Links for 2022-10-26
Shutterstock will start selling AI-generated stock imagery with help from OpenAI https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/25/23422359/shutterstock-ai-generated-art-openai-dall-e-partnership-contributors-fund-reimbursement
“We are Generally Intelligent, a new, independent research company whose goal is to develop generally capable AI agents with human-like intelligence in order to solve problems in the real world.” https://generallyintelligent.com/launch/
The Varna Necropolis in Bulgaria contains the earliest gold treasure in the world, dating to c.4500 BC. But who were these people? Why did they accumulate so much treasure? And what happened to them? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD6kLyTyHa0
Doctors in Israel are toying with polygenic screening: it is a way to make it more likely that your baby will grow up to be healthy. https://www.timesofisrael.com/designer-babies-hi-tech-preimplantation-genetic-testing-may-soon-come-to-israel/
Scaling Instruction-Finetuned Language Models https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.11416
In Japan 4000 years ago, the sea level was 2 meters higher than the current level. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031018222000773
By 2007, ~900 drugs had "positive" animal results, 97 were tested in people, but only 2 showed benefit https://www.gwern.net/docs/statistics/order/2022-scannell.pdf
100-year-old runner breaking records and defying expectations https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/100-year-old-runner-breaking-records-and-defying-expectations-150091333815
How humans impair automated deception detection performance https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001691820305746
Russian letter to the United Nations about an alleged Ukrainian dirty bomb doesn’t even get elementary physics right. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/25/russia-to-raise-ukraine-dirty-bomb-claim-at-un-security-council
Do you believe we need to take the fate of humanity into our own hands rather than continue to play the genetic lottery? Then they will call you a eugenicist.
Do you believe our children deserve to receive the best opportunities we can give them rather than a roll of the genetic dice? Then they will call you a eugenicist.
Do you believe it is time to face up to the responsibilities that accompany our reproductive choices? Then they will call you a eugenicist.
Do you believe that we should not stand in the way of technological progress that could potentially make the next generation healthier, happier, and smarter? Then they will call you a eugenicist.
Do you believe that we need to wrest control of our genetic destiny from the uncaring claws of nature and shape our future according to our values? Then they will call you a eugenicist.
The knee-jerk reaction is to call those attitudes eugenics and to conjure the specter of fascism. But there is a big difference between desiring a counterfactual world in which someone would not have existed and desiring that someone does not live. Desiring a world without congenital heart disease is not the same as hating people with that disease.
If your parents would have had access to advance reproductive and gene-editing technologies then you and I might not exist. A smarter, more healthy person, with better opportunities, would exist in our place. This person isn't bothered by their nonexistence. Neither would we be.
Ironically, the same people who believe those attitudes to be illiberal and evil want to take away your liberty to decide which traits your children should have and make you accept whatever fate the uncaring forces of nature have in store for them.
Q&A
Q: How do we draw the line between gene editing and forced sterilization to establish racial hygiene?
A: How do we draw the line between abortion as a right and forced abortions of minorities? Well, easy! We just do. We do so all the time.
Q: Shouldn’t you be using the term 'liberal eugenics' because that's what you are essentially describing?
A: That’s not a viable strategy. Once you start advocating for practices such as gene therapies and embryo selection, people will inevitably call you a eugenicist. The euphemism treadmill won't save you.
Q: What if people decide to abort every child with Asperger syndrome? It's easy to imagine how this could have negative consequences.
A: The fact that intelligent designers can make bad choices isn't an argument in favor of letting the blind idiot god of evolution decide our fate.
Do we need to be careful? Yes! But allowing evolution to possibly turn humanity into some monstrosity isn't a viable option.