Links for 2021-10-08
The LessWrong Darwin Games are a fascinating series of tournaments in which bots compete by playing an iterated prisoner’s dilemma variation. The bots can read each other's source code. They can simulate each other and predict each other's behavior. The team that won in 2020 used randomization to disrupt opposing simulators and defected from a competitor by using a zero-day exploit in their code. Forget chess or Go. This is what an extremely high IQ game looks like. Here are the 2021 games https://www.lesswrong.com/s/jyqhEPACWZy8vYfGD
Researchers at Samsung and Harvard are proposing to copy the neuronal interconnections of parts of the brain, and “paste” them onto a semiconductor array, creating an integrated circuit that directly models the brain’s interconnections. https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-electronics-puts-forward-a-vision-to-copy-and-paste-the-brain-on-neuromorphic-chips
A First Look at Intel’s Next-Level Neuromorphic Engine https://www.nextplatform.com/2021/09/30/a-first-look-at-intels-next-level-neuromorphic-engine/
The WHO approved the first ever malaria vaccine, which could save tens of thousands of children in sub-Saharan Africa. The quest for this vaccine has been underway for a hundred years, a WHO official said, and is a "historic event." https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/06/health/malaria-vaccine-who.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur
Holograms you can touch? Aerohaptics uses jets of air to create the feeling of “touch” when interacting with a hologram. Another step towards the Star Trek Holodeck. https://thenextweb.com/news/holograms-you-can-touch-syndication
“Mathematician Norbert Wiener entered university at age 11 and earned a doctorate at 17, but he was 7 years old before he learned that Santa Claus does not exist.” https://www.futilitycloset.com/2021/10/01/youth-and-genius/
The Culture War is Coming for Your Genes https://quillette.com/2021/09/30/the-culture-war-is-coming-for-your-genes/
Smartphone motion sensors could be used to listen to your phone conversations https://csl.illinois.edu/news/42303
Single Cells Evolve Large Multicellular Forms in Just Two Years https://www.quantamagazine.org/single-cells-evolve-large-multicellular-forms-in-just-two-years-20210922/ [see also: Recent findings that made the Fermi paradox more puzzling (and scary) axisofordinary.substack.com/p/recent-findings-that-made-the-fermi]
100,000 years of gene flow between Neandertals and Denisovans in the Altai mountains https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.13.990523v1
Gibraltar cave chamber discovery could shed light on Neanderthals’ culture https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/28/gibraltar-cave-chamber-discovery-could-shed-light-on-neanderthals-culture