Inside SpaceX's all hands 🚀, hidden GPT-4 changes 🤖, AGI timelines 🕒

📱

Big Tech & Startups

Apple Vision Pro customers face a 25-minute in-store sales pitch (3 minute read)

The Apple Vision Pro will be available from February 2 starting from $3,499. Customers waiting to buy an Apple Vision Pro may have to sit through a lengthy sales pitch that includes a 25-minute in-store demonstration on how to use the headset. More than a dozen demo units will be available at any one time at some of Apple's largest stores to accommodate the appointments. Customers will be able to purchase the Apple Vision Pro online without visiting a store to try the headset out.

How Threads will integrate with the Fediverse (38 minute read)

The Fediverse consists of small social networks that can be hosted by an individual or company whose users can communicate and interact with users on other similar networks. This article details how Meta plans to integrate Threads with the Fediverse. Meta engaging positively with its user base is difficult due to its size. Integrating with the Fediverse will let Meta step back and focus instead on engaging with organizations that represent the interests of the Fediverse.

🚀

Science & Futuristic Technology

Some highlights on the Starship side of the All Hands (2 minute read)

Starship's second flight almost made it to orbit - if it had a payload, that payload would have made it to orbit. SpaceX thinks it has a good shot at reaching orbit with the third flight. It will then focus on achieving full and rapid reusability. There are two towers at Starbase so one can be upgraded while the other is used for launches.

New Anthropic Paper: Sleeper Agents (3 minute read)

Anthropic recently trained large language models to act secretly malicious. It found that despite best efforts at alignment training, deception still slipped through. The alignment training only made models look safe. Anthropic's research shows how standard safety training might not actually ensure safety and might end up giving people a false sense of security.

💻

Programming, Design & Data Science

Azure Security Best Practices (Sponsor)

Security is a key priority for any CISO of any organization with an extensive footprint in Azure.

This cheat sheet provides actionable recommendations that can help you strengthen your Azure cloud security posture.

We’ll explore detailed aspects of Azure best practices, from role-based access control (RBAC) to cloud security posture management, that you can adapt to secure your Azure subscriptions.

Get the FREE Azure Cheat Sheet

Hidden Changes in GPT-4, Uncovered (14 minute read)

Recent changes made to ChatGPT's GPT-4 interface significantly altered the model's web browsing tools. The changes prevent the model from directly citing quotes from webpages and limits viewing of full content. This article analyzes the underlying mechanism of GPT-4 web browsing, the hidden changes, and their implications. OpenAI is increasingly under scrutiny regarding copyright laws and the reproduction of content on the internet. These changes seem to be aimed at eliminating the issue.

remoteStorage (GitHub Repo)

remoteStorage combines the localStorage API with a remote server to persist data across browsers and devices. It allows apps to easily read and write data on the fly while maintaining state across browsers and devices. remoteStorage features a simple API and it works with all JavaScript frameworks.

🎁

Miscellaneous

Instagram’s co-founders are shutting down their Artifact news app (1 minute read)

Artifact, a news app created by Instagram's co-founders, is shutting down a year after launch. The app used an AI-driven approach to suggest news users might like to read. The company decided that the market opportunity for the app wasn't big enough to warrant continued investment. Artifact will still let users read news until the end of February, but users can no longer add new comments or posts.

My AI Timelines Have Sped Up (Again) (30 minute read)

This article is an update to a post in 2020 that made predictions on when artificial general intelligence (AGI) will be achieved. It defines AGI as an AI system that matches or exceeds humans at almost all economically valuable work. The previous post predicted a 10% chance by 2035, but this has now changed to a 10% chance by 2028 and a 25% chance by 2035. The author believes there is a 90% chance that humans will develop AGI by 2070.

⚡

Quick Links

marimo (GitHub Repo)

marimo is a reactive notebook for Python that allows users to rapidly experiment with data and models, code with confidence, and productionize notebooks as pipelines or interactive web apps.

Compression Attached Memory Modules may make upgradable laptops a thing again (6 minute read)

Compression Attached Memory Modules are replaceable and support high-speed low-power LPDDR memory and both single- and dual-channel speeds.

Triplit (GitHub Repo)

Triplit is a database that syncs data between servers and browsers in real time.

Why autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare (13 minute read)

There are many truck- and freeway-specific challenges that require advances in sensing and machine learning and a lot of hard work to overcome.

What's happening with StackOverflow? (X Thread)

The total questions on Stack Overflow by year dropped in 2020 and has been declining since.

The Global Project to Make a General Robotic Brain (8 minute read)

The generative AI formula doesn't easily carry over to robotics because the Internet isn't full of robotic-interaction data - the RT-X project aims to assemble data, resources, and code to make general-purpose robots a reality.

Want the best of TLDR? 🏆

Refer a friend to TLDR using the referral link below, and we will send you the TLDR Hall of Fame, our 50 best stories of all time!

Your Referral Link - https://tldr.tech/tech?ref=1239101

Want more TLDR?

We also write newsletters for founders, AI, information security, design, marketing, crypto, and web dev!

We help cutting edge companies hire world class technical talent through our job listings. If you're hiring software engineers, AI/ML engineers, product managers, designers or other tech talent, click here to learn more.

If your company is interested in reaching an audience of tech executives, decision-makers and engineers, you may want to advertise with us.

If you have any comments or feedback, just respond to this email!

Thanks for reading,
Dan Ni and Stephen Flanders

If you don't want to receive future editions of TLDR, please click here to unsubscribe.

Inside SpaceX's all hands 🚀, hidden GPT-4 changes 🤖, AGI timelines 🕒

TLDR 2024-01-15

Big Tech & Startups

Science & Futuristic Technology

Programming, Design & Data Science

Miscellaneous

Quick Links

Older messages

Google layoffs 💼, China's SpaceX competitor 🚀, hacking on GitHub Actions 👨‍💻

Rabbit's AI gadget 🤖, Amazon's AirPlay alternative 🌐, NVIDIA's next-gen display tech 🖥️

OpenAI's GPT Store 🤖, weirdest CES gadgets 📱, programming DNA 👨‍💻

Apple Vision Pro launch 🌎, ultra-HD transparent TVs 📺, attacks on ML models 👨‍💻

AI-enhanced Siri 📱, CES 2024 🤖, weird things devs believe 👨‍💻

You Might Also Like

March 6th 2025

The Hidden Cost of Over-Engineering (and How to Stop Yourself)

JSK Weekly - 6th March, 2025

wpmail.me issue#708

This E-ZPass scam is everywhere ⚠️

⚙️ The era of agentic warfare

Post from Syncfusion Blogs on 03/06/2025

The Sequence Opinion #504: Does AI Need New Programming Languages?

U.S. Charges 12 Chinese Nationals in State-Backed Hacking Operations

Is it time for you to get a VPN?