Links for 2024-04-17
AI:
❗️Advances in robotics continue unabated. The robots in the video are fully autonomous and filmed in one continuous shot. https://x.com/tonyzzhao/status/1780263497584230432
All New Atlas | Boston Dynamics -- "We are unveiling the next generation of humanoid robots—a fully electric Atlas robot designed for real-world applications." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29ECwExc-_M&t=1s
Boston Dynamics’ Robert Playter on the New Atlas -- The robotics company’s CEO answers our questions about its new humanoid https://spectrum.ieee.org/atlas-humanoid-robot-ceo-interview
“Meet Lingo-2, a groundbreaking AI model that navigates roads and narrates its journey. Watch the video taken from a LINGO-2 drive through Central London. The same deep learning model generates real-time driving commentary and drives the car.” https://wayve.ai/thinking/lingo-2-driving-with-language/
Compression Represents Intelligence Linearly — LLMs' intelligence – reflected by average benchmark scores – almost linearly correlates with their ability to compress external text corpora https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.09937
Video2Game: Real-time, Interactive, Realistic and Browser-Compatible Environment from a Single Video https://video2game.github.io/
“It’s the most popular social app and music service, the healthiest economy on the internet and AI training fuel” https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/04/09/most-important-app-youtube/ [no paywall: https://archive.is/JE2fp]
Civilization and Culture:
“Robin Hanson...argues against cultural homogenization...Robin is worried that people from fertile, illiberal subcultures will outbreed everyone else and then they...will rule the world, mess up dynamism and lots of other good things.” https://radiopaper.com/yarn/RueUZyfLRMrx
“The space of possible cultures should mostly be harsh and dysfunctional, where we started was functional due to strong selection centuries ago, yet our cultures really are wandering fast off into that vast space without a plan, map, or light.” https://www.overcomingbias.com/p/old-folks-see-culture-change
"When I meet elites around the world, they tell me two things. Say I meet elites in Brazil. They will tell me, Brazilians have some unique features and... distinctive culture that the world should value... Then they'll also tell you they themselves personally have no unique features, they will fit in just fine in any global organization or conference or anything else you want to do with them... They are personally just a generic world elite." https://www.jimruttshow.com/robin-hanson-3/
“The imprisonment and execution of "violent and quarrelsome" men led to the evolution of social and cooperative instincts that make civilization possible” https://x.com/sentientist/status/1780319829884342653
Miscellaneous:
“The minimum cut problem is a structural question about the connectivity of a graph and one of the key problems in algorithmic graph theory, with many practical applications. Read about the first deterministic, nearly-linear algorithm that works for general graphs.” https://research.google/blog/solving-the-minimum-cut-problem-for-undirected-graphs/
Researchers demonstrate miniature brain stimulator in humans https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-04-miniature-brain-humans.html
Physicists Capture First-Ever Image of an Electron Crystal https://gizmodo.com/electrons-wigner-crystal-image-physics-1851402898
Ukraine:
“Several explosions were recorded at the military air base in Dzhankoy, occupied Crimea. A large fire started afterwards. Russian attack helicopters are based here as well as S-300/S-400 missile launchers. FIRMS satellite images show several powerful fires.” https://x.com/NOELreports/status/1780467429686055174
“Look at what Ukraine can achieve with just a few ATACMS. Imagine if they had all ~1200 "expired" missiles from US Army inventory? They could inflict massive damage on Russian bases all over occupied Ukraine. Does the Biden Admin not want that to happen?” https://x.com/ColbyBadhwar/status/1780568111395094813
“Heavy explosions reported from Gorbunov, Tatarstan, in Russia. Huge smoke plumes can be seen in videos. It is claimed that drones struck this morning the production and repair facilities of strategic bombers such as Tu-22M and Tu-160M.” https://x.com/Tendar/status/1780572510783746501
50,000 confirmed and verified Russian fatalities — “The actual number of Russian deaths is likely to be much higher. Our analysis does not include the deaths of militia in Russian-occupied Donetsk and Luhansk - in eastern Ukraine.” https://www.bbc.com/news/world-68819853 (see also this thread: “According to @KilledInUkraine, 3940 confirmed deaths of russian officers have been reported. Considering that officers represent only a small fraction of overall casualties, this figure strongly suggests exceedingly high russian losses.” https://x.com/ArturRehi/status/1780591384052777058)
“One of the most significant current battles in Ukraine is taking place in the small city of Chasiv Yar.” https://x.com/emilkastehelmi/status/1780280159829958920
“…a couple of words about FPV drones and the dillusional reality they have created.” https://x.com/OSINTua/status/1780531798432203096