Links for 2021-11-29
EfficientZero: How It Works. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/mRwJce3npmzbKfxws/efficientzero-how-it-works [EfficientZero is a new reinforcement learning agent that obtains superhuman performance on a set of 26 Atari games with only two hours (100k steps) of real-time game experience while consuming 500 times less data than previous models. The conclusion of the article outlines how we should expect this model to be quickly surpassed and built upon. As the article notes, super-intelligent artificial intelligence in six years isn't completely ruled out anymore given these advances but we'll probably hit diminishing returns. What if we had this much evidence in favor of an extinction-sized asteroid heading towards earth?]
This Robot Learned To Play Table Tennis! The total training time is about 1.5 hours. youtu.be/3wHbeq61Wn0
Reality shifting: psychological features of an emergent online daydreaming culture — “RS is commonly described by video creators and bloggers as the experience of being able to transcend their physical confines and visit alternate, mostly fictional, universes. They reportedly employ specific meditative techniques to facilitate their ostensible “quantum” journeys. After the pandemic plateaued and even after it started declining, the practice still seemed to have millions of followers, many of whom share their experiences and offer tips to improve the desired voyages…Here is how a member described her practice online: Shifting is a very strange experience. It’s like an extremely vivid dream, yet it’s more real than any dream I’ve ever had. Before I plan on shifting, I write myself a script in the notes app on my phone, in which I plan exactly what happens in the desired reality. This makes it easier to visualize exactly what I want to happen - so I might script that I want to go to Hogwarts and for Draco to be my boyfriend, or that he will flirt with me.” https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12144-021-02439-3
Have we been thinking about the pandemic wrong? The effect of population structure on transmission https://cspicenter.org/blog/waronscience/have-we-been-thinking-about-the-pandemic-wrong-the-effect-of-population-structure-on-transmission/
Volatile hexadecanal emitted by babies could make men more docile and women more aggressive https://mindblog.dericbownds.net/2021/11/volatile-hexadecanal-emitted-by-babies.html
Novel artificial genomic DNA can replicate and evolve outside the cell https://phys.org/news/2021-11-artificial-genomic-dna-replicate-evolve.html
Does depression exist? Nobody understands why therapy works https://unherd.com/2021/11/does-depression-exist/
"Gratitude Walking Through Walmart" by u/JhanicManifold (2021): "I can feel 60 million people who would have liked nothing more in life than to have the chance to experience what I would consider abject failure. What I fear happening to me in life, they would have hailed as a miracle from God." https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/lgslx8/gratitude_walking_through_walmart/