Links for 20210819
This is important: a new paper (https://arxiv.org/abs/2108.07732) provides further evidence in support of the scaling hypothesis (https://www.gwern.net/Scaling-hypothesis) and other insights:
The authors use “big language models to synthesize computer programs, execute programs, solve math problems, and dialog with humans to iteratively refine code. The models can solve 60% and 81% of the programming and math problems, respectively. Number of problems solved scales pretty cleanly with model-size. Larger models not only solve problems that smaller models can't solve, they also more reliably solve easier problems that smaller models solve less frequently....[the authors] evaluate whether these models can interact with a human to iteratively refine their outputs. [the authors] find that 4 turns of dialog with a human can double the number of problems solved by the model....[the authors] try (and largely fail) to get language models to ‘execute’ programs. This casts some doubt on the extent to which the models ‘understand’ the code they’re emitting....[the authors] convert a dataset (MathQA) of math word problems into synthesis problems and show that this allows language models to solve a large majority of the problems.”
Further links are below:
A grim warning from Israel: Vaccination blunts, but does not defeat Delta https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/08/grim-warning-israel-vaccination-blunts-does-not-defeat-delta
Laser Fusion Experiment Unleashes an Energetic Burst of Optimism https://web.archive.org/web/20210817201327/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/17/science/lasers-fusion-power-watts-earth.html
What is a Black Hole Laser? http://adamilab.blogspot.com/2021/08/what-is-black-hole-laser.html
Physicists Create a Bizarre ‘Wigner Crystal’ Made Purely of Electrons https://www.quantamagazine.org/physicists-create-a-bizarre-wigner-crystal-made-purely-of-electrons-20210812/
How to detect “stealth” solar storms before they destroy our society https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/stealth-solar-storms
Even Small Volcanic Eruptions Could Create Global Chaos https://www.wired.com/story/even-smaller-volcanic-eruptions-could-create-global-chaos/
Talking to Your Computer with OpenAI Codex
Creating a Space Game with OpenAI Codex
"There are entire topics that scholars are effectively avoiding out of fear. That is the opposite of what a university is supposed to be." https://www.chronicle.com/article/higher-ed-has-a-credibility-problem
The Crime of '71: When Nixon Ended the Dollar's Last Connection to Gold https://mises.org/wire/crime-71-when-nixon-ended-dollars-last-connection-gold