I recommend checking out my review! I discuss some takeaways and there are interesting visuals from the paper and related papers.
However in quick take form, the TL;DR is:
Summary
Meta’s Brain & AI Research team won first place at Algonauts 2025 with TRIBE, a deep neural network trained to predict brain responses to stimuli across multiple modalities (text, audio, video), cortical areas (superior temporal lobe, ventral, and dorsal visual cortices), and individuals (four people).
The model is the first brain encoding pipeline which is simultaneously non-linear, multi-subject, and multi-modal.
The team show that these features improve model performance (exemplified by their win!) and provide extra insights, including improved neuroanatomical understandings.
Specifically, the model predicts blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signals (a proxy for neural activity) in the brains of human participants exposed to video content: Friends, The Bourne Supremacy, Hidden Figures, The Wolf of Wall Street and Life (a BBC Nature documentary).
From The Rundown today: “Meta’s FAIR team just introduced TRIBE, a 1B parameter neural network that predicts how human brains respond to movies by analyzing video, audio, and text — achieving first place in the Algonauts 2025 brain modeling competition.”
TL;DR: We know that humans and some animals have two tiers of cognition — an integrative metacognition layer, and a lower non-metarepresentational cognition layer. With artificial superintelligence, we should define a third layer and model it as a three-tier hybrid mind. I define the concepts precisely and talk about their implications for alignment.
I also talk about chimp-human composites which is fun.
Really interested in feedback and discussion with the community!
I’ve been reading a new translation of the Zhuangzi and found its framing of “knowledge” interesting, counter to my expectations (especially as a Rationalist), and actionable in how it is related to Virtue (agency).
In the Zhuangzi knowledge is presented pejoratively in contrast to Virtue. Confucius presents simplified, modest action as a more aligned way of being. I highlight why this is interesting and discuss how we might apply it.
As promised yesterday — I reviewed and wrote up my thoughts on the research paper that Meta released yesterday:
Full review: Paper Review: TRImodal Brain Encoder for whole-brain fMRI response prediction (TRIBE)
I recommend checking out my review! I discuss some takeaways and there are interesting visuals from the paper and related papers.
However in quick take form, the TL;DR is:
Summary
Meta’s Brain & AI Research team won first place at Algonauts 2025 with TRIBE, a deep neural network trained to predict brain responses to stimuli across multiple modalities (text, audio, video), cortical areas (superior temporal lobe, ventral, and dorsal visual cortices), and individuals (four people).
The model is the first brain encoding pipeline which is simultaneously non-linear, multi-subject, and multi-modal.
The team show that these features improve model performance (exemplified by their win!) and provide extra insights, including improved neuroanatomical understandings.
Specifically, the model predicts blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signals (a proxy for neural activity) in the brains of human participants exposed to video content: Friends, The Bourne Supremacy, Hidden Figures, The Wolf of Wall Street and Life (a BBC Nature documentary).
From The Rundown today: “Meta’s FAIR team just introduced TRIBE, a 1B parameter neural network that predicts how human brains respond to movies by analyzing video, audio, and text — achieving first place in the Algonauts 2025 brain modeling competition.”
This ties extremely well to my post published a few days ago: Third-order cognition as a model of superintelligence (ironically: Meta® metacognition).
I’ll read the Meta AI paper and write up a (shorter) post on key takeaways.
Just published “Meta® Meta Cognition: Intelligence Progression as a Three-Tier Hybrid Mind”
TL;DR: We know that humans and some animals have two tiers of cognition — an integrative metacognition layer, and a lower non-metarepresentational cognition layer. With artificial superintelligence, we should define a third layer and model it as a three-tier hybrid mind. I define the concepts precisely and talk about their implications for alignment.
I also talk about chimp-human composites which is fun.
Really interested in feedback and discussion with the community!
I’ve been reading a new translation of the Zhuangzi and found its framing of “knowledge” interesting, counter to my expectations (especially as a Rationalist), and actionable in how it is related to Virtue (agency).
I wrote up a short post about it: Small Steps vs. Big Steps
In the Zhuangzi knowledge is presented pejoratively in contrast to Virtue. Confucius presents simplified, modest action as a more aligned way of being. I highlight why this is interesting and discuss how we might apply it.