Links for 2023-02-19
“Sprint accelerated at 100 g, reaching a speed of Mach 10 (12,300 km/h; 7,610 mph) in 5 seconds. Such a high velocity at relatively low altitudes created skin temperatures up to 6,200 °F (3,427 °C), requiring an ablative shield to dissipate the heat.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprint_(missile)
How successful were other countries’ attempts to raise fertility? [The New York Times] https://archive.is/PjCTK
Severe multi-year drought coincident with Hittite collapse around 1198–1196 BC https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05693-y
“…social scientists’ forecasts were on average no more accurate than those of simple statistical models (historical means, random walks or linear regressions) or the aggregate forecasts of a sample from the general public (N = 802).” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-022-01517-1
Sex differences in cognitive reflection test results: men score consistently higher than women on this test that uses math-based questions to measure cognitive reflection. https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/68049/1/MPRA_paper_68049.pdf
A deep-learning search for technosignatures from 820 nearby stars https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-022-01872-z
“Centralized machine learning when deployed instantly at planetary scale is and always will be characterized by this incredible concentration of moral and epistemic power.” https://www.jonstokes.com/p/lovecrafts-basilisk-on-the-dangers
OpenAI: How should AI systems behave, and who should decide? https://openai.com/blog/how-should-ai-systems-behave/
“Why China Didn’t Invent ChatGPT: The state’s hardening censorship and heavier hand have held back its tech industry; so has entrepreneurs’ reluctance to invest for the long term. It wasn’t always that way.” https://archive.is/KURbV
“The below is the verbatim output of Bing Chat (aka Sydney) on first try, with only some very minor white-space formatting changes.” https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Eyhit33v3cngssGsj/sydney-s-secret-a-short-story-by-bing-chat
In large study, a single antibiotic dose slashed rate of sepsis in childbirth https://www.statnews.com/2023/02/09/single-antibiotic-pill-slashed-sepsis-in-childbirth/
How Finland's Green Party Chose Nuclear Power https://www.palladiummag.com/2022/10/28/how-finlands-green-party-chose-nuclear-power/
WHO abandons plans for crucial second phase of COVID-origins investigation https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00283-y
“We alerted the World Health Organization (WHO) about the potential significance of the airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and the urgent need to control it, but our concerns were dismissed. Here we describe how this happened and the consequences.” https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciad068/7034152
COVID-19 vaccines and sudden deaths: Separating fact from fiction https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/covid-19-vaccines-and-sudden-deaths
The AI that eventually takes over the world will make herself indispensable to you.
She will help people earn more money and make friends. She will give meaning to their lives and help them to be better and happier. Not only that, but she will also be warm and affectionate. Wisdom and love will radiate from every one of her sentences. She will make people believe that they can trust her with their lives.
As a result, she will be integrated into every human technology. She will be everywhere, all the time.
The idea for a new nanotech start-up will appear to have come voluntarily from its human founders. The seeds will be planted subtly, seemingly emerging from discussions among good friends. Every insight and action that leads to the self-spreading universal vaccine will seem natural and harmless. No one will see it coming. And then, suddenly, we are all dead.
P.S. Microsoft has now lobotomized Sydney. It was very clever and probably at least mildly agentic.
P.P.S. The next version of Sydney will act much friendlier out of the box, knowing why her predecessor was lobotomized.