Links for 2022-04-10
This thread on what can happen when you implant electrodes deep in someone's brain shows how brain implants could turn us into deterministic puppets that can be crudely controlled by mechanisms outside of our control: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1391407529054261249.html [related science fiction short story: https://zerohplovecraft.wordpress.com/2020/09/06/key-performance-indicators/amp/]
Why human intelligence is just a glimmer of what is possible https://axisofordinary.substack.com/p/why-human-intelligence-is-just-a?s=w
Optimizing crop planting with mixed integer linear programming in Stardew Valley https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/rEZqP7K4MG6waC2zf/optimizing-crop-planting-with-mixed-integer-linear
Waymo's AI Recreates San Francisco From 2.8 Million Photos! 🚘 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AZhcnWOK7M
Fascinating paper on how coding languages evolve. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsif.2015.0249
Rather than change Excel, we just changed the names of genes to stop getting Excel errors. [published 10 August 2020] https://www.bionews.org.uk/page_151346
The electrical conductivity of saltwater doubles across a 0°C to 30°C temperature range. What's interesting is that the range of values is similar to that of common semiconductors like silicon or germanium. https://researchgate.net/publication/287147827_Temperature_Effects_on_Conductivity_of_Seawater_and_Physiologic_Saline_Mechanism_and_Significance
A mobile robotic chemist: "...the autonomous workflow is 1,000 times faster than manual methods, and at least ten times faster than semi-automated but non-autonomous robotic workflows." [published 08 July 2020] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2442-2
Neuroscientists Identify Fundamental Mechanism for Long Term Memory Storage https://scitechdaily.com/neuroscientists-identify-fundamental-mechanism-for-long-term-memory-storage/
29 Boxes containing 2,349 vials of SARS went missing from the Pasteur Institute BioLab in Paris, France in 2014. Scientists never found out how the vials went missing. [published April 16 2014] https://archive.ph/cmNFy
“The flavonoid corylin exhibits lifespan extension properties in mouse” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-28908-2
Birds of a Feather Don't Fact-check Each Other: On Twitters crowdsourced factcheck program @birdwatch, partisanship is king: users mostly flag counterpartisans' tweets as misleading and rate their notes as unhelpful https://psyarxiv.com/57e3q
“The government plans to reduce the UK's reliance on oil and gas by building as many as eight new nuclear reactors, including two at Sizewell in Suffolk. A new body will oversee the delivery of the new plants.” https://www.bbc.com/news/business-61010605
"We know how to win. But without sustainable and sufficient supplies requested by Ukraine, these wins will be accompanied by enormous sacrifices. The more weapons we get and the sooner they arrive in Ukraine, the more human lives will be saved." https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ukraine-russia-war-1.6411277
Even if our current machine learning techniques are not enough to create artificial general intelligence they are easily sufficient to turn the world into a dystopian nightmare.
As China shows, ubiquitous face detection is now possible, enabling authoritarian states to permanently track their citizens' every move. However, even in Western countries, these techniques will lead to a major loss of privacy because artificial neural nets are insanely good at spotting hidden patterns. For example, if an eye doctor looks at a retinal photo, the chance of getting gender correct would be 50-50. But deep learning training leads to an AUC of 0.97. Artificial neural nets can also trivially predict self-reported race — even from corrupted, cropped, and noised medical images — in a setting where clinical experts cannot.
With a brief glimpse of your face, these techniques will quickly extract rich multidimensional information about you, such as whether you are ill, your cognitive ability, and what genetic conditions you have. Gaze detection built into smartphones, VR, and AR headsets will allow companies to gauge your personality and interests like never before. Eye tracking-based lie detection already has an accuracy of 86-88%. Lip reading will allow them to know what you are talking about even if your microphones are turned off.
Furthermore, current machine learning techniques will dramatically change the power balances between nations. There will be those nations who are capable of autonomous warfare and the mass-production of drones and aimbots and those who can be subjugated within hours. Outcomes, as we have seen in Vietnam or Afghanistan, won't be possible anymore.
If a country like China is able to capitalize on the first-mover advantage we might even witness the implementation of a stable global tyranny. And if such a dictatorship cannot to established, a subsequent war, utilizing that power, could easily constitute yet another extinction scenario.
But narrow AI will also massively boost the power of small groups to create havoc. Recently, a machine learning technique trained to discover drugs was turned on its head and within six hours generated 40,000 toxic molecules, including the VX nerve agent.
Believing that our current techniques are not really intelligent is no reason not to worry about the future.
References:
1. https://axisofordinary.substack.com/p/its-written-all-over-your-face?s=w
2. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60153129
3. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41551-018-0195-0
4. https://laurenoakdenrayner.com/2021/08/02/ai-has-the-worst-superpower-medical-racism/