March 2024 News
March 2024 Gwern.net newsletter with links on TODO
March 2024’s Gwern.net newsletter is now out; previous, February 2024 (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
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InvertOrNot.com, Mattis Megevand: a NN-powered API for whether to invert images in a website dark-mode
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Gwern.net:
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use of InvertOrNot.com in dark-mode
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links created/modified in past 2 months now get special black-star symbol to highlight novelty ( = ‘changed’)
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correct date-sorting on “newest links”
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large tables now have sticky headers & scroll-in-place
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new adblock PSA
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Links
AI
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Devin launched by Cognition AI: “Gold-Medalist Coders Build an AI That Can Do Their Job for Them”
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“I trained a reinforcement learning agent to play Pokemon Red!”, Peter Whidden (PPO CNN with novelty bonus; demonstrates: noisy TV problem, reward-shaping, reward-hacking, & RNG exploits)
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“Microsoft, OpenAI plan $100 billion data-center project, media report says”
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“Grandmaster-Level Chess Without Search”, et al 2024; “Evidence of Learned Look-Ahead in a Chess-Playing Neural Network”, Erik 2024 (Leela Chess Zero looks ahead at least two turns during the forward pass)
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“Why the Law of Effect will not Go Away”, Dennett 197450ya (the evolution of model-based RL)
Genetics
Everything Is Heritable:
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“Low resting metabolic rate and increased hunger due to β-MSH and β-endorphin deletion in a canine model”, et al 2024 (why Labrador dogs are so fat)
Recent Evolution:
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“Cellular Self-Destruction May Be Ancient. But Why? How did cells evolve a process to end their own lives? Recent research suggests that apoptosis, a form of programmed cell death, first arose billions of years ago in bacteria with a primitive sociality” (inclusive fitness in microbial communities)
Engineering:
Statistics/Meta-Science
Politics/Religion
Psychology/Biology
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“Estimated Sustainable Cost-Based Prices for Diabetes Medicines”, et al 2024 (once development is paid off, semaglutide etc could be very cheap)
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“E. coli chemotaxis: the baffling intelligence of a single cell” (how bacteria mechanistically decide how to explore)
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“Human brains preserve in diverse environments for at least 12,000 years”, Morton-et al 2024
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“Object permanence in newborn chicks is robust against opposing evidence”, et al 2024
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“Diversity in Saami terminology for reindeer, snow, and ice”, 2006
Technology
Economics
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“Clown Eggs”, 2019
Philosophy
Fiction
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RIP “Vernor Vinge (1944–802024)”; “First Word”, Vinge 198341ya; “The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era”, 1993
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“Chance and Order”, Stanisław Lem 1984 (Lem remains the SF author, after Vinge, of the 2020s)
Miscellaneous
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Historia Augusta (Gibbon’s biggest mistake—one of our most important sources on the late Roman Empire turns out to be a blatant pack of lies, possibly some sort of very erudite literary exercise, like a Roman Onion)
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The Æsop for Children, ? 201212ya (gorgeous)
Books
Nonfiction:
Fiction:
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The Quantum Thief Trilogy, Rajaniemi 2014 (review)
Film/TV
Live-action:
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Romeo & Juliet opera
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The Force of Destiny, Verdi
Animated:
Music
MLP:
Doujin:
Misc: