Links for 2022-04-11
More news from the extinction by AI front:
Google DeepMind has fast AGI timelines, expects emergence from scaling, and has no real safety plans: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/SbAgRYo8tkHwhd9Qx/deepmind-the-podcast-excerpts-on-agi
A detailed bet countering the claim of short AGI timelines: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/X3p8mxE5dHYDZNxCm/counterbalancing-it-s-time-for-ea-leadership-to-pull-the
Convincing All Capability Researchers: “Give the world's thousand most respected AI researchers $1M each to spend 3 months working on AI alignment, with an extra $100M if by the end they can propose a solution alignment researchers can't shoot down.” https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/vaHgLF2BCEdK3KxQd/convincing-all-capability-researchers
More links:
Two-qubit silicon quantum processor with operation fidelity exceeding 99% https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abn5130
Thread on the second order effects of the rise of large language models: "Generative language models will slowly replace search. Why Google something when you can get the exact answer you need, embedded in the product you’re using?" https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1513128005828165634.html
A series of posts by Joe Carlsmith on expected utility: post 1, post 2, post 3, post 4
Would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record? https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.03748
Is Information The Fifth State Of Matter? Physicist Aims To Prove It Is https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/947031
An algorithm makes it possible to identify people by their heartbeat https://www.uc3m.es/ss/Satellite/UC3MInstitucional/en/Detalle/Comunicacion_C/1371331085966/1371215537949/An_algorithm_makes_it_possible_to_identify_people_by_their_heartbeat
Electric fields may represent information held in working memory, allowing the brain to overcome “representational drift,” or the inconsistent participation of individual neurons. https://news.mit.edu/2022/neurons-are-fickle-electric-fields-are-more-reliable-information-0401
Revolutionary DNA Nanotechnology Speeds Up Development of Vaccines by More Than One Million Times https://scitechdaily.com/revolutionary-dna-nanotechnology-speeds-up-development-of-vaccines-by-more-than-one-million-times/
WW2 Japanese internment camps had a positive effect on long-run incomes on the order of 9-22%. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic-history/article/abs/displacement-diversity-and-mobility-career-impacts-of-japanese-american-internment/F63443DE6FA168C2D6708D31D91258AC
1958 Lituya Bay earthquake and megatsunami: The impact was heard 50 miles (80 km) away, and the sudden displacement of water resulted in a megatsunami that washed out trees to a maximum elevation of 1,720 feet (524 meters) at the entrance of Gilbert Inlet. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Lituya_Bay_earthquake_and_megatsunami
The hidden world of octopus cities and culture shows why it’s wrong to farm them https://theconversation.com/the-hidden-world-of-octopus-cities-and-culture-shows-why-its-wrong-to-farm-them-180536
The Search for a Model Octopus That Won’t Die After Laying Its Eggs [New York Times] https://archive.ph/Fku5R
Nearly half of all older adults now die with a diagnosis of dementia listed on their medical record, up 36% from two decades ago. https://ihpi.umich.edu/news/half-older-adults-now-die-dementia-diagnosis-sharply
Neo-Nazi mercenaries known for their brutality in conflicts in Syria and Crimea have been deployed by Russia. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/04/08/russia-send-notorious-neo-nazi-mercenaries-ukraine/
What many people seem to be missing about artificial neural networks is that there can be sudden capability gains.
They are not just getting predictably better with more training, data, and parameters but sometimes capabilities emerge in a jumpy and unpredictable way. There can be sudden phase transitions.
This makes it even harder to predict when transformative AI might appear.
References:
- https://arxiv.org/abs/2202.07785
- https://ar5iv.labs.arxiv.org/html/2201.11903
- https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.02311
So why is China still clinging to a zero-COVID strategy?
1. Signalling that they can win a war with bioweapons.
2. Their own vaccines suck. Omicron would explode as it did in Hong Kong; crashing their healthcare system.
3. Like Putin, their old leadership fears being decimated.
4. They know about severe long-term health effects.
Now that you have learned that explaining jokes or creating images and art requires no qualia and no general intelligence, do you assign less weight to these abilities in judging people?