay, bisexual, and transgender people. It could be a game changer if rolled out broadly and equitably, but the drug is extraordinarily expensive. Its current list price for use as an HIV treatment is $3,450 per month. It is unclear whether it will have a different list price for use as a preventive.

NASA CONFIRMS IT'S DEVELOPING THE MOON'S NEW TIME ZONE

NASA is developing a new lunar time system for the Moon. Time changes relative to speed and gravity - it moves slightly faster on the Moon because of its weaker gravity. The small difference in time could have large effects on calculations made in space. The project aims to be scalable to other celestial bodies in the future. NASA is aiming to have the standard ready by 2026.

HOW WE VERIFY THE CORRECTNESS OF A SPREADSHEET ENGINE

Spreadsheets have a ton of overlapping features, making them an interesting software domain. Spreadsheet engines ensure software quality by leaning on lightweight property-based testing. This article discusses property-based testing and how it is used to verify spreadsheets. It covers the different types of frameworks and tests, code for testing, examples, and more. Adding property tests to code can help reveal bugs. They provide immense value and are among the highest-value tests you can write.

A (MORE) MODERN CSS RESET

This post presents a CSS reset and then breaks down its components and explains them. The CSS reset acts as a useful base to start projects. Modern browsers have improved to the point where CSS resets are almost unnecessary - developers are advised to take components that work well from different resets they find around the web and create their own.

HOW TO SUCCEED IN MRBEAST PRODUCTION (BOOK)

This book, written by MrBeast, is aimed at helping his employees get up to speed on the channels' learnings over the past decade. It is designed to help them set themselves up for success by learning about the channel's problems and how they were overcome. The book covers how to make the best YouTube videos possible, what makes YouTube videos go viral, how to measure the success of content, and much more. It contains information about all of the parts of MrBeast productions.

OPENAI IS REPORTEDLY MOVING AWAY FROM ITS COMPLICATED NON-PROFIT STRUCTURE NEXT YEAR

Sam Altman told OpenAI staff members during their weekly staff meeting that the company will be transitioning to a more traditional for-profit corporate structure next year. OpenAI will remain focused on building AI that benefits everyone. Altman did not specify exactly what the company's corporate structure will look like, but a spokesperson says that non-profit is core to OpenAI's mission and will continue to exist. The company started as a non-profit organization that relied on money from donors, but donations alone were not enough for the cost of computation power and talent required to push its core research forward.

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HERE ARE SOME CONCRETE EXPERIMENTS WITH A PROTOTYPE OF GPT-O1

GPT-o1 is a more capable tool than previous iterations, but it still struggles with the most advanced research mathematical tasks.

EVEN FACEBOOK COULDN'T COMPETE WITH GOOGLE, EX-AD CHIEF SAYS

Facebook wanted to directly challenge Google in the market for display ads sold on websites, but it concluded that it would struggle to effectively compete because of Google's monopoly and the advantages the search giant gives itself within its advertising tools.

AMAZON'S SECRET WEAPON IN CHIP DESIGN IS AMAZON

Amazon Web Services purchased chip designer Annapurna Labs in 2015 and has been designing CPUs, AI accelerators, services, and data centers in a vertically-integrated operation.

FREE STARLINK INTERNET IS COMING TO ALL OF UNITED'S AIRPLANES

United Airlines has signed a deal with SpaceX to deliver Starlink services to all of its aircraft starting in 2025 - in-flight Wi-Fi will be free for passengers.

NEW US SHIPPING RULES TARGET CHINA'S SHEIN AND TEMU

US lawmakers are considering removing an exemption that allows packages worth less than $800 from entering the US without facing tariffs and other fees.

HOW TO LEAD YOUR TEAM WHEN THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE

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OPENAI RELEASES O1, ITS FIRST MODEL WITH ‘REASONING' ABILITIES

OpenAI has released o1 and o1-mini, the first in a series of reasoning models that have been trained to answer more complex questions faster than a human can. The model is better at writing code and solving multistep problems than previous models, but it is more expensive for developers and slower to use than GPT-4o. The release is still in preview to indicate how nascent it is. ChatGPT Plus and Team users should already have access to the model, while Enterprise and Edu users will get access early next week. OpenAI plans to bring o1-mini access to all free users, but it hasn't set a release date yet.

SPACEX ASTRONAUTS CONDUCT SPACEWALK, PUTTING NEW SPACESUITS TO TEST

The private-citizen astronauts traveling with SpaceX have completed the first-ever commercial spacewalk. The spacewalk kicked off shortly after 6 am ET on Thursday. The livestream showed tech industry billionaire Jared Isaacman leaving the SpaceX Crew Dragon and conducting a series of mobility tests before coming back after around an hour. The entire spacecraft was exposed to the vacuum of space during the spacewalk. The crew members were wearing SpaceX-designed and manufactured suits that were previously untested in orbit. A clip from the livestream is available in the article.

FACE TO FACE WITH FIGURE'S NEW HUMANOID ROBOT

Figure's humanoid robots were put to work at BMW's Spartanburg, South Carolina plant for a couple of weeks earlier this year - they will be returning for good in January. The automotive industry has been eager to adopt the humanoid robot form factor, which is in line with its deployment of robots on factory floors. Figure aims to hit a sub-$20,000 price point, but it will take some time. In the meanwhile, the company is testing its robot's efficacy in helping out with tasks around the home. This article features a video of Figure's second-generation robot up close.

GOOGLE DEEPMIND TEACHES A ROBOT TO AUTONOMOUSLY TIE ITS SHOES AND FIX FELLOW ROBOTS

Google DeepMind researchers recently released a paper showcasing a method for teaching robots to perform a range of dexterous tasks. It used a new learning platform called ALOHA Unleashed paired with a simulation program, DemoStart, to teach robots by watching humans. The research showcased how systems can learn to perform complex, dexterous tasks from a visual demonstration. Videos of robots trained with the method performing tasks are available in the article.

YOUR NEXT STORE

Your Next Store is a modern ecommerce site template in Node.js that uses Stripe as the backend. It gets all of the products, prices, descriptions, and categories from Stripe, making it easy for users who know Stripe already to use. Your Next Store supports simple product variants, Stripe Webhooks, Stripe Tax, and more. A demo site and video are available.

HOW GITHUB TAUGHT ME TO MICROMANAGE

Good feedback cultivates quality work and professional growth - bad feedback degrades quality and erodes relationships. Bad feedback makes critiques but doesn't offer a better direction. OK feedback provides direction. Good feedback educates to produce a better result. All of this depends on context - detailed feedback may be welcomed in circles where people are trying to improve others around them, but it can be toxic in environments where few people care about craft.

THE SUCCESS OF BLACK MYTH: WUKONG AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR MEDIA

Black Myth Wukong is one of the fastest-selling games of all time. The game cost $70 million to make and has grossed close to $1 billion so far. The rise of regionally rooted AAA video games has been slower than in film due to their comparatively high production cost, the rate of technological, creative, and change, and a smaller market. The growing capability and ease of use of game engines as well as the affordability and size of asset store libraries will result in a growing number of hits that target non-Western regions, countries, and cultures, some of which will go far beyond those markets.

THE BUTTON PROBLEM OF AI

Productivity software tends to buttonify AI into small, discrete tasks because most models are currently incapable of building and following complex plans as independent agents. Project builders are forced to bind models to tasks that are small and easily definable because they aren't able to handle knowledge-labor workflows in their totality. Simply replacing small portions of a workflow with a button isn't enough to meaningfully change the work itself. The buttonification of AI is a reminder that we are still in the 'training wheels' phase of the supposed AI revolution.

WHY NASA IS STICKING WITH BOEING

Dumping Boeing would mean that NASA will only be left with SpaceX.

WHY IS LANGUAGE DOCUMENTATION STILL SO TERRIBLE?

It would help a lot for language documentation to be designed to be read and navigated instead of the mess that most languages currently have.

SILICON VALLEY'S Y COMBINATOR TO DOUBLE NUMBER OF COHORTS PER YEAR

Y Combinator is expanding to four cohorts a year, meaning the accelerator will be in session for almost the entire year.

THE BRAIN AGED MORE SLOWLY IN MONKEYS GIVEN A CHEAP DIABETES DRUG

Monkeys who received metformin daily showed slower age-associated brain decline than those who didn't in a study that tracked the animals for more than three years.

SOMETHING NEW: ON OPENAI'S "STRAWBERRY" AND REASONING

A hands-on look at OpenAI's new o1-preview model, which can 'think through' problems before solving them, allowing it to address very hard problems that require planning and iteration.

MICROSOFT TO CUT 650 JOBS AT ITS XBOX GAMING UNIT

The job cuts are aimed at aligning Microsoft's post-acquisition team structure following its acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

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OPENAI FUNDRAISING SET TO VAULT STARTUP'S VALUATION TO $150 BILLION

OpenAI is in talks to raise $6.5 billion from investors at a valuation of $150 billion. It is also in talks to raise $5 billion in debt from banks in the form of a revolving credit facility. The discussions are still ongoing and the terms could change. The financing will support the need for computing power and other operating expenses. OpenAI is aiming to allow employees to sell some of their shares in a tender offer later this year.

GOOGLE WILL NOW LINK TO THE INTERNET ARCHIVE TO ADD MORE CONTEXT TO SEARCH RESULTS

Google Search results now directly link to The Internet Archive to add historical contexts for the links in results. It had removed its cached pages feature from Search earlier this year. The feature can be accessed by tapping on 'More about this page' through the three-dots menu that appears alongside all search results. It is still rolling out - a screenshot is available in the article.

ORACLE IS DESIGNING A DATA CENTER THAT WOULD BE POWERED BY THREE SMALL NUCLEAR REACTORS

Oracle is designing a data center that will require more than a gigawatt of power. It will be powered by three small modular nuclear reactors. Oracle has already received building permits for the reactors but hasn't publicly disclosed the location of the data center or future reactors. There are currently three operational small modular reactors in the world, with experts in the industry generally agreeing that the technology won't be commercialized in the US until the 2030s.

PROPOSED UNDERWATER DATA CENTER SURPRISES REGULATORS WHO HADN'T HEARD ABOUT IT

NetworkOcean launched out of Y Combinator on August 15 by announcing plans to dunk a small capsule filled with GPU servers into the San Francisco Bay. The founders say that moving data centers off land would slow ocean temperature rise by drawing less power and letting seawater cool the capsules' shells. Scientists say that the slightest heat or disturbance from the submersibles could trigger toxic algae blooms and harm wildlife. The startup has been pursuing its initial test without seeking any permits from key regulators. It intends to test its submersible for about an hour in an area it says is privately owned and not subject to regulatory oversight.

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THE MODERN CLI RENAISSANCE

The rate at which new CLI tools are being written has picked up over the past few years after seeing relatively little activity between 1995 and 2015. This article discusses the trend where people are rewriting and rethinking staples of the command line interface, why the trend may be happening, and why the trend is a good thing. New tools have the opportunity to learn from their predecessors and build upon them. While the new tools may not be perfect, they are a result of software becoming more polished and adapted to new use cases.