LLNL - The True Story -

  The war continues. So there is talk that the budget for LANL could increase with PIT production. https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/more-nuclear-weapons-less-for-renewables-heres-how-does-requested-budget-looks/article_f9d8370b-e9e7-4113-a54d-2c260436d139.html You would figure the Santa Fe Anti-Nuke crowd are worried and will join together to fight for less nukes. Nope the Los Almaos Study group knows the real enemy is the Nuclear Watch in New Mexico. The nuclear watch group head Jay Coghlan posted some comments and Los Almaos study group head was fast to attack him. At least these guys know their priorities. 6 June, 2025 Dear Jay -- You continually misquote the 2006 JASON study and ignore more recent JASON output, e.g. the 2019 letter. In addition there are public remarks such as those from former JASON Marvin Adams, who notably said in my presence and that of hundreds of others that anyone who thinks they know that pits will last 100 years doesn't know very much ...

  This is a good critique of the many-worlds theory: https://youtu.be/rw1ewLJUgOg?si=EZnqOJGqj71kl48R

  This is a good video about AI making humans obsolete: https://youtu.be/BtPwW7i3Dpc?si=-5bSEvhPQMUX3RuS

  1-3% staff reduction at SNL Just got the word that Sandia is required to reduce the workforce by 1-3% by fall. They are hoping to get a voluntary separation package approved by NNSA and get the numbers down that way. They also mentioned that SNL was in much better shape than "other labs". Any news at LANL?

  Now we know why LANL managers live AI so much https://tribune.com.pk/story/2551840/excessive-ai-use-may-lead-to-cognitive-decline-reveals-mit-study Excessive AI use may lead to cognitive decline, reveals MIT study Findings have vast practical implications such as decline in critical thinking, creativity, and independent reasoning Brain scans taken during the experiment showed that LLM users exhibited weaker connections between brain regions associated with critical thinking and memory. While their essays scored well in both human and AI evaluations — often praised for their coherence and alignment with the given prompt — the writing was also described as formulaic and less original. Notably, those who used LLMs struggled to quote from or recall their own writing in subsequent sessions. Their brain activity reportedly "reset" to a novice state regarding the essay topics, a finding that strongly contrasts with participants in the "brain-only" group, who retained str...

  Apple says generative AI cannot think like a human - research paper pours cold water on reasoning models https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/apple-says-generative-ai-cannot-think-like-a-human-research-paper-pours-cold-water-on-reasoning-models Apple researchers discovered that LRMs perform differently depending on problem complexity. On simple tasks, standard LLMs, without explicit reasoning mechanisms, were more accurate and efficient and delivered better results with fewer compute resources. However, as problem complexity increased to a moderate level, models equipped with structured reasoning, like Chain-of-Thought prompting, gained the advantage and outperformed their non-reasoning counterparts. When the complexity grew further, both types of models failed completely: their accuracy dropped to zero regardless of the available compute resources. (Keep in mind that the the Claude 3.7 Sonnet Thinking and DeepSeek-R1 LRMs have limitations when it co...

  https://gizmodo.com/chatgpt-tells-users-to-alert-the-media-that-it-is-trying-to-break-people-report-2000615600 Mentally vulnerable people are being harmed by malevolent chatbots.

 'No Kings' anti-Trump protests happening in the Bay Area on Saturday 6/14 Be situationally aware please. https://www.ktvu.com/news/no-kings-protests-bay-area-saturday.amp Blog moderator note: The link above contains a list of bay area protests. There are also protest in Modesto, Stockton, Merced. Just search for "no kings protests" for exact locations.

 Found this from a Distinguished Sandia/LANL retried scientists from his blog. A bit of depressing read. It has a hint of politics but he has a point. "I will start by saying Los Alamos carries some significant meaning for me personally. I lived and worked there for almost 18 years. It shaped me as a scientist, if not made me the one I am today. It has (had) a culture of scientific achievement and open inquiry that I fully embrace and treasure. I had not spent time like this on the main town site for years. It was a stunning melange of things unchanged and radical change. I ate at new places, and old places running into old friends with regularity. I was left with mixed feelings and deep emotions at the end. Most of all my view of whether leaving there was the right professional move for me. It was probably a good idea. The Lab I knew and loved is almost gone. It has disappeared into the maw of our dysfunctional nation’s destruction of science. It is a real example of where greatn...

A LLNL superintendent, that cheats on his blind wife with a nearby an eagerly available, “admin”, an apparently untouchable DEI hired supervisor, that on LLNL tax payer recruitment trips, seeks out college students for his own pleasure, and a low emotional IQ superintendent, that leads to a tech suicide that continues to advance? What a management dream team we have here. Not. Time for a major DOE/NNSA audit of LLNL sanctioned practices, or expect more of the same behavior to continue. What is the plan forward to disincentivize these tax payer supported unethical behaviors? There aren’t any. Your LLNL tax dollars at work.

  Fusion breakthrough: NIF achieves 8.6 megajoules, shattering previous record https://www.techspot.com/news/107971-fusion-breakthrough-nif-achieves-86-megajoules-shattering-previous.html

  Chinese student visa revocations will cripple the US in the AI race Meta I work in the one of the AI teams at the big G. Most of my colleagues have a PhD and are from China. Beyond them, even a lot of the resumes we receive for research internships are from Chinese candidates in US universities. I'm sure the current administration is not gonna stop at student visas and is gonna target O1, H1B and green card holders next. A majority of noteworthy papers in AI conferences over the last 3 years have come from Chinese lead authors. Most elite US PhD programs have a majority of Chinese students. If these people were to go back to China, it'd only bolster their already formidable AI industry and be a massive loss for the big US based AI companies. Chinese PhD graduates already face significant hurdles today getting a green card even after qualifying for the extra-ordinary category (EB-1A). This has already caused a significant number of researchers to go back to China with Deepseek...