Links for 2022-04-27
“Everything I Need To Know About Takeoff Speeds I Learned From Air Conditioner Ratings On Amazon” https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/MMAK6eeMCH3JGuqeZ/everything-i-need-to-know-about-takeoff-speeds-i-learned
“Adept is a new AI research and product lab that aims to build useful general intelligence…True general intelligence requires models that can not only read and write, but act in a way that is helpful to users. That’s why we’re starting Adept: we’re training neural networks to use every software tool and API in the world.” https://www.adept.ai/post/introducing-adept (“…the worst AI safety news in weeks.” — gwern)
Code Generation as an AI risk setting https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/EuCoELuBp79gP5GoR/code-generation-as-an-ai-risk-setting
NVIDIA’s Next GPUs Will Be Designed Partially by AI https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/nvidia-lovelace-gpus-are-designed-partially-by-ai/
Video Blog Of A Russian Soldier In Ukraine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIr-eVbTOLA
"burglaries increased in zip codes with fewer gun permits, and decreased in those with more gun permits, after the [who has guns] database was publicized." https://www.nber.org/papers/w29940
The Brain’s Alarm System To Suppress Intrusive Thoughts and Inhibit Unwanted Memories https://scitechdaily.com/the-brains-alarm-system-to-suppress-intrusive-thoughts-and-inhibit-unwanted-memories/
Optogenetic activation of the inhibitory nigro-collicular circuit evokes contralateral orienting movements in mice https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(22)00457-0
Analysis of 1.8 million online daters shows resource-acquisition ability boosts romantic interest…”However, even highly competent men received less attention than women with low levels of competency, reflecting an attraction inequality between the sexes.” https://www.psypost.org/2022/04/analysis-of-1-8-million-online-daters-shows-resource-acquisition-ability-boosts-romantic-interest-62952
“NASA Alloy GRX-810 can withstand temperatures over 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit (538 degrees Centigrade) and survive more than 1,000 times longer than existing alloys.” https://www.nasa.gov/feature/glenn/2022/nasa-s-new-material-built-to-withstand-extreme-conditions
We've only seen 40% of Triton's surface and it already has us asking big questions, like how the surface is is under 10 million years old or how it has such an active ionosphere with such a small magnetic field. https://jpl.nasa.gov/images/pia23874-trident-exploring-the-mysteries-of-triton
Europa may have much more shallow liquid water than scientists thought https://www.sciencenews.org/article/europa-water-shallow-liquid-double-ridges-moon
The Future of the Web Is Marketing Copy Generated by Algorithms https://www.wired.com/story/ai-generated-marketing-content/ (archived version: https://archive.ph/FIyMU)
A Self-Authenticating Social Protocol https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/3-6-2022-a-self-authenticating-social-protocol
U.S. intel helped Ukraine protect air defenses, shoot down Russian plane carrying hundreds of troops https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/us-intel-helped-ukraine-protect-air-defenses-shoot-russian-plane-carry-rcna26015
“Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech.”
― Noam Chomsky
The concepts of “misinformation” and “hate speech” are much more dangerous than what they seek to describe. Their main purpose is to protect those in power by preventing people from challenging the status quo. But challenging the consensus and societal norms is a hedge against the pathologies of authoritarianism and collectivism.
Take, for example, Darwin’s dangerous idea. From the perspective of Darwin's contemporaries, his theory was more dangerous than anything for which you can get banned from social media today. It was threatening to undermine the very foundation of moral conduct: religion. Blasphemy is the oldest form of “hate speech”. Had the Church still been in power, Charles Darwin would have certainly been censored.
Or consider China. They recently forced Apple to take down one of the world's most popular Quran apps. Without freedom of religion, and given an unbiased interpretation, most holy texts would certainly be branded as hate speech.
If the goal is to protect society from ideas that could have negative consequences, how are we going to decide which ideas should be banned and what threshold we use?
It’s easy to see why a top-down approach cannot work. Different groups, due to having different values and goals, have fundamentally different opinions on what should be considered a negative consequence. For instance, a lot of people who seek to limit free speech are at least somewhat inclined toward socialism and communism, ideas that have led to 100 million deaths and vast amounts of poverty and suffering. Yet few of those people would want to ban those ideas. Indeed, most of them would probably call such a ban fascist.
Yes, there certainly are dangerous ideas and despicable hate does exist. But the solution cannot be to ask unelected and unaccountable people in positions of power to be the arbiters of truth. Because who is going to censor them when they start to deviate from the truth and start to endorse ideas such as Lysenkoism and the Four Pests campaign?
The only solution can be a free marketplace of ideas. An equal playing field for people to convince each other.
P.S. Pre-Hitler Germany had some of the strictest hate speech laws comparable to the contemporary Candian anti-hate law. “During the 15 years before Hitler came to power, there were more than 200 prosecutions based on anti-Semitic speech…Inevitably, the Nazi party exploited the restrictions on “free speech” in order to boost its appeal.”
P.P.S. The people who should really be worried about Trump getting his Twitter account back are Republicans. It would generate an endless stream of bad publicity, especially in the current situation with Russia.