Reading

Various bits and bobs I’ve read.

Quantifying the algorithmic improvement from reasoning models

Link, date: 2025-08-04.

Estimates that reasoning innovations were equivalent to a 10x compute scale-up, at least on maths/physics questions.
This number comes from o1. Using Claude 3.6 + 3.7 gives numbers in the range of 1-100x depending on thinking budget and task.

Meta: Reading link template

I have the following bookmarklet in Chrome, which allows me to quickly copy the template above (h/t Claude!).

javascript:(function(){
  const title = document.title;
  const url = window.location.href;
  const date = new Date().toISOString().split('T')[0];
  const formatted = `## ${title}\n\n[Link](${url}), date: ${date}.`;
  
  const textarea = document.createElement('textarea');
  textarea.value = formatted;
  textarea.style.position = 'fixed';
  textarea.style.opacity = '0';
  document.body.appendChild(textarea);
  textarea.select();
  document.execCommand('copy');
  document.body.removeChild(textarea);
  
  /* Visual feedback */
  const notification = document.createElement('div');
  notification.textContent = 'Reading note copied!';
  notification.style.cssText = 'position:fixed;top:20px;right:20px;background:#4CAF50;color:white;padding:12px 20px;border-radius:4px;z-index:10000;font-family:sans-serif;';
  document.body.appendChild(notification);
  setTimeout(() => document.body.removeChild(notification), 2000);
})();