Links for 2023-01-28
Replacing a SQL analyst with 26 recursive GPT prompts https://www.patterns.app/blog/2023/01/18/crunchbot-sql-analyst-gpt/ (see also: Can ChatGPT Write Better LeetCode SQL than a Data Analyst https://archive.is/w7QO8)
Five Days in Class with ChatGPT https://alperovitch.sais.jhu.edu/five-days-in-class-with-chatgpt/
Putting ChatGPT’s Medical Advice to the (Turing) Test: ChatGPT responses to patient questions were weakly distinguishable from provider responses. Laypeople appear to trust the use of chatbots to answer lower risk health questions https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.10035
„My amusement quickly turned to horror: it had taken ChatGPT roughly 30 seconds to create, for free, an article that I charged £500 for.“ https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/24/chatgpt-artificial-intelligence-jobs-economy
“According to a Department of Justice (DOJ) indictment, the US citizen hid confidential files stolen from his employers in the binary code of a digital photograph of a sunset, which Mr Zheng then mailed to himself.” https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-64206950
A Small Molecule That Restores Visual Function After Optic Nerve Injury Identified https://neurosciencenews.com/m1-optic-nerve-regeneration-22298/
"Of the skeletal remains of more than 2300 early farmers from 180 sites dating from around 8000 – 4000 years ago to, more than one in ten displayed weapon injuries, bioarchaeologists found." https://www.ed.ac.uk/news/2023/violence-was-widespread-in-early-farming-society
Milk consumption increased ancient human body size https://phys.org/news/2023-01-consumption-ancient-human-body-size.html
Fields Medal: June Huh https://youtu.be/yO8lQWb6TZ4
"After dispersal from Africa, humans have evolved to be characterized by substantial phenotypic variation, including variation in... drug metabolism, susceptibility and resistance to disease." https://bmcecolevol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2148-11-16
Japan and the Netherlands will join US semiconductor export controls in a big foreign policy win for the Biden administration. Japanese and Dutch officials are in Washington to finalize details tonight. [Bloomberg] https://archive.is/Tf3MP (see also: Why The World Relies On ASML For Machines That Print Chips: “In a Dutch factory, there’s a revolutionary chipmaking machine the whole world has come to rely on. It takes months to assemble, and only one company in the world knows how: Advanced Semiconductor Materials Lithography.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSVHp6CAyQ8)
“If Germany had NOT shut any reactors after 2011, how would the #Energiewende have fared, and how clean would their grid be today? Even with its nuclear fleet as of 2011 kept in operation, German electricity would still be almost TWICE as dirty as French electricity. Keeping the reactors open would have been a MASSIVE boon, but not enough to really decarbonise. Building new nuclear is necessary.” https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1616194140471177218.html
This is a straw man. The real argument is that allowing a nuclear blackmailer to wage a war of conquest makes nuclear war *more* likely by inciting others to make similar threats or to acquire nuclear weapons themselves.
If Russia is prepared to destroy the world over Ukraine, what will you do if they demand Alaska back? Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) has already failed because you assumed they were willing to pay that price and signalled that you were not.
It might be easier to see this from Russia's perspective. Imagine if Joe Biden were to make a speech today declaring that Russia had 24 hours to leave Ukraine or the United States would use nuclear weapons against Russian targets on Ukrainian territory.
Would it be wise for Russia to give in to this kind of nuclear blackmail? If such a threat were to work, there would be nothing to stop the United States from making further demands until Russia was completely subjugated.
By symmetry, the United States should ignore similar threats made by Russia over their support of Ukraine.
A world in which the use of nuclear blackmail as a means of achieving foreign policy goals was commonplace would either see a massive proliferation of weapons of mass destruction or end up being ruled by the whims of ruthless dictators such as Kim Jong-un.
In short, the classical MAD equilibrium must be maintained by ignoring non-defensive nuclear weapon threats. Because if you allow any madman to get whatever he wants out of fear that he might destroy the world, the world will be destroyed.