Links for 2022-04-04
A polished version of gwern’s AI-takeover short-story: “It might help to imagine a hard takeoff scenario using solely known sorts of NN & scaling effects… Below is a story which may help stretch your imagination and defamiliarize the 2022 state of machine learning.” https://www.gwern.net/Clippy
Decoding Movement and Speech from the Brain of a Tetraplegic Person https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/decoding-movement-and-speech-from-the-brain-of-a-tetraplegic-person
Nvidia shows off AI model that turns a few dozen snapshots into a 3D-rendered scene https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/25/22996130/nvidia-instant-nerf-demo-ai-render-3d-scenes-2d-photos
Why Do We Die Without Sleep? https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-do-we-die-without-sleep-20220322/
People perceived those higher in self-control as more robotic and not great fun to be with. https://psyarxiv.com/sp8aj/
Alcohol reduced the ability to think and increased overconfidence only when drunk in a bar, rather than in a laboratory. https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/148166/
“A new type of ultraviolet light took less than 5 minutes to reduce the level of indoor airborne microbes by 98%… far-UVC light could be a highly effective technology for reducing person-to-person transmission of airborne-mediated diseases such as COVID.” https://cuimc.columbia.edu/news/new-type-ultraviolet-light-makes-indoor-air-safe-outdoors
The Brain Pays Attention to Unfamiliar Voices During Sleep: “A good night’s sleep is not as simple as it appears. While you snooze, your brain continues to monitor the environment, balancing the need to protect sleep with the need to wake up.” https://neurosciencenews.com/voice-sleep-attention-199925/
Logical fallacies used to dismiss the evidence on intelligence testing. (2009) http://www1.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/2009fallacies.pdf
COVID-19’s Severe Impacts on the Brain – Even in Subjects That Did Not Experience Serious Respiratory Symptoms [nonhuman primate model] — “The team of researchers found severe brain inflammation and injury consistent with reduced blood flow or oxygen to the brain, including neuron damage and death. They also found small bleeds in the brain.” https://scitechdaily.com/covid-19s-severe-impacts-on-the-brain-even-in-people-that-did-not-experience-serious-respiratory-symptoms/
A nuclear expert offers some commentary on nuclear risks. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/W8dpCJGkwrwn7BfLk/nuclear-expert-comment-on-samotsvety-nuclear-risk-forecast-2
All You Need To Know About The Starstreak Missiles Now In The Hands Of Ukrainian Troops https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/44950/starstreek-missile-now-in-ukraine-what-you-need-to-know
“I have a question for the NATO security system…can you protect your skies?”...“How is it possible that an unsophisticated drone had flown unnoticed for nearly an hour in the airspace of NATO member states" [Wall Street Journal] https://archive.ph/V6FmB
Piercing the Fog of War: What Is Really Happening in Ukraine? https://nationalinterest.org/feature/piercing-fog-war-what-really-happening-ukraine-201440
Vladimir Putin’s 20-Year March to War in Ukraine—and How the West Mishandled It [Wall Street Journal] https://archive.ph/enLBh
This video allegedly shows the Ukrainian city of Bucha which was occupied by Russia for several weeks.
Sources:
1. Ukraine: Apparent War Crimes in Russia-Controlled Areas https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/04/03/ukraine-apparent-war-crimes-russia-controlled-areas
2. Bodies of mutilated children among horrors the Russians left behind https://archive.ph/XLVqS