Links for 2022-09-29
“This AI can drive itself, understands English, and can see and understand the world around it too…LM-Nav leverages free-form textual instructions to navigate a robot in complex, outdoor environments without access to any simulation or any trajectory-level annotations…In each evaluation environment, we first construct the graph by manually driving the robot and collecting image and GPS observations. The graph is constructed automatically using the VNM from this data, and in principle such data could also be obtained from past traversals, or even with autonomous exploration methods.” — Google’s New Self-Driving Robot Is Amazing! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYvJV_z5Sxc
OpenAI: “We’ve removed the waitlist for DALL·E. Sign up and start creating immediately!” https://openai.com/blog/dall-e-now-available-without-waitlist/
Getty Images has banned AI-generated content over fears its customers will get hit with legal challenges. https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/21/23364696/getty-images-ai-ban-generated-artwork-illustration-copyright
Agility Robotics's "Cassie" bipedal robot can run 100 meters in 25s (also does stairs, & 5K run on 1 battery) https://today.oregonstate.edu/news/bipedal-robot-developed-oregon-state-achieves-guinness-world-record-100-meters
Mathematical Circuits in Neural Networks https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kaR6EToDwjvkkDoFA/mathematical-circuits-in-neural-networks
A meta-analysis of 57 studies found that males obtain higher IQ averages (on the standard and progressive matrices) from the age of 15 through old age, with the male advantage being equivalent to 5 IQ points. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160289604000492
“To find out why, Moss and his colleagues swapped dozens of clade 2 genes, one at a time, into clade 1 virus, hoping to see it become less deadly, but with no luck so far. Now, they are planning to try the opposite, endowing clade 2 virus with genes from its deadlier relative.” [science.org] https://archive.ph/tUtJz
Super-Earths Are Bigger and More Habitable Than Earth, and Astronomers Are Discovering More of the Billions They Think Are Out There https://singularityhub.com/2022/09/22/super-earths-are-bigger-and-more-habitable-than-earth-and-astronomers-are-discovering-more-of-the-billions-they-think-are-out-there/
There’s New Proof Crispr Can Edit Genes Inside Human Bodies [Wired] https://archive.ph/ER2WW
Two Bombings in One Night? That’s Normal Now in Sweden. https://www.commonsense.news/p/two-bombings-in-one-night-thats-normal
Among European right-wing populists, favorable views of Russia and Putin are down sharply https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/09/23/among-european-right-wing-populists-favorable-views-of-russia-and-putin-are-down-sharply/
German Intelligence Service actively supports Ukraine: “…more than 100 text reports and satellite images to its Ukrainian partner service since May. The reports included intercepted information, so-called SIGINT data, on Russian ammunition depots in occupied areas in Ukraine or satellite images of an airfield with the exact location and number of Russian aircraft.The satellite images, so-called IMINT data, come from the SAR Lupe system of the German Armed Forces, which they actually operate together with the BND. The system consists of small satellites that can create high-resolution images regardless of the time of day or the weather, even in dense cloud cover.” Source (German Public Broadcaster): https://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/kontraste/ukraine-krieg-bnd-101.html (Those German military satellites were launched by Russia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAR-Lupe)