January 2024 News
January 2024 Gwern.net newsletter with links on TODO
January 2024’s Gwern.net newsletter is now out; previous, December 2023 (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
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“Defining and Characterizing Reward Hacking”, et al 2022
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“Comparison of Waymo Rider-Only Crash Data to Human Benchmarks at 7.1 Million Miles”, et al 2023
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RL IRL: on Google Search use of ranking & preference-learning 2015–42019
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“Explaining grokking through circuit efficiency”, et al 2023
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“PIGEON: Predicting Image Geolocations”, et al 2023 (a much better PlaNet—it beat Rainbolt!)
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“Bridging the Human-AI Knowledge Gap: Concept Discovery and Transfer in AlphaZero”, et al 2023 (human GMs can learn from AZ… but remain far inferior)
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“Large-scale statistical forecasting models reassess the unpredictability of chaotic systems”, 2023
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“Computer Backgammon”, Hans J. 1980 (“BKG 9.8 is the first computer program to defeat a world champion at any board or card game”); “Marvin Minsky’s Vision of the Future”, 1981
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“The Manga Whisperer: Automatically Generating Transcriptions for Comics”, 2024
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“Making Amulets with LLaMA-2”, Blackle Mori
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“Thousands of AI Authors on the Future of AI”, et al 2024 (dropping timelines)
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“Sleeper Agents: Training Deceptive LLMs that Persist Through Safety Training”, et al 2024 (larger models better at hiding backdoors from safety training)
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“Generative Multimodal Models are In-Context Learners”, et al 2023
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“Large Language Models Can Teach Themselves to Use Tools”, et al 2023 (API/tool-use emerges ~0.8b-parameters)
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“Mamba: Linear-Time Sequence Modeling with Selective State Spaces”, 2023: Attention-free models scale poorly at in-context recall/induction (et al 2023 ), which is mostly why Transformers beat them
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“ByteDance is secretly using OpenAI’s tech to build a competitor” (why is it so hard for competing LLMs to surpass GPT-3.5/4? maybe because they are lying about being based on it)
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“CommonCanvas: An Open Diffusion Model Trained with Creative-Commons Images”, et al 2023
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“Character-Aware Models Improve Visual Text Rendering”, et al 2022 ( ByT5 vs T5 vs PaLM demonstrates BPEs are responsible for screwed-up text in images; PaLM’s scale can solve common spelling by memorization, but not generalize—creating the illusion of a solution)
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“What’s Hidden in a Randomly Weighted Neural Network?”, et al 2019 (even random nets contain, with increasing probability in size, an accurate sub-net)
Genetics
Everything Is Heritable:
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“Shared genetic architectures of educational attainment in East Asian and European populations”, et al 2024
Recent Evolution:
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“Genetic variants underlying human bisexual behavior are reproductively advantageous”, 2024
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“Elevated genetic risk for multiple sclerosis emerged in steppe pastoralist populations”, et al 2024
Engineering:
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“Concordance of whole-genome amplified embryonic DNA with the subsequently born child”, et al 2024
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“AAV1-hOTOF gene therapy for autosomal recessive deafness 9: a single-arm trial”, et al 2024; “Gene Therapy Allows an 11-Year-Old Boy to Hear for the First Time: The genetic treatment targeted a particular kind of congenital deafness and will soon be tried in children who are younger”
Statistics/Meta-Science
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“Laboratory-acquired infections and pathogen escapes worldwide 2000–212021: a scoping review”, et al 2023
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“Making the Micropipette”, Metacelsus
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“Cracking the Code of Linear B”, Theodore Nash
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“Projecting complete redaction of clinical trial protocols (RAPTURE): redacted cross sectional study”, ███████ et al 20██
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“Behind The Scenes: The Struggle For Each Paper”, Jeff Huang (2 decades of CS/HCI research)
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“Possible Bubbles of Spacetime Curvature in the South Pacific”, 2012
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“Solar Eclipses and the Origins of Critical Thinking and Complexity”, Litina & 2023 (astronomy as the training wheels of Science?)
Politics/Religion
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“Liberal Visions and Boring Machines: The Early History of the Channel Tunnel”
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“Economic Consequences of Kinship: Evidence From U.S. Bans on Cousin Marriage”, et al 2023
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“Notes on the Ivory Coast”, Matt Lakeman
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“Is white always the standard? Using replication to revisit and extend what we know about the leadership prototype”, 2023 (a pre-registered failure to replicate pro-white-leader bias & evidence of anti-white-leader bias)
Psychology/Biology
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“A vibrating ingestible bioelectronic stimulator modulates gastric stretch receptors for illusory satiety”, et al 2023
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“Randomized Trial of Ketamine Masked by Surgical Anesthesia in Depressed Patients”, et al 2023
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“High associative neuron numbers could drive cognitive performance in corvid species”, et al 2022; “An energy costly architecture of neuromodulators for human brain evolution and cognition”, et al 2023; “Gene purging and the evolution of Neoave [bird] metabolism and longevity”, et al 2023; “Tempo and Pattern of Avian Brain Size Evolution”, et al 2020
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“The value of information gathering in phage-bacteria warfare”, et al 2024
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“Fetching felines: a survey of cat owners on the diversity of cat (Felis catus) fetching behavior”, et al 2023
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“How This Marine Worm Can Tell Moonglow From Sunbeams” (a clever solution: have a light-sensitive protein which is extremely fragile)
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“The Woman Who Spent Five Hundred Days in a Cave: Beatriz Flamini liked to be alone so much that she decided to live underground—and pursue a world record. The experience was gruelling and surreal.” (contrary to the initial press conference, she suffered severe mental & physical health issues)
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“Nail Growth: 35 Years of Observation”, Bean 198044ya; “Effects of Sexual Activity on Beard Growth in Man”, 1970
Technology
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“Ultraviolet light can kill almost all the viruses in a room. Why isn’t it everywhere?”
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“Building Apollo: A review of Angle of Attack: Harrison Storms and the Race to the Moon” (project management)
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“Artificial Molecular Machines”, Erbas-et al 2015
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“Plants Find Light Using Gaps Between Their Cells” (unexpected way to compute phototropism)
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“Thanks to This Man, Airplanes Don’t Crash Into Mountains Anymore: Don Bateman’s terrain mapping device has nearly eliminated the largest cause of death in jetliner accidents” (initially using USSR global terrain maps bought on the Russian blackmarket)
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“The World’s Fastest Road Cars—and the People Who Drive Them”
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“Chaffing and winnowing”: cryptography without encryption
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“Non-detection of the Tooth Fairy at Optical Wavelengths”, 2012
Economics
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“Lay economic reasoning: An integrative review and call to action”, 2024
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“Does alleviating poverty increase cognitive performance? Short- and long-term evidence from a randomized controlled trial”, et al 2023 (no); “Cognitive Biases: Mistakes or Missing Stakes?”, et al 2023
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“Can Rock Dust Soak Up Carbon Emissions? A Giant Experiment Is Set to Find Out”
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“The Tremendous Yet Troubled State of Gaming in 2024”, Matthew Ball
Philosophy
Fiction
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“The Names of the Hare”, Anonymous (translated Heaney 198242ya; see 1933 for etymology)
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“SAURON, Mount Doom, and Elvish Moths: The Influence of Tolkien on Modern Science”, 2007
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The first successful AMV: Steamboat Willie (“Turkey in the Straw”+click tracks)
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“Cannibalism in the Cars”, Mark 1868
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“I Found David Lynch’s Lost Dune II Script” in the Frank Herbert university archives, Andy Greenberg
Books
Fiction:
Film/TV
Live-action:
Animated:
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Isle of Dogs (2018)
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“CHAIR”, Hiroshi Mori (200024ya)