Links for 2022-11-20
The Near Future of AI is Action-Driven…and it will look a lot like AGI https://jmcdonnell.substack.com/p/the-near-future-of-ai-is-action-driven
“Tired of having to manually tune optimizers? We’re excited to release VeLO, the first hparam-free, super versatile learned optimizer that outperforms hand-designed optimizers on real world problems. It was trained on thousands of TPU months of compute…If there is one thing the deep learning revolution has taught us, it's that neural nets will outperform hand-designed heuristics, given enough compute and data.” https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.09760
You can live just fine with half a brain: In a study of 40 people who had one brain hemisphere removed as children, Michael Granovetter et al find that both hemispheres are capable of taking over the functions of the other. https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/half-brain-neuroplasticity-hemispherectomy/
Seeing Beyond the Brain: Masked Modeling Conditioned Diffusion Model for Human Vision Decoding https://github.com/zjc062/mind-vis [skepticism: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33635461]
“Around 85% of humans only breathe out of one nostril at a time. Even more interesting is that the pattern of switching from breathing out of one nostril to the other happens in a cyclical fashion, with about four hours between each switch” https://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/03/about-85-of-people-only-breathe-out-of-one-nostril-at-a-time/
“We argue that cross-national variability in homicide rates is strongly influenced by state history. Populations living within a state are habituated, over time, to settling conflicts through regularized, institutional channels rather than personal violence. Because these are gradual and long-term processes, present-day countries composed of citizens whose ancestors experienced a degree of “state-ness” in previous centuries should experience fewer homicides today.” https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/11/why-is-the-new-world-so-dangerous.html
Radioactive Traces in Tree Rings Reveal Earth’s History of Unexplained ‘Radiation Storms’ https://singularityhub.com/2022/11/13/radioactive-traces-in-tree-rings-reveal-earths-history-of-extreme-radiation-storms/
The Icosidodecahedron https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2022/11/14/the-icosidodecahedron/
SPACEx: Speech-driven Portrait Animation with Controllable Expression https://deepimagination.cc/SPACEx/
Ukraine’s Maritime Drone Strikes Again: Reports Indicate Attack On Novorossiysk https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2022/11/ukraine-maritime-drone-strikes-again-reports-indicate-attack-on-novorossiysk/