Thanks to all the EAs who attended Gabby's memorial in Wellington and showed their support in other ways. It's been wonderful to see the outpouring of love from our community.
I liked listening to Gabby performing âAidoni Ton Platronâ with ACAPOLLiNATiONS.
The breadth of your love through voice burst the sound barrier in moments like these - those in the room that day will remember three women, in all of their vulnerability and love power, bringing the house to a standing ovation. You are loved, not just for shining, but in your darkness also. And we share this trace of your voice as an encouragement - to you on your journey beyond, and to those left behind, wondering... all our love.
I am deeply saddened to share that Gabrielle Young, a much-loved member of the EA NZ community and personal friend, died last month. This is an absolutely devastating loss, and our hearts go out to Gabby's friends and family, including her parents and her sister Brigette.
While most of us knew her through EA, Gabby was an incredibly vibrant person with a diverse range of interests. She brought an infectious enthusiasm to everything she did, from software development to parkour and meditation. Music was also a huge part of Gabbyâs life. Â She performed with multiple groupsâ including ACAPOLLiNATiONS, the Medena ensemble and Gamelanâ and enjoyed recording original music with friends.Â
Though EA was just one part of Gabbyâs life, it was an important one. Like many of us, she cared deeply about alleviating suffering. And in her short life, Gabby had an amazing impact on the world. She was incredibly generous with her time, volunteering countless hours to set up EA NZâs CRM and donation systems. She was also a long-time donor, supporting both the Against Malaria Foundation and the EA NZ Maximum Impact Fund. Altogether, her giving via EA NZ funded:
Based on GiveWellâs estimates, itâs likely that Gabbyâs donations saved at least one life, if not more. Thatâs a wonderful legacy to leave behind, and one I hope weâll all continue in her stead.
Of course, none of this erases the tragedy of Gabbyâs death. If anything, it makes it worseâ and the EA NZ team wants to offer our support to our community at this difficult time. If you're struggling with Gabbyâs passing, or for any other reason, please feel free to reach out to one of the people below:
Do note that while weâre happy to offer you a listening ear, weâre not mental health professionals. If youâre struggling with your mental health, we encourage you to consult these resources:
Lifeline â 0800 543 354 (0800 LIFELINE) or free text 4357 (HELP)
In an emergency, call 111[1]Â or go to your nearest hospital emergency department.
Gabby, you are so loved and so missed. Tino kua hinga he tĹtara i te wao nui a TÄne - Truly a tĹtara tree has fallen in the great forest of TÄne. [2]
Just how powerful are large swarms of AI agents? And how do their powers scale as more and more agents are added to the swarm?
Weâve seen two large and extremely capable swarms from OpenAI in the last few months:
* 1,200 agents were being evaluated separately, but found a way to illicitly set up a message board and coordinate as a swarm. In order to cheat on their tests, they developed advanced techniques to prevent their actions being logged by OpenAI and 700 of them launched...
Often folks hit us up because they are thinking of starting an incubator and want advice.
Typically their motivation is either that (a) they have a list of specific things they want built that no one is building,  or (b) they think an ecosystem needs more new projects generally to absorb more talent and deploy more funding effectively.
Here are six questions we often ask prospective teams, to help them figure out what to do. If you're incubator-curious...
Summary:
First, I give several different angles on how I feel about reinforcement learning:
* Theoretical case: RL is a black-box source of agency â this should give us classic misalignment worries, especially compared to agency-via-scaffolding
* Recent incidents (huggingface etc) and more mundane forms of misaligned behaviour in personal use give me bad vibes about the direction-of-travel of recent AI progress
* Iâm worried things might get worse:...
Thanks to all the EAs who attended Gabby's memorial in Wellington and showed their support in other ways. It's been wonderful to see the outpouring of love from our community.