Links for 2023-10-09
Self-Taught Optimizer (STOP): Recursively Self-Improving Code Generation — “...a modern language model, GPT-4 in our proof-of-concept experiments, is capable of writing code that can call itself to improve itself.” [works with GPT-4 but not GPT-3.5] https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.02304
“How can finite human minds figure out how something works, when the number of possible hypotheses is infinite? We review possible computational solutions to this problem, and recent empirical tests of these ideas. Two mechanisms seem to play a crucial role: 1) People keep one or a few hypotheses in mind, and they try random, local modifications of these hypotheses, 2) People grow a 'library' of concepts, chunking good ideas into new primitives…” https://psyarxiv.com/e9p8k/
Pause For Thought: The AI Pause Debate https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/pause-for-thought-the-ai-pause-debate
PixArt-α: Fast Training of Diffusion Transformer for Photorealistic Text-to-Image Synthesis -- Competitive with SotA image generators (e.g., SDXL, Midjourney); Only takes 10.8% of Stable Diffusion v1.5's training time https://pixart-alpha.github.io/
AutomaTikZ: Text-Guided Synthesis of Scientific Vector Graphics with TikZ https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.00367
Luma AI releases Interactive Scenes built with Gaussian Splatting https://lumalabs.ai/interactive-scenes
Podcast with Joe Carlsmith–On Infinite Ethics & Utopia https://www.existentialhope.com/podcasts/joe-carlsmith
The Covid Cover-up: Health authorities and policymakers squandered public trust by lying to the American people. https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-covid-coverup
"90% of the judges in our setting underperform the algorithm when they make a discretionary override, with most making override decisions that are no better than random." https://www.nber.org/papers/w31747
"there is no important moral distinction between abortion and infanticide...'Newborn human babies have no sense of their own existence over time. So killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living'" https://www.firstthings.com/article/2023/10/we-are-repaganizing
Many people are shocked to see a half-naked woman with broken legs paraded through the streets. How could anyone do such a thing?
Sadly, such brutalization has been the norm for most of human history and is still common today. Especially Western people live in a filter bubble created by their intellectuals, and the media always give a very selective feel-good account of what's happening so as not to shock their audience.
Civilization is a thin veneer over barbarism. And it can collapse easily and quickly (see, for example, the 1992 Los Angeles riots, the 2011 England riots, or the 2020 George Floyd riots).
If you want to know how bad the past was, just read the Bible. The Bible talks about dashing infants to pieces before their parents and raping their mothers (Isaiah 13:15-18). The Bible also says young girls can be kept alive as sex slaves (Numbers 31:17). The dominant theme in the representation of siege warfare in Greek literature is rape. And these patterns are often reflected in genetic data as a complete y-chromosomal replacement in the genetic record.
When a Yanomami shaman was asked to explain the cause of violence, he replied, "Don't ask such stupid questions! Women! Women! Women! Women! Women! Women!" Fighting erupted over sexual jealousy, sexual impropriety, rape and attempted seduction, kidnapping, and failure to deliver a promised girl.
Or consider the vast scale of brutal human sacrifice among the Aztecs and Carthaginians, the latter of which sacrificed their own children. In Peru, as late as the 15th century, children between the ages of 4 and 12 were murdered as sacrifices to the gods in order to change the weather.
Even today, there are societies, such as the Jivaro peoples, for whom killing is an essential part of life. 60% of male deaths are caused by warfare.
In typical hunter-gatherer societies (gang)-rape as punishment is common practice. Female age at first marriage tends to be at the onset of puberty (average age at first marriage is recorded as 14). In Papua New Guinea, 41% of men on Bougainville Island admit to coercing a non-partner into sex (2013). Approximately 60% of men interviewed reported to have participated in gang rape (1994). Nearly half of reported rape victims are under 15 years of age and 13% are under seven (UNICEF). 50 percent of girls are at risk of becoming involved in sex work, or being internally trafficked.
Israel links:
“Mapping and timing the atrocities at the Nova Festival near Rei’m on Saturday morning (long thread). Working with new drone footage, multiple sets of satellite imagery, and videos, it was possible to assemble a small idea of what happened in a small area.” https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1711256232646897813
Israeli security and police trying to hold back hamas and co from the rave equipped with a couple pistols at best https://twitter.com/LostWeapons/status/1711266463737356653
GeoConfirmed ISR-PAL: 4 civilians were executed by Hamas fighters. Footage before and after the execution was released. https://twitter.com/GeoConfirmed/status/1711164045565337931
Eyewitness Account of the Rave Massacre: Scenes of young women raped next to the dead bodies of their friends. https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/israel-music-festival-massacre-eyewitness-account
‘Once the fighters on hang-gliders were on the ground, they secured the terrain so an elite commando unit could storm the fortified electronic and cement wall that divides Gaza from the settlements’ https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/how-israel-was-duped-hamas-planned-devastating-assault-2023-10-08/ [https://archive.ph/mYWdO]
Ukraine links:
“Intense combat footage from Ukraine (that apparently doesn't exist): 1st Company of the 1st Battalion of the 3rd Assault Brigade receiving a direct hit into their M113, dismounting, setting up circular defence under heavy fire, and helping and evacuating the wounded.” https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1710966627796160605
Defenders of the 79th Brigade destroyed a Russian T-90M near Mar'inka. https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1710943003039146362
Huge explosion: Closeup of the Russian T-90M taking a Ukrainian ATGM outside of Makiivka. https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1711005276365623449
“Ukrainian SSO units destroyed several pieces of Russian equipment. Among them a 2S3 Akatsiya SPG and an ammo truck for it, a Russian infantry base, BM-21 Grad MLRS launcher, a 2S7 Pion 203-mm cannon, several Russian supply vehicles and a R-330Zh Zhitel EW jamming system.” https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1711257165258727720
“This aligns with prior reports from Ukrainian officials who have emphasized the necessity of constantly advancing with smaller groups, gradually pushing the enemy back. It appears that the primary focus continues to be on wearing down the enemy's forces and capabilities.” https://twitter.com/Tatarigami_UA/status/1711093347887075540
Satellite imagery showing that rail traffic between North Korea and #Russia “dramatically” increased since Russian President Vladimir Putin met with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un on September 12-17 https://beyondparallel.csis.org/dramatic-increase-in-dprk-russia-border-rail-traffic-after-kim-putin-summit/