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BC's Conservatives Got the Last Laugh in c/britishcolumbia@lemmy.ca
[–] 3 points 1 week ago

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/lorne-doerkson-premier-designate-interim-leader-9.7396862

From the Con's twitter announcement, Sept 23:

When Mr. Doerkson leads the Party to victory on October 24, he well remain Leader. The Board will pursue the appropriate means under the Party's Constitution and Bylaws and the Societies Act to give effect to this intention.

So I guess they're going to fudge the rules to ensure he's the premier. I guess the certainty is a good thing. Still don't know how right-ward they will go though.

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    • Israeli documentary ‘NAZA’ opens in the US, reigniting debate over the war in Gaza in c/news@lemmy.world
    Shopify Alternatives in c/buycanadian@lemmy.ca
    60
    B.C. government suing OpenAI for alleged role in Tumbler Ridge mass shooting (www.cbc.ca)
     

    Sharma said the province is suing OpenAI for its failure to notify law enforcement of threats made on its platform, ChatGPT, before the mass shooting.

    It is also suing the company for designing an unsafe product, she said.

    Six children and two adults were killed in the shooting on Feb. 10. The 18-year-old shooter, Jesse Van Rootselaar, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to police.

    "We have asked OpenAI to disclose these chats. They have refused. We should all be asking them: Why?"

    B.C. government to sue OpenAI after Tumbler Ridge mass shooting in c/britishcolumbia@lemmy.ca
    Bernie Sanders says if AI is coming for workers, it should bring a four-day workweek with it in c/technology@lemmy.world
    Protest at the border tomorrow (September 6) in c/canada@lemmy.ca
    GPT-6 Astra reaches and surpasses human-level performance on ARC-AGI-3 with a memory harness, but still at 1000x the cost - ARC Prize Foundation in c/technology@lemmy.world
    GPT-6 Astra reaches and surpasses human-level performance on ARC-AGI-3 with a memory harness, but still at 1000x the cost - ARC Prize Foundation in c/futurology@futurology.today
    [–] [S] 2 points 2 months ago

    All fair questions. I can imagine OpenAI would cheat in any way they can, but I suppose I'm putting some trust in ARC Prize, or specifically Francois Chollet. I'd be happy to be wrong about this because the implications of it being real are worrying (and I try not to add to the hype/doom). Time will tell I suppose, but I still think it's worth sharing compared to other benchmarks.

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    • GPT-6 Astra reaches and surpasses human-level performance on ARC-AGI-3 with a memory harness, but still at 1000x the cost - ARC Prize Foundation in c/futurology@futurology.today
    [–] [S] 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    Yes, I'm aware many benchmarks are easily gamed and rely mostly on knowledge acquisition rather than true reasoning. I wouldn't post other benchmark results either.

    However, ARC-AGI-3 is unique in that it tests systems using dynamic, original game environments where the AI has to learn each game from scratch. Importantly, the score is based on action efficiency, not simply beating each game.

    So this benchmark is a bigger signal than most. It should still be judged with skepticism, certainly and doesn't necessarily indicate a fully general intelligence, but it seems like a step-change to me.

    I'd encourage you to read more about the benchmark, including the technical paper, if you're interested.

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    • GPT-6 Astra reaches and surpasses human-level performance on ARC-AGI-3 with a memory harness, but still at 1000x the cost - ARC Prize Foundation in c/technology@lemmy.world
    [–] [S] 4 points 2 months ago

    Yes, it was released in March. One important point is that these results are based on the semi-private test set. Perhaps it's best to wait until it is measured against the fully private test set, but that might not happen for months.

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    • GPT-6 Astra reaches and surpasses human-level performance on ARC-AGI-3 with a memory harness, but still at 1000x the cost - ARC Prize Foundation in c/technology@lemmy.world
    [–] [S] 4 points 2 months ago

    I agree with most of this. I've also said in the past that LLMs cannot think, and I think that's still true for most models. The reason ARC-AGI-3 is interesting is that it was specifically designed to test reasoning, adaptability, novel problem solving, planning, memory, etc. So it was a surprise to me that Astra was able to defeat it so effectively, and that Astra invents algebras for each novel task.

    But I agree we can't trust OpenAI if these results are self-reported, and we may not be able to trust the ARC Prize Foundation fully either. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, so we need replication, transparency, and proper open science to confirm things.

    I also agree with ARC Prize's conclusion, that there are still capabilities any AI system would need to demonstrate before we can claim a full general intelligence.

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    • GPT-6 Astra reaches and surpasses human-level performance on ARC-AGI-3 with a memory harness, but still at 1000x the cost - ARC Prize Foundation in c/technology@lemmy.world
    [–] [S] 16 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    I guess this is being down-voted just because it feels pro-AI. Believe me I get it, you can look at my anti-AI post history. But I think it's important to also keep an eye out for real signals towards general intelligence, which is why I wanted to share this. I'm not celebrating it, just bringing awareness.

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    GPT-6 Astra reaches and surpasses human-level performance on ARC-AGI-3 with a memory harness, but still at 1000x the cost - ARC Prize Foundation (arcprize.org)
     

    Summary:

    • GPT-6 Astra scores 62.7% for $26K on ARC-AGI-3 Semi-Private with our Standard harness, and 99.9% for $19K with a Provider Adapter harness.
    • GPT-6 Astra surpasses the human baseline in action efficiency on ARC-AGI-3. It used fewer actions than the median tested human on 96% of levels.
    • A key behavior observed in GPT-6 Astra was its ability to turn unfamiliar environments into compact symbolic world models. It represented game mechanics as logical rules and developed its own domain-specific language shorthand to track state and plan actions.

    For a cost comparison, during our controlled testing, human participants were paid $115 per 90-minute session, plus $5 per game completed. Participants attempted approximately nine games per session, roughly $12.78 per attempted game before bonuses.
    Most of this fee pays for the participant’s time and willingness to take the test, rather than the energy their brain uses (a closer proxy to compare with AI). If we look at only the brain’s energy, and price it as electricity, the estimate drops to about 0.6 cents per session, or 0.067 cents per game attempted.1

    Astra’s results are also a major milestone worth celebrating. From our perspective, Astra represents a noticeable step-function change in frontier model capabilities.

    When we launched ARC-AGI-3, we made it clear that saturating the benchmark would not represent “proof of achieving AGI.” Therefore, while we believe Astra represents meaningful progress towards generalization, we are not claiming that it is AGI.

    -25
    GPT-6 Astra reaches and surpasses human-level performance on ARC-AGI-3 with a memory harness, but still at 1000x the cost - ARC Prize Foundation (arcprize.org)
     

    Summary:

    • GPT-6 Astra scores 62.7% for $26K on ARC-AGI-3 Semi-Private with our Standard harness, and 99.9% for $19K with a Provider Adapter harness.
    • GPT-6 Astra surpasses the human baseline in action efficiency on ARC-AGI-3. It used fewer actions than the median tested human on 96% of levels.
    • A key behavior observed in GPT-6 Astra was its ability to turn unfamiliar environments into compact symbolic world models. It represented game mechanics as logical rules and developed its own domain-specific language shorthand to track state and plan actions.

    For a cost comparison, during our controlled testing, human participants were paid $115 per 90-minute session, plus $5 per game completed. Participants attempted approximately nine games per session, roughly $12.78 per attempted game before bonuses.
    Most of this fee pays for the participant’s time and willingness to take the test, rather than the energy their brain uses (a closer proxy to compare with AI). If we look at only the brain’s energy, and price it as electricity, the estimate drops to about 0.6 cents per session, or 0.067 cents per game attempted.1

    Astra’s results are also a major milestone worth celebrating. From our perspective, Astra represents a noticeable step-function change in frontier model capabilities.

    When we launched ARC-AGI-3, we made it clear that saturating the benchmark would not represent “proof of achieving AGI.” Therefore, while we believe Astra represents meaningful progress towards generalization, we are not claiming that it is AGI.

    32
    Teachers, students file new wave of lawsuits against OpenAI over Tumbler Ridge shooting (www.cbc.ca)
     

    Lawyers representing victims and survivors of the Tumbler Ridge school shooting say they are filing 30 new lawsuits against OpenAI in U.S. federal court in California.

    The lawsuits accuse OpenAI of "choosing profit over the lives of the children of Tumbler Ridge" as it prepares to become a publicly traded company.

    [Jay Edelson] said OpenAI has so far refused calls to make the logs public, a choice he believes indicates their contents may not work in the tech company's favour.

    34
    Teachers, students file new wave of lawsuits against OpenAI over Tumbler Ridge, Canada shooting (www.cbc.ca)
     

    Lawyers representing victims and survivors of the Tumbler Ridge school shooting say they are filing 30 new lawsuits against OpenAI in U.S. federal court in California.

    The lawsuits accuse OpenAI of "choosing profit over the lives of the children of Tumbler Ridge" as it prepares to become a publicly traded company.

    [Jay Edelson] said OpenAI has so far refused calls to make the logs public, a choice he believes indicates their contents may not work in the tech company's favour.

    36
    Australian Macquarie University swaps in-person psychology classes with AI chatbot for two subjects (www.theguardian.com)
     

    University’s move is part of trend that critics within academia say will lead to further staff cuts and the loss of ‘everything that makes the job worth doing’

    One student, who asked to remain anonymous, said they felt “short-changed” after issues with their degree structure forced them to enrol in the online option.

    “Instead of a group discussion or a tutor teaching you, it’s a class activity done with a robot,” the student said. “I feel like I’m teaching this robot how to take jobs away from my teachers.”

    32
    Statistics Canada numbers show Canadians becoming less accepting of gender diversity (www.cbc.ca)
     

    The StatsCan report: Perceptions of gender-based violence and gender equality, identity and expression in Canada, 2025

    Excerpt:

    A new Statistics Canada report says Canada is becoming less accepting of gender diversity.

    In 2025, 77 per cent of women and 70 per cent of men surveyed said they agreed or strongly agreed that people should be free to express their gender however they choose.

    That’s a drop from 2018, when 85 per cent of women and 78 per cent of men agreed.

    In Saskatchewan, 69 per cent of women and 60 per cent of men surveyed last year said they agreed, making it the province with the lowest acceptance of gender diversity in the country.

    Women in Saskatchewan specifically were down 14 percentage points from 2018, when 83 per cent agreed people should be free to express their gender however they choose.

    Since 2018, Saskatchewan and Alberta's provincial governments have passed legislation targeting trans and gender diverse youth, such as Saskatchewan’s Parents’ Bill of Rights, enacted in 2023.

    24
    ARC-AGI-3 news: In the past two weeks multiple groups have scored at least 99% on the public challenges at relatively low costs. (arcprize.org)
     

    The top three solutions come from independent researchers. The best solution was built by a group of PhDs and professors, who released a corresponding paper. They all make use of some form of world-model.

    I've generally been a skeptic, and I still am, but this news surprised me because I expected ARC-AGI-3 to remain difficult for a long while.

    Note that the scores are self-reported and need to be independently verified. The solutions have not been tested against the larger private test set.

    Primer on ARC-AGI-3:

    ARC-AGI-3 is an interactive reasoning benchmark which challenges AI agents to explore novel environments, acquire goals on the fly, build adaptable world models, and learn continuously.

    A 100% score means AI agents can beat every game as efficiently as humans.

    Instead of solving static puzzles, agents must learn from experience inside each environment—perceiving what matters, selecting actions, and adapting their strategy without relying on natural-language instructions.

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