Here’s your monthly dose of treats, goodies, ideas, pieces of research, principles, models, and other random stuff curated by Robert
Follow the white rabbit 🐇
ChatGPT and generative AI will change how we work, but how different is this to all the other waves of automation of the last 200 years? What does it mean for employment? Disruption? Coal consumption?
Continuing the US push against tech transfer to China, the White House banned US investment in some sectors there (chips, quantum and AI).
OpenAI Launches GPTBot With Details On How To Restrict Access
Estimating the association between Facebook adoption and well-being in 72 countries
Nanoscale Instruments for Visualizing Small Proteins (video)
Tools for Thought as Cultural Practices, not Computational Objects
The Tim Ferriss Show: Peter Attia, M.D. — Fasting, Metformin, Athletic Performance, and More (#398)
But why aren’t we training to be kick ass 90-year-olds? So my hypothesis was, well, it’s just a lack of specificity. I mean what separates a professional athlete from a weekend warrior is generally the specificity and the intensity with which they pursue this thing. So I said, well, what if we came up with an event that actually defined what one would want to be able to do when they’re 100, using that just as a benchmark. You may never live to 100, but to train to achieve this thing when you’re 100 you’ll obviously be in great shape when you’re 80.
Tags are an ineffective association structure
George Hotz vs Eliezer Yudkowsky AI Safety Debate
I don't think either of these stories is right. And I don't think either of these stories is right for the same reason. I don't think AI can foom. I don't think AI can go critical. I don't think intelligence can go critical. I think this is an absolutely extraordinary claim. I'm not saying that recursive self-improvement is impossible. Recursive self-improvement is of course possible. Humanity has done it. Every time you have used a tool to make a better tool. You have recursively self-improved. What I don't believe in is the AI that's sitting in a basement somewhere running on a thousand GPUs that is suddenly going to crack the secret to thinking, recursively self-improve overnight and then flood the world with diamond nanobots. This is an extraordinary claim and it requires extraordinary evidence. And I hand it over to you to deliver that evidence.
And we have reached the end of the cycle where 1995 cubicles are becoming cool again
Why not giving a fuck is the new flex
StandBy for iOS 17
Arithmetic has a biological origin – it’s an expression in symbols of the ‘deep structure’ of our perception
David Wallace on the many-worlds theory of quantum mechanics and its implications
Humans can change their preferences for long- and short-term relationships within a short space of time. These changes can be initiated by priming participants with evolutionarily relevant stimuli.
The iMac was announced 25 years ago this week. It changed computing and reset the narrative for Apple (though arguably the web was more important - no more worrying about what apps you could get on a Mac). Fun to see that the launch event was far less polished than today's Apple events. link, launch ad, event.
Are scientists leaving Twitter? (Twitter is dozens or hundreds of communities, each with their own network effects, and they’re unbundling one at a time.)
DARPA Seeks to Modulate REM Sleep for Stress and Trauma Adaptation
"It's Like if Midjourney Had an API" - Taking a Look at Kandinsky 2.2
Other places
(͡ ͡° ͜ つ ͡͡°)Telegram/Discord group for me to save & share random stuff that might be useful.
👾 some YouTube video essays
— Robert
Thank you for reading!
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