Links for 2024-04-18
AI:
Many-Shot In-Context Learning: significant performance gains across a wide variety of generative and discriminative tasks; effective at overriding pretraining biases; can learn high-dimensional functions with numerical inputs. https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.11018
OpenAI’s model all but matches doctors in assessing eye problems: “What this work shows is that the knowledge and reasoning ability of these large language models in an eye health context is now almost indistinguishable from experts,” said Arun Thirunavukarasu, the lead author of a paper on the findings published in PLOS Digital Health journal. https://www.ft.com/content/5b7a76be-467c-4074-8fd0-3e297bcd91d7 [no paywall: https://archive.is/w3Sk0] / Paper: https://journals.plos.org/digitalhealth/article?id=10.1371/journal.pdig.0000341
Creating unrestricted AI Agents with Command R+ https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/4vPZgvhmBkTikYikA/creating-unrestricted-ai-agents-with-command-r
ChatGPT Can Predict the Future when it Tells Stories Set in the Future About the Past https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.07396
Intel Builds World’s Largest Neuromorphic System to Enable More Sustainable AI https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/news/intel-builds-worlds-largest-neuromorphic-system.html
A story about AI designing and building nanotechnology. https://press.asimov.com/resources/tinker
Neuroscience:
From neurons to learning and memory: Mark Harnett investigates how electrical activity in mammalian cortical cells helps to produce neural computations that give rise to behavior. https://news.mit.edu/2024/mark-harnett-investigates-electrical-activity-0416
Neural Dynamics During the Generation and Evaluation of Creative and Non-Creative Ideas https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.04.15.589621v1
Biology:
Evolution in action? New study finds possibility of nitrogen-fixing organelles https://www.uri.edu/news/2024/04/evolution-in-action-new-study-finds-possibility-of-nitrogen-fixing-organelles/
CryoEM structures reveal how the bacterial flagellum rotates and switches direction https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-024-01674-1
Physics:
“The Mechanical Universe,” is a critically-acclaimed series of 52 thirty-minute videos covering the basic topics of an introductory university physics course. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8_xPU5epJddRABXqJ5h5G0dk-XGtA5cZ
New Physics at Play: Physicists Discover a New Force Acting on Water Droplets Moving Over Superhydrophobic Surfaces https://www.aalto.fi/en/news/physicists-explain-and-eliminate-unknown-force-dragging-against-water-droplets-on-superhydrophobic
Politics:
“Developments under way suggest Taiwan will face an existential crisis in single-digit years, most likely in the back half of the 2020s or front half of the 2030s. Xi’s most critical choices reflect a march to war....All strategic war preparation indicators are brightly lit…” https://warontherocks.com/2024/04/china-is-battening-down-for-the-gathering-storm-over-taiwan/
Ukraine:
“The draft text of the bill which allows aid to Ukraine has been published. Key highlights…” https://x.com/NOELreports/status/1780660218923254219
Mike Johnson says he's doing what he thinks is right. He believes it is critical to provide lethal aid to Ukraine now. He believes that otherwise, Putin will march through Europe. Xi, Vladimir Putin, and Iran are an axis of evil. He says they can't play politics with this and they have to do the right thing. https://x.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1780762935272296717
Prime Minister of the Netherlands Mark Rutte said that The Netherlands is ready to buy Patriot air defense systems for Ukraine from countries that are not ready to transfer them to Ukraine free of charge. https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/apr/17/europe-live-eu-leaders-meet-to-discuss-ukraine-the-middle-east-and-the-economy?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-66200a098f081748ffa29685#block-66200a098f081748ffa29685
“Germany has written to dozens of countries including Gulf Arab states to plead for more air defence systems for Ukraine, saying Kyiv needed urgent help to protect [itself] from the “murderous onslaught” of Russian missiles.” https://www.ft.com/content/6db9f905-2dc3-41fd-b57a-1d062a62cc69 [no paywall: https://archive.is/2mfkA]
"We have Patriots, we have anti-missile systems. We have to take them out of storage and send them to Ukraine where the war is raging. Otherwise the electricity system of Ukraine will be destroyed," Josep Borrell said at the G7 foreign ministers meeting. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/eu-countries-must-send-anti-missile-systems-ukraine-borrell-says-2024-04-18/
“The delivery of the first F-16 fighter jets with trained Ukrainian pilots to Ukraine will take place before the summer, Prime Minister of Belgium Alexander de Croo said.” https://x.com/NOELreports/status/1780973643486376424
“America First means helping Ukraine. It never meant America Alone” https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/america-first-means-helping-ukraine-never-meant-america-alone
25th Airborne Brigade section commander "Grozny": "With an army like that, if done smartly, they could conquer the whole world. But they're morons". https://x.com/wartranslated/status/1780876498620026957