Links for 2022-02-12
“We show that Higher Intelligence is associated with less Multitask Brain Network Reconfiguration.” https://academic.oup.com/cercor/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/cercor/bhab473/6523266
Whole-brain in vivo base editing reverses autistic-like behaviors in mice https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.01.25.477781v1
Demystifying Machine-Learning Systems: Automatically Describing Neural Network Components in Natural Language https://scitechdaily.com/demystifying-machine-learning-systems-automatically-describing-neural-network-components-in-natural-language/
Rapid DNA Sequencing Tech Breaks the Speed Record for Reading Whole Genomes https://singularityhub.com/2022/02/06/rapid-dna-sequencing-tech-breaks-the-speed-record-for-reading-whole-genomes/
A paper forthcoming in JEEA estimates that the social cost of Germany's nuclear power plant phase-out is 3-8 billion euros per year https://academic.oup.com/jeea/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jeea/jvac007/6520438
"PICO: Pragmatic Compression for Human-in-the-Loop Decision-Making" (learning how to modify data to manipulate human choices) https://bair.berkeley.edu/blog/2021/10/06/pico/
Emergence of Constructor-based Irreversibility in Quantum Systems: Theory and Experiment https://arxiv.org/abs/2009.14649
Explaining male predominance in chess: "The sex difference averages nearly 250 rating points...and has remained roughly constant over...four decades..." https://en.chessbase.com/post/explaining-male-predominance-in-chess
Hungarian scientists find "maybe one of the earliest" SARS2 variants from a contaminated sample in Shanghai, and they posit that it was likely generated from cell lines or animal models frequently used at WIV. https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1330800/v1
“Putting all these numbers together, the select agent data suggest that a laboratory-year of experimentation on virulent, transmissible influenza virus might have an 0.01% to 0.1% chance of killing 2 million to 1.4 billion, or an expected death toll of 2,000 to 1.4 million fatalities per BSL3-laboratory-year. From the NIAID data, for each full-time person-year of BSL-3 work, we might expect a toll of between 10,000 and over 10 million.” https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mbio.02366-14?permanently=true
How long before MuZero wins Hutter Prize? https://deepmind.com/blog/article/MuZeros-first-step-from-research-into-the-real-world
Suppose we found definitive evidence for an alien megastructure 100 light-years from Earth.
How would this influence you? For example, would this affect any projects or long-term plans you have? Would you become less worried about existential risks?
Missing square puzzle: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_square_puzzle
The "hypothenuse" starts out dented (the shape is actually not convex, i. e. there is a sliver of area missing), and then the shape becomes convex (well, with the exception of the missing square, ofc) because the dent turns into a bulge and that's where the area comes from.