Links for 2021-09-03
"...for vaccinated people under 40 with <=1 comorbidiy, the cognitive risks of long covid are lost in the noise of other risks they commonly take...What this means is not that covid is safe, but that you should think about covid in the context of your overall risk portfolio...reducing covid risk in particular might not be the best bang for your buck." https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/6uwLq8kofo4Tzxfe2/long-covid-is-not-necessarily-your-biggest-problem
Long COVID: Much More Than You Wanted To Know astralcodexten.substack.com/p/long-covid-much-more-than-you-wanted
“Inescapable” COVID-19 Antibody Discovery – Neutralizes All Known SARS-CoV-2 Strains https://scitechdaily.com/inescapable-covid-19-antibody-discovery-neutralizes-all-known-sars-cov-2-strains/
A new generation of AI-powered robots is taking over warehouses: Within a few years, any task that previously required hands to perform could be partially or fully automated away. https://web.archive.org/web/20210817092636/https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/08/06/1030802/ai-robots-take-over-warehouses/
Wearable tech for your ears: ‘Hearables’ can teach you a language or music with the help of AI https://theconversation.com/wearable-tech-for-your-ears-hearables-can-teach-you-a-language-or-music-with-the-help-of-ai-161571
“We conclude that physics (Nature) requires neither infinity nor the continuum. For instance, neither space-time nor the Hilbert space structure of quantum mechanics need be absolutely continuous. ” https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2021/08/finitism-and-physics.html
Wing says drone deliveries are taking off madly where they're allowed https://newatlas.com/drones/alphabet-wing-drone-delivery-service-logan/
Google’s New AI Photo Upscaling Tech is Jaw-Dropping https://petapixel.com/2021/08/30/googles-new-ai-photo-upscaling-tech-is-jaw-dropping/
Genome-wide association study in 1.5M people identifies the genetic basis of self-regulation. New genetic score predicts suicidality, criminality, and unemployment. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-021-00908-3
A growing number of governments hope to clone America’s DARPA: They will not succeed unless they adopt the spirit which motivates it -- "Using messenger rna to make vaccines was an unproven idea. But if it worked, the technique would revolutionise medicine, not least by providing protection against infectious diseases and biological weapons. So in 2013 America’s Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (darpa) gambled. It awarded a small, new firm called Moderna $25m to develop the idea. Eight years, and more than 175m doses later, Moderna’s covid-19 vaccine sits alongside weather satellites, gps, drones, stealth technology, voice interfaces, the personal computer and the internet on the list of innovations for which darpa can claim at least partial credit." / "But as some have discovered, and others soon will, copying DARPA requires more than just copying the name. It also needs commitment to the principles which made the original agency so successful—principles that are often uncomfortable for politicians." https://web.archive.org/web/20210619101935/https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2021/06/03/a-growing-number-of-governments-hope-to-clone-americas-darpa (See also: Why does DARPA work? https://benjaminreinhardt.com/wddw; "DARPA creates opportunity by removing technical risk" twitter.com/DARPA/status/1151594684453703681; Each dollar in publicly funded R&D leads to another $2.50-$5.90 in private-sector investment: Jump-starting the economy with science http://news.mit.edu/2019/public-investment-science-jump-starting-america-0417; "When it was over, what did mankind gain? A lot, it turns out...Apollo itself inspired hundreds of spin-offs in medicine, water quality, imaging, communications, entertainment, transportation, agriculture, household products, cameras, vacuum-sealed food." https://quillette.com/2019/07/18/abandon-in-place-the-price-of-the-first-steps-to-the-moon/)
Thoughts related to #10:
Evolution is not limitlessly creative because it cannot think ahead. All changes need to increase reproductive success: half a radio is of no use. In contrast, intelligent designers like us can jump such fitness gaps.
Similarly, the market demands each product to be commercially viable. If a product only makes a profit when used in combination with an infrastructure of other products, it won't be marketable as long as that infrastructure hasn't been build.
This raises the question if there are "profit gaps" free-market capitalism cannot jump because creating the necessary infrastructure would not be commercially viable?