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hardmaru @hardmaru.bsky.social · 13d

Proud to release ShinkaEvolve, our open-source framework that evolves programs for scientific discovery with very good sample-efficiency! 🐙🧠

Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2509.19349
Blog: sakana.ai/shinka-evolve/
GitHub Project: github.com/SakanaAI/Shi...

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hardmaru @hardmaru.bsky.social · 27d

Just received my copy of “What Is Intelligence?” by @blaiseaguera.bsky.social 🧠🪱

Thanks for sending it to Japan! 🗼

whatisintelligence.antikythera.org

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Zeynep Akata @zeynepakata.bsky.social · Aug 28

Due to physical resource constraints, we currently estimate that around 300–400 of the candidate papers recommended for acceptance by the ACs will need to be rejected. We seek the support of our 41 SACs in addressing this distributed optimization problem in a fair and professional manner.

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Zeynep Akata @zeynepakata.bsky.social · Aug 28

NeurIPS has decided to do what ICLR did: As a SAC I received the message 👇 This is wrong! If the review process cannot handle so many papers, the conference needs yo split instead of arbitrarily rejecting 400 papers.

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sakanaai.bsky.social @sakanaai.bsky.social · Aug 30

How Sakana AI’s new evolutionary algorithm builds powerful AI models without expensive retraining
venturebeat.com/ai/how-sakan...

How Sakana AI’s new evolutionary algorithm builds powerful AI models without expensive retraining

M2N2 is a model merging technique that creates powerful multi-skilled agents without the high cost and data needs of retraining.

venturebeat.com

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sakanaai.bsky.social @sakanaai.bsky.social · Aug 29

We are honored that Sakana AI’s CEO David Ha (@hardmaru.bsky.social) has been named to the TIME 100 AI 2025 list. Full List: time.com/time100ai

We’re truly grateful for the recognition and will continue our mission to build a frontier AI company in Japan.

Thank you for your support!

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hardmaru @hardmaru.bsky.social · Aug 26

Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned

Both the English and Japanese editions now found a home in the Sakana AI library ✨ @sakanaai.bsky.social

Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned book covers, for both Japanese and English editions, as well as a Sakana AI bookmark.

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hardmaru @hardmaru.bsky.social · Aug 25

Our new GECCO’25 paper builds on our past work, showing how AI models can be evolved like organisms. By letting models evolve their own merging boundaries, compete to specialize, and find ‘attractive’ partners to merge with, we can create adaptive and robust AI ecosystems.

arxiv.org/abs/2508.16204

sakanaai.bsky.social @sakanaai.bsky.social · Aug 25

What if we could evolve AI models like organisms, letting them compete, mate, and combine their strengths to produce ever-fitter offspring?

Excited to share our new paper, “Competition and Attraction Improve Model Fusion” presented at GECCO 2025 (runner-up for best paper)!

arxiv.org/abs/2508.16204

Competition and Attraction Improve Model Fusion

Model merging is a powerful technique for integrating the specialized knowledge of multiple machine learning models into a single model. However, existing methods require manually partitioning model parameters into fixed groups for merging, which restricts the exploration of potential combinations and limits performance. To overcome these limitations, we propose M2N2, an evolutionary algorithm with three key features: 1/ dynamic adjustment of merging boundaries to progressively explore a broader range of parameter combinations; 2/ a diversity preservation mechanism inspired by the competition for resources in nature, to maintain a population of diverse, high-performing models that are particularly well-suited for merging; and 3/ a heuristic-based attraction metric to identify the most promising pairs of models for fusion. Our experimental results demonstrate, for the first time, that model merging can be used to evolve models entirely from scratch. Specifically, we apply M2N2 to evolve MNIST classifiers from scratch and achieve performance comparable to CMA-ES, while being computationally more efficient. Furthermore, M2N2 scales to merge specialized language and image generation models, achieving state-of-the-art performance. Notably, it preserves crucial model capabilities beyond those explicitly optimized by the fitness function, highlighting its robustness and versatility.

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sakanaai.bsky.social @sakanaai.bsky.social · Aug 25

What if we could evolve AI models like organisms, letting them compete, mate, and combine their strengths to produce ever-fitter offspring?

Excited to share our new paper, “Competition and Attraction Improve Model Fusion” presented at GECCO 2025 (runner-up for best paper)!

arxiv.org/abs/2508.16204

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sakanaai.bsky.social @sakanaai.bsky.social · Aug 22

Sakana AI が募集しているSoftware Engineerの募集要項（Job Description）をアップデートしました。

sakana.ai/careers/#sof...

Sakana AIにおけるSoftware Engineerは、Applied Teamの一員としてビジネスのインパクトにつながるプロダクト開発を行っています。Frontend、Backend、Infrastructure構築の全体にわたって、AI技術を組み込んだアプリケーションの設計・開発に挑戦いただける方のご応募をお待ちしております！

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hardmaru @hardmaru.bsky.social · Aug 15

“Disoriented by the speed of modern times, Europeans and Americans suffered from record-high rates of anxiety and a sense that our inventions had destroyed our humanity. Meanwhile, some artists channeled this disorientation to create some of the greatest art of all time.”

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hardmaru @hardmaru.bsky.social · Aug 15

In “The Vertigo Years: Europe 1900-1914”, Blom describes how turn-of-the-century technology changed the way people thought about art and human nature and how it contributed to a nervous breakdown across the west.

Imagine going to sleep in 1875 in New York City and waking up thirty years later. As you shut your eyes, there is no electric lighting, Coca-Cola, basketball, or aspirin. There are no cars or “sneakers.” The tallest building in Manhattan is a church.

When you wake up in 1905, the city has been remade with towering steel-skeleton buildings called “skyscrapers.” The streets are filled with novelty: automobiles powered by new internal combustion engines, people riding bicycles in rubber-soled shoes—all recent innovations. The Sears catalog, the cardboard box, and aspirin are new arrivals. People have enjoyed their first sip of Coca-Cola and their first bite of what we now call an American hamburger. The Wright brothers have flown the first airplane. When you passed into slumber, nobody had taken a picture with a Kodak camera or used a machine that made motion pictures, or bought a device to play recorded music. By 1905, we have the first commercial versions of all three—the simple box camera, the cinematograph, and the phonograph.

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hardmaru @hardmaru.bsky.social · Aug 15

1910: The Year the Modern World Lost Its Mind

Good piece comparing the anxieties of the early 1900s, an era of great and rapid technological change, to the present time.
www.derekthompson.org/p/1910-the-y...

1910: The Year the Modern World Lost Its Mind

What one of my favorite history books about my favorite historical period—turn-of-the-century American—tells us about technology, anxiety, and human nature

www.derekthompson.org

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sakanaai.bsky.social @sakanaai.bsky.social · Aug 14

８/７に、Sakana AIは初となるApplied Research Engineer向けのOpen Houseを開催しました。現地で70名、オンラインで200名超の方にご参加いただいた本イベントのレポートを公開します。

sakana.ai/open-house-2...

イベントでは共同創業者2名も登壇し、研究開発とビジネスの両輪をどう回し、日本や世界の産業・コミュニティにどう貢献していくかを語りました。また、現場で活躍するAppliedチームのメンバーが、チームの特徴や働き方、AIエージェント開発の実態、Researchチームとの連携などについて紹介しました。

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sakanaai.bsky.social @sakanaai.bsky.social · Aug 9

Coverage of Darwin Gödel Machine and The AI Scientist in MIT Technology Review article. @technologyreview.com
www.technologyreview.com/2025/08/06/1...

Five ways that AI is learning to improve itself

From coding to hardware, LLMs are speeding up research progress in artificial intelligence. It could be the most important trend in AI today.

www.technologyreview.com

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sakanaai.bsky.social @sakanaai.bsky.social · Aug 4

【UI/UXデザイナー募集】

Sakana AIでは、当社AI技術の社会実装のフェーズに進むことに伴い、一人目のUI/UXデザイナーを募集します。

詳細： sakana.ai/careers/#uiu...

お任せしたいのはプロダクトのコンセプト設計から、プロトタイプの作成、ユーザーテストまでの全てのプロセス。AIによる価値実現に向け、目下成長するApplied Teamの一員として、Sakana AIのプロダクトづくりに挑んでくださる、意欲ある方のご応募をお待ちしています！

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hardmaru @hardmaru.bsky.social · Aug 1

Andrew Ng’s piece on 🇺🇸 vs 🇨🇳 competition in AI worth reading:

Full article: www.deeplearning.ai/the-batch/is...

“Because many US companies have taken a secretive approach to developing foundation models—a reasonable business strategy—the leading companies spend huge…to recruit key team members from each other who might know the ‘secret sauce’ that enabled a competitor to develop certain capabilities. So knowledge does circulate, but at high cost and slowly. In contrast, in China’s open AI ecosystem, many advanced foundation model companies undercut each other on pricing and poach each others’ employees and customers. This Darwinian life-or-death struggle will lead to the demise of many of the existing players, but the intense competition breeds strong companies.”

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sakanaai.bsky.social @sakanaai.bsky.social · Jul 30

Kenneth Stanley & Joel Lehmanによる名著『Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned』の日本語版がBNN社より刊行されました！

『目標という幻想：未知なる成果をもたらす、〈オープンエンド〉なアプローチ』

監修：岡瑞起、翻訳：牧尾晴喜、解説：岡瑞起・鈴木健
本書は、科学・技術・芸術・ビジネスなど、あらゆる領域でブレークスルーを起こすための「目標を定めない」オープンエンドなアプローチを提唱しています。

『WIRED JAPAN』日本版にて、『目標という幻想』日本語版解説が全文公開されました。
wired.jp/article/why-...

偉大なことは計画できない──『目標という幻想』日本語版解説

現在のAI開発にも影響を与えた注目書『目標という幻想──未知なる成果をもたらす、〈オープンエンド〉なアプローチ』から、岡瑞起と鈴木健による解説をお届けする。

wired.jp

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sakanaai.bsky.social @sakanaai.bsky.social · Jul 29

「Sakana AIは学術研究のイメージが強いけど、どうやってそれをビジネスにつなげるの？」最先端AIの社会実装に挑む「Applied Team」インタビュー！
sakana.ai/applied-team...

Sakana AIでは、世界トップレベルの生成AI技術を社会実装するために「Applied Team」を本格始動しています。 Applied Teamについて知っていただくことを目的として、AI研究の社会実装に挑む二人のメンバーのインタビュー記事を公開しました。

「事業専門性とR&Dの強みが社内に揃っているスタートアップの環境は、世界で見ても非常に珍しいのではないかと思います。」

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hardmaru @hardmaru.bsky.social · Jul 23

ICML’s Statement about subversive hidden LLM prompts

We live in a weird timeline…

icml.cc/Conferences/...

Statement about subversive hidden LLM prompts

Submitting a paper with a "hidden" prompt is scientific misconduct if that prompt is intended to obtain a favorable review from an LLM. The inclusion of such a prompt is an attempt to subvert the peer-review process. Although ICML 2025 reviewers are forbidden from using LLMs to produce their reviews of paper submissions, this fact does not excuse the attempted subversion. (For an analogous example, consider that an author who tries to bribe a reviewer for a favorable review is engaging in misconduct even though the reviewer is not supposed to accept bribes.) Note that this use of hidden prompts is distinct from those intended to detect if LLMs are being used by reviewers; the latter is an acceptable use of hidden prompts.

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hardmaru @hardmaru.bsky.social · Jul 20

MathArena: Evaluating LLMs on Uncontaminated Math Competitions

GitHub: github.com/eth-sri/math...
Project website: matharena.ai
Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2505.23281

GitHub - eth-sri/matharena: Evaluation of LLMs on latest math competitions

Evaluation of LLMs on latest math competitions. Contribute to eth-sri/matharena development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

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hardmaru @hardmaru.bsky.social · Jul 20

Not Even Bronze: Evaluating LLMs on 2025 International Math Olympiad 🥉

matharena.ai/imo/

Nice blog post from the team behind MathArena: Evaluating LLMs on Uncontaminated Math Competitions (arxiv.org/abs/2505.23281) providing independent analysis, debunking some claims about LLM performance on IMO.

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hardmaru @hardmaru.bsky.social · Jul 20

New Essay by Blaise Agüera (@blaiseaguera.bsky.social): “AI Is Evolving—And Changing Our Understanding Of Intelligence”. Advances in AI are making us reconsider what intelligence is and giving us clues to unlocking AI’s full potential.
www.noemamag.com/ai-is-evolvi...

AI Is Evolving — And Changing Our Understanding Of Intelligence | NOEMA

Advances in AI are making us reconsider what intelligence is and giving us clues to unlocking AI’s full potential.

www.noemamag.com

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sakanaai.bsky.social @sakanaai.bsky.social · Jul 18

【Sakana AIエンジニアの著書刊行🎉】

Sakana AIのApplied Research Engineer、太田真人が共著者を務める『現場で活用するための AIエージェント実践入門』（講談社）が刊行されました。進歩を続けるAIエージェント技術を実践に繋げるための知見が満載ですので、ぜひご覧ください！

Amazon: www.amazon.co.jp/dp/4065401402/

8/7開催のApplied Engineer Open Houseには太田も登壇します。ご参加お待ちしています！

Event: connpass.com/event/362760/

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sakanaai.bsky.social @sakanaai.bsky.social · Jul 17

8月7日18時からSakana AI初のApplied Engineer Open Houseを開催します！

Sakana AIのApplied Teamのメンバーが業務についてやSakana AIで働く魅力についてお話しします。会場参加（抽選）または、オンライン参加が可能です。

connpass.com/event/362760/

Connpassからの参加登録をお待ちしております！

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