Links for 2022-06-12
The Google engineer who thinks the company’s AI has come to life https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/06/11/google-ai-lamda-blake-lemoine/ [I ran a poll on this in 2021: Which is most likely to be capable of suffering: A. Language model with ~100 trillion parameters B. Brain organoid — in vitro miniature organ resembling the human brain C. Some insect species D. Models of other beings you create in your mind when you think or dream about them https://twitter.com/XiXiDu/status/1430934479762231296 (See also: Ethical Issues in Artificial Reinforcement Learning https://reducing-suffering.org/ethical-issues-artificial-reinforcement-learning/)]
Eavesdropping on the Brain With 10,000 Electrodes — “It paves the way for future brain-computer interfaces that may enable paralyzed people to communicate at speeds approaching those of normal conversation. With version 3.0 already in early development, we believe that Neuropixels is just at the beginning of a long road of exponential Moore’s Law–like growth in capabilities.” https://spectrum.ieee.org/brain-implant
Aphantasia and severely deficient episodic memory. http://oro.open.ac.uk/53222/1/53222.pdf
The relationship between epigenetic age and the hallmarks of ageing in human cells https://www.nature.com/articles/s43587-022-00220-0
“Deep Learning Systems Are Not Less Interpretable Than Logic/Probability/Etc” (see the comments) https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/gebzzEwn2TaA6rGkc/deep-learning-systems-are-not-less-interpretable-than-logic
Fact Checking Increases Fake News https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/06/fact-checking-increases-fake-news.html
“There are n travelers who are trapped on a thin and narrow oasis. They each independently pick a random location in the oasis from which to start and a random direction in which to travel. What is the probability that none of their paths will intersect, in terms of n?” https://laurentlessard.com/bookproofs/desert-escape/
Elon Musk's Starlink satellite internet system has become an unexpected lifeline for Ukraine during the war — thwarting Russia’s efforts to cut the Eastern European country off from the outside world. https://www.politico.eu/article/elon-musk-ukraine-starlink/
AI is going to usher in a new scientific revolution: "Today is a BFD triumph in life science—solving the 3D structure at near atomic level resolution, one of the world's hardest, giant jigsaw puzzles—the nuclear pore complex—the largest molecular machine in human cells, with structure-based AI prediction. This wouldn't have happened without #AI #AlphaFold" ― Eric Topol https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm9326
Not sure what to make of people who claim that there was not really much progress since 2002. I get that some people might not have heard about CRISPR but how have they failed to notice the supercomputer in their pockets they can talk to and use to translate spoken language in real-time?
Even if one only focuses on the improvement of technology that already existed in 2002, the progress that was made has been huge. Fast and cheap Internet access allowed everyone to access educational services such as Khan Academy. We now got operating systems and browsers that do not regularly crash and run smoothly for long periods of time. Computers that are powerful enough to work without delay for ordinary activities...
And this is just the beginning. The near future will be marked by transformative progress.