Links for 2022-09-30
Large Language Models Are Human-Level Prompt Engineers: The proposed automatic prompt engineering model achieves equal or better than human performance on 19 of 24 tasks using InstructGPT in terms of zero-shot performance. https://openreview.net/forum?id=92gvk82DE-
A Generalist Neural Algorithmic Learner: Constructs a generalist neural algorithmic learner—a single GNN processor capable of learning to execute a wide range of algorithms, such as sorting, searching, dynamic programming, path-finding and geometry. https://arxiv.org/abs/2209.11142
Who's attacking Asians in USA? The perennial push to hide crime statistics https://kirkegaard.substack.com/p/whos-attacking-asians-in-usa-the
Unpatched 15-year old Python bug allows code execution in 350k projects https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/unpatched-15-year-old-python-bug-allows-code-execution-in-350k-projects/
The world’s longest immersed tunnel will connect Germany and Denmark. https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/fehmarnbelt-longest-immersed-tunnel-cmd/
3D printing drones work like bees to build and repair structures while flying https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/239973/3d-printing-drones-work-like-bees/
These autonomous, wireless robots could dance on a human hair https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/21/these-autonomous-wireless-robots-could-dance-on-a-human-hair/
A free copilot from China is trained entirely on Huawei chips https://keg.cs.tsinghua.edu.cn/codegeex/
Meta's AI guru LeCun: Most of today's AI approaches will never lead to true intelligence https://www.zdnet.com/article/metas-ai-guru-lecun-most-of-todays-ai-approaches-will-never-lead-to-true-intelligence/
Steven Pinker in his book 'The Blank Slate':
I believe that the rape-is-not-about-sex doctrine will go down in history as an example of extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds. It is preposterous on the fact of it, does not deserve its sanctity, is contradicted by a mass of evidence, and is getting in the way of the only morally relevant goal surrounding rape, the effort to stamp it out.
Think about it. First obvious fact: Men often want to have sex with women who don't want to have sex with them. They use every tactic that one human being uses to affect the behavior of another: wooing, seducing, flattering, deceiving, sulking, and paying. Second obvious fact: Some men use violence to get what they want, indifferent to the suffering they cause. Men have been known to kidnap children for ransom (sometimes sending their parents an ear or finger to show they mean business), blind the victim of a mugging so the victim can't identify them in court, shoot out the kneecaps of an associate as punishment for ratting to the police or invading their territory, and kill a stranger for his brand-name athletic footwear. It would be an extraordinary fact, contradicting everything else we know about people, if some men didn't use violence to get sex.
Jokes aside, here is what Russian soldiers themselves think:
1. “You’re all just cannon fodder. You’re the third group of people to form this battalion. Do you know where the first two groups died? And you’ll die here.” Then he told my commander, “Send in the meat." https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/09/28/honestly-they-re-all-going-to-die-there
2.
P.S. They are so desperate that Russian borders are now essentially unprotected: “Of an original estimated 30,000 Russian troops that once faced the Baltic countries and southern Finland, as many as 80 percent of them have been diverted to Ukraine” https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/09/28/russia-ukraine-war-nato-eastern-flank-military-kaliningrad-baltic-finland/
European officials said there could be just 6,000 Russian troops left in Kaliningrad and the Baltics. And several videos of Russian POWs suggest that they even had to withdraw soldiers from their strategic rocket forces in charge of Russia's ICBMs.
It feels like Russia is collapsing: