Links

AI:

• Matters Of Scale:

  • GPT-3: see above; for GPT-3 compared to humans on the absolute scale of character prediction, see ⁠Scaling Hypothesis, footnote 18⁠

  • “Measuring the Algorithmic Efficiency of Neural Networks”⁠, Hernandez & Brown2020 (blog⁠/interview⁠; the first prototype is never the best one, but given enough compute & time, you can refine it and figure out how it should have been done all along, and this paper quantifies the neural net hardware overhang just since 2012_13ya: “it now takes 44× less compute to train…to the level of AlexNet”. Unsurprising—eg the experience curve⁠ in linear programming⁠: Bixby2002⁠; see Grace2013⁠/Yudkowsky2013⁠. We don’t know how to train the right kind of neural nets and make huge mistakes with the simplest things, as capability jumps like resnets⁠ or EfficientNet⁠ or R2D2⁠ occasionally remind us.)

  • “IntelliCode Compose: Code Generation Using [GPT-2] Transformer”⁠, Svyatkovskiyet al2020 (unclear if application of ZeRO-2⁠; see also the GPT-3 few-shot code completion abilities)

  • “GrokNet: Unified Computer Vision Model Trunk and Embeddings For Commerce”⁠ (blog⁠; one model, 7 datasets, 89m images, 83 losses/tasks, and +8% search quality boost worldwide)

• “Deep neuroethology of a virtual rodent”⁠, Merelet al2019 (media⁠)

• “Go-Explore 2: First return then explore”⁠, Ecoffetet al2021

• “Learning to Simulate Dynamic Environments with GameGAN”⁠, Kimet al2020 (project page⁠, code⁠; an unexpected appearance of a Neural Turing Machine⁠)

• “Exploring Bayesian Optimization: Breaking Bayesian Optimization into small, sizeable chunks”⁠, Agnihotri & Batra2020

• “This Word Does Not Exist” (GPT-2); “This Fursona Does Not Exist (TFDNE)”⁠ editor⁠ (a simple but high-quality StyleGAN 2 face model⁠ of furries⁠, also available on Artbreeder⁠; interesting for how the fur flew due to legal fuzziness & some artists acting like animals, howling about ‘theft’ & free fursonas being a wolf in sheep’s clothing upsetting their pecking order⁠^⁠1⁠—though the creator has outfoxed the paper tiger threats, these kittlesome questions will dog ML as DL models multiply like rabbits)

Genetics:

• Everything Is Heritable:

  • “Local genetic correlation analysis reveals heterogeneous etiologic sharing of complex traits”⁠, Zhanget al2020 (“autism/IQ r_g…could be explained by 2 etiologically-distinct genetic signatures w/bidirectional local genetic correlations”)

  • “Identification of 370 loci for age at onset of sexual and reproductive behavior, highlighting common aetiology with reproductive biology, externalizing behavior and longevity”⁠, Millset al2020

  • “Genome-wide association study of school grades identifies a genetic overlap between language ability, psychopathology and creativity”⁠, Rajagopalet al2020 (“math performance was severely affected whereas language performance (Danish and English) was relatively unaffected or enhanced in those with psychiatric disorders”)

  • “GWAS of Depression Phenotypes in the Million Veteran Program and Meta-analysis in More than 1.2 Million Participants Yields 178 Independent Risk Loci”⁠, Leveyet al2020

  • “A Single Gene Causes Thelytokous Parthenogenesis, the Defining Feature of the Cape Honeybee Apis mellifera capensis”⁠, Yagoundet al2020

  • “Insights into the genetic architecture of the human face”⁠, Whiteet al2020

• Recent Evolution:

  • “Sex-biased reduction in reproductive success drives selective constraint on human genes”⁠, Gardneret al2020; “Genome-wide analysis identifies genetic effects on reproductive success and ongoing natural selection at the FADS locus”⁠, Mathiesonet al2020 (previously: Barbanet al2016⁠/Tropfet al2016⁠/Verweijet al2017⁠)

  • “Disentangling selection on genetically correlated polygenic traits using whole-genome genealogies”⁠, Sternet al2020

• Engineering:

  • “Recent advances in bovine in vitro embryo production: reproductive biotechnology history and methods”⁠, Ferréet al2020

  • Atomic garden⁠ mutation breeding⁠

Statistics/Meta-Science:

• “Variability in the analysis of a single neuroimaging dataset by many teams”⁠, Botvinik-Nezeret al2020

• “Remembering John Conway’s FRACTRAN, a ridiculous, yet surprisingly deep language”, Reginald Braithwaite (how does the recently-deceased John Conway’s⁠ 1980⁠ esolang⁠ lead to the Collatz conjecture⁠?)

• “Tumbling toast, Murphy’s Law and the fundamental constants”⁠, Matthews1995 (overview⁠; anthropics⁠ size argument from Press1980⁠; see also Baconet al2001⁠/Borghi2012⁠)

Politics/religion:

• “The Voluntariness of Voluntary Consent: Consent Searches and the Psychology of Compliance”⁠, Sommers & Bohns2019 (people are bad at predicting resistance to police requests; see also Christinet al2012⁠)

• Operation INFEKTION⁠ (see also Gordon1997⁠)

• “Progress Studies for Aspiring Young Scholars” (experimental online summer class for high school students by ⁠Jason Crawford on development)

Psychology/biology:

• “Understanding immunity through the lens of disease ecology”⁠, Hedrick2017⁠^⁠2⁠ (“…for the past few thousand years, we human beings have been the most diseased species on earth”; followup to Hedrick2004⁠; ⁠commentary⁠)

• “How sanitation conquered disease long before vaccines or antibiotics”, Jason Crawford

• “Everyday Life as an Intelligence Test: Effects of Intelligence and Intelligence Context”⁠, Gordon1997

• “Objective and subjective experiences of child maltreatment and their relationships with psychopathology”⁠, Danese & Widom2020 (nothing in psychology makes sense except in the light of individual-differences)

• “Brainless but Multi-Headed: Decision Making by the Acellular Slime Mould Physarum polycephalum”⁠, Beekman & Latty2015

• “I’m paid biweekly, just not by leprechauns: Evaluating valid-but-incorrect response rates to attention check items”⁠, Curran & Hauser2019 (how do “lizardman constant”⁠ responders justify it? Or, ‘free response is the devil’)

Technology:

• “Reflections on How Designers Design with Data”⁠, Bigelowet al2014 (why are data visualizations so bad—superficially pretty but misleading or useless? Because many designers don’t look at the data, avoid automation & create manually so they can focus on pretty shapes/colors & enjoying fiddling with it, and ignore readers)

• “Do Ads Harm News Consumption?”⁠, Yanet al2020 (“Users who adopt ad blockers subsequently consume 20% more news articles corresponding to 10% more categories. The effect persists over time…”; see my ad page⁠)

• “The 1-Bit Instrument: The Fundamentals of 1-Bit Synthesis, Their Implementational Implications, and Instrumental Possibilities”⁠, Troise2020

Economics:

• “In Ohio, the Amish Take On the Coronavirus”⁠ (supply and demand: masks can be easily made anywhere if prices are allowed to rise & they are not illegal to sell)

• “The Story of America’s Most Prolific Counterfeiter”⁠ (how Frank Bourassa tricked a Swiss mill into selling him the unique U.S. dollar⁠ linen-paper to create $380^$250₂₀₁₂m in perfect counterfeit money⁠ & mostly got away with it)

Fiction:

• “My Immortal As Alchemical Allegory”⁠, SSC

Misc:

• “Dead Reckoning: The 18^th century misadventures of HMS Wager and her reluctant crew” (the Wager⁠ Mutiny⁠)

Books

Fiction:

• The Battle Between the Frogs and the Mice: A Tiny Homeric Epic⁠, translated Stallings2009 (review)

Nonfiction:

• Review of The Cultural Revolution

Music

Touhou⁠:

• ⁠“Sept Jours sans Elle (Vocal)”⁠ (Raven’s Jig; ⁠Une Semaine chez les Écarlates⁠ {2018}) [classical]

• ⁠“Un Jour Joueur”⁠ (Raven’s Jig; Une Semaine chez les Écarlates {2018}) [classical]

• ⁠“Bons et mauvais Jours”⁠ (Raven’s Jig; Une Semaine chez les Écarlates {2018}) [classical]

MLP:

• ⁠“Morning in Baltimare”⁠ (Mane in Green; II. The Journey [The Quest of the Lost Sapphire—Ep. 2] {2017}) [instrumental rock]

• ⁠“Love and Reflection”⁠ (Dionte George; ⁠Ignite⁠ {2020}) [jazz]

• ⁠“Second Prances (Vocal VIP)”⁠ (Etherium Apex ft. Nicole Carino {2020}) [electronic]

• ⁠“Spun”⁠ (The Wasteland Wailers feat. Brittany Church & Haymaker; Ignite {2020}) [country]

• ⁠“Equiterian Empire”⁠ (Carbon Maestro; Celestial Divide OST) [orchestral]

• ⁠“The Storm Is Coming VIP [Single Purpose Remix]”⁠ (UndreamedPanic feat. Metajoker; Ignite {2020}) [rock]

• ⁠“Mare Cognitum”⁠ (Idyllia feat. Velvet R. Wings; Ignite {2020}) [orchestral rock]

• ⁠“Fire City (Day & Night)”⁠ (Wandering Artist; Ignite {2020}) [orchestral]

• ⁠“What Remains”⁠ (Totalspark; Ignite {2020}) [Liquid Drum & Brass]

Doujin:

• ⁠“Come, Sweet Death [Komm, süsser Tod]”⁠ (Platina Jazz feat. Niklas Gabrielsson; Anime Standards Vol. 6⁠ {2019}) [jazz]

• ⁠“Hope”⁠ (Simpsonill {2017}) [electronic]