The Obtain: AI benchmarks, and Spain’s grid blackout

It’s not simple being one in all Silicon Valley’s favourite benchmarks. 

SWE-Bench (pronounced “swee bench”) launched in November 2024 as a solution to consider an AI mannequin’s coding talent. It has since shortly develop into some of the standard checks in AI. A SWE-Bench rating has develop into a mainstay of main mannequin releases from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google—and outdoors of basis fashions, the fine-tuners at AI companies are in fixed competitors to see who can rise above the pack.

Regardless of all of the fervor, this isn’t precisely a truthful evaluation of which mannequin is “higher.” Entrants have begun to sport the system—which is pushing many others to wonder if there’s a greater solution to truly measure AI achievement. Learn the total story.

—Russell Brandom

Did solar energy trigger Spain’s blackout?

At roughly noon on Monday, April 28, the lights went out in Spain. The grid blackout, which prolonged into components of Portugal and France, affected tens of tens of millions of individuals—flights had been grounded, cell networks went down, and companies closed for the day.

Over per week later, officers nonetheless aren’t fully certain what occurred, however some have urged that renewables could have performed a job, as a result of simply earlier than the outage occurred, wind and photo voltaic accounted for about 70% of electrical energy technology. Others, together with Spanish authorities officers, insist that it’s too early to assign blame.

It’ll take weeks to get the total report, however we do know a number of issues about what occurred. Listed here are a number of takeaways that might assist our future grid.