Links for 2024-02-04
AI:
Neural Networks on the Brink of Universal Prediction with DeepMind’s Cutting-Edge Approach https://syncedreview.com/2024/01/31/neural-networks-on-the-brink-of-universal-prediction-with-deepminds-cutting-edge-approach/
“TimesFM is a forecasting model, pre-trained on a large time-series corpus of 100 billion real world time-points, that displays impressive zero-shot performance on a variety of public benchmarks from different domains and granularities.” https://blog.research.google/2024/02/a-decoder-only-foundation-model-for.html
“The Imp project aims to provide a family of a strong multimodal small language models (MSLMs). Our imp-v1-3b is a strong MSLM with only 3B parameters, which is build upon a small yet powerful SLM Phi-2 (2.7B) and a powerful visual encoder SigLIP (0.4B), and trained on the LLaVA-v1.5 training set.” https://huggingface.co/MILVLG/imp-v1-3b
How Microsoft Catapulted to $3 Trillion on the Back of AI https://www.wsj.com/tech/microsoft-closes-above-3-trillion-as-its-big-ai-play-generates-excitement-e37ea2a4 [https://archive.is/Zir9R]
Europe Regulates Its Way to Last Place: From mergers to AI, the EU’s aggressive rule-making hampers its ability to compete with China and the U.S. https://www.wsj.com/economy/europe-regulates-its-way-to-last-place-2a03c21d [https://archive.is/ZAyLI]
Technology:
UW–Madison researchers first to 3D-print functional human brain tissue https://news.wisc.edu/uw-madison-researchers-first-to-3d-print-functional-human-brain-tissue/
New candidate for universal memory is fast, low-power, stable, and long-lasting https://engineering.stanford.edu/magazine/new-candidate-universal-memory-fast-low-power-stable-and-long-lasting
Practical Quantum Computing Potential in Graphene Layers -> New approach goes beyond spin to find 20x longer coherence times https://spectrum.ieee.org/practical-quantum-computing-bilayered-graphene
Science:
An evolutionary arms race between the echolocation of bats and its jamming by moths: “The tiger moth Bertholdia trigona produces clicks at a very high rate (up to 4,500 per second) to jam bat echolocation. Jamming is the most effective defense against bats ever documented, with jamming causing a ten-fold decrease in bat capture success in the field.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echolocation_jamming
“Why do essentially all adults use "recreational" drugs on a near daily basis? The standard story is that they hijack dopaminergic reward circuits. My colleagues & I are intrigued, however, that all such drugs harm human parasites.” https://twitter.com/ed_hagen/status/1751699150230663585
Huge UK Biobank study (29,004 individuals) in 2019 added to the literature on what has become a highly-replicated finding: Larger brains correlate with higher intelligence. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6876667/
Miscellaneous:
Short story about deep DMT exploration (Qualia Computing) https://qualiacomputing.com/2024/02/01/jailbreaking-out-of-the-replicator-matrix-qualia-computing-in-the-age-of-recreational-metaphysics/
Ukraine:
Russia’s Oil Industry Threatened by Ukrainian Drones, Western Sanctions — “With a bit of luck, they can damage not just pipelines, but also compressors, valves, control units, and other pieces of equipment that are tricky to replace because of sanctions.” https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/91473
“Consequences of the Ukrainian missile strike on Belbek airfield visible on new satelite images. A Russian command post was hit and completely destroyed.” https://x.com/NOELreports/status/1753762995878990324
Ukrainian GUR reports that Tu-95 strategic bomber pilot Major Oleg Sergeevich Stegachyov was shot in the Russian city of Engels. https://x.com/olliecarroll/status/1753770804330782734
“This attack took part at the South of Avdiivka, village Vodiane, 27.12.23 / The result of a attack: - 9 tanks; - 12 IFV; - 23 KIA and 46 WIA Achievements: ~ 200-400 metres” https://twitter.com/OSINTua/status/1753836960714510415
“Helping Ukraine is a National Security No-brainer” https://econbrowser.com/archives/2024/01/guest-contribution-helping-ukraine-is-a-national-security-no-brainer
Nearly 2 years after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine and 10 years after it annexed Crimea, let's take a look at what it has gained:
1. NATO was enlarged by two historically neutral countries.
2. Countries like Germany, which had been neglecting their military and whose people were opposed to defense spending, have become war hawks. There is no more talk of cutting defense spending among European nations. On the contrary, everyone is talking about modernization and increased funding.
3. Western arms sales have received a massive boost.
4. Russia has lost much of its considerable soft power over Western nations. For example, before 2022, many German politicians from almost all parties maintained close contact with Russia.
5. Russia has lost access to Western markets and is now completely dependent on China's goodwill. A decidedly worse outlook for its national identity than before.
6. Russia's enemies, who once believed in the absolute superiority of the Russian armed forces, now often mock their incompetence.
7. Ukraine is more united than ever, and its self-identity has been massively strengthened. The alleged threat from Ukraine has not been neutralized. On the contrary, Ukraine now frequently launches attacks against Russian cities and energy infrastructure.
8. Sevastopol has become a death trap for Russia's Black Sea Fleet. In terms of tonnage, Ukraine has now destroyed about 20% of Russia's Black Sea Fleet and its headquarters.
At what cost to Russia was this achieved? We know from Russian sources that at least 3500 Russian officers died. Extrapolating this number based on data from other wars, Russia has suffered more than 300,000 casualties. There are more than 14,000 visually confirmed losses of Russian equipment.
And even if Russia eventually manages to occupy all of Ukraine, it will be an indefinite security nightmare to secure large cities like Kyiv against mass protests and stop partisans backed by foreign intelligence services from carrying out attacks. Remember, the United States has spent more than $2 trillion on the war in Afghanistan and failed. That’s $300 million dollars per day, every day, for two decades.
In summary, Putin is clearly the worst Russian leader since Stalin.
P.S.
All attempts to destroy Ukraine economically failed: 1. Despite constant attacks against Ukraine's critical infrastructure, Russia ended up having more power outrages this winter than Ukraine. 2. Due to Ukraine's successful campaign against Russia's Black Sea Fleet, it's exporting almost as much grain as before the invasion.