January 2022 Gwern.net newsletter with links on TODO
January 2022’s Gwern.net newsletter is now out; previous, 2021 (archives). This is a collation of links and summary of major changes, overlapping with my Changelog; brought to you by my donors on Patreon.
Writings
Links
AI
- Examples of capability phase-transitions; discussion: et al 2022 , et al 2022
- “Performance reserves in brain-imaging-based phenotype prediction”, et al 2022; “Reproducible brain-wide association studies require thousands of individuals”, et al 2022
- “CM3: A Causal Masked Multimodal Model of the Internet”, et al 2022 (a native-HTML language model generating both HTML & images inside HTML pages)
Genetics
Everything Is Heritable:
Recent Evolution:
Engineering:
- “Fundamental behaviors emerge from simulations of a living minimal cell”, et al 2022
- “Virgin Birth: A genetic basis for facultative parthenogenesis”, et al 2022 (genetically engineering fruit flies partially capable of clonal reproduction)
Statistics/Meta-Science
- “Causal and Associational Language in Observational Health Research: A systematic evaluation”, et al 2021 (expert readers usually do think correlation = causation)
- “A 680,000-person megastudy of nudges to encourage vaccination in pharmacies”, et al 2022 (layman much better at prediction of rankings than scientists; all massively overestimate vaccination rate); “Megastudies improve the impact of applied behavioural science”, et al 2021 (experts unable to predict gym-attendance interventions)
Politics/Religion
- “Criminalizing Poverty: The Consequences of Court Fees in a Randomized Experiment”, et al 2022 ( “relief from fees does not affect new criminal charges, convictions, or jail bookings after 12 months.”)
- “Quantifying Bias from Measurable & Unmeasurable Confounders Across 3 Domains of Individual Determinants of Political Preferences”, Ahlskog & Oskarsson (observed correlates are at least half confounded on average)
Psychology/Biology
- “Life at low Reynolds number”, 1977 (the challenges of motion when very small)
- “Australian Magpies (Gymnorhina tibicen) cooperate to remove tracking devices”, et al 2022 (birds are smart, but trapped in their niche)
- “Assessing cats’ (Felis catus) sensitivity to human pointing gestures”, 2022 (like copying actions, some cats are smart enough to, dog-like, understand pointing)
Technology
Economics
Philosophy
Fiction
Miscellaneous
Books
Nonfiction:
Fiction:
Film/TV
Live-action:
Animated: