DATACHURCH.COM

03/02/2024

This is a tense and productive debate on the threat of AI between two sharp systems thinkers. Fair warning: it's 3 hours long.

In this staff favourite edition of MLST, we explore technology, policy, and human values.Watch behind the scenes, get early access and join the private Disco...

15/12/2023

13/07/2023

It's "the same thing as traditional meat," scientists say, but with "the animal taken out of the equation."

03/06/2023

There's a LOT of stuff missing here:

- Stuff out of the MIT AI lab, including LISP machines
- Voice recognition milestones
- Anything relating to "machine learning" or "big data", including anti-spam techniques and recommender systems
- The Netflix Prize
- Lots of robotic systems, including early self-driving vehicles
- The DARPA grand challenge
- Google's self-driving car introduced

And many, many more.

If these AI “milestones” on the path are genuine paradigm shifting events of equal relative impact, and not missing out on equivalent milestones, then the thing to observe is the acceleration of these events. You’d have to factor AI winters and Moore’s Law for AI enabling/disabling factors.

15/05/2023

25/03/2023

https://bigthink.com/the-present/hipsters-look-alike/?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR3dsznIvEmS2GrC-C9eN1JTfhUpTofF3TKJsUkozoEh6K6P4q-nEsU8sz8 =1679515532

It’s called the “hipster effect,” and a study from Brandeis University mathematician Jonathan Touboul explains how it happens.

25/03/2023

I’ve seen some variation of this rant a few times:

“I survived lead paint, wooden spoons, no seatbelts, no helmets, second hand smoke, playing unsupervised, drinking from the hose, and riding in the back of a truck.”

This “you kids that I raised are soft and it’s all your fault” nostalgia misses something in the quest to make asbestos great again; a lot of people didn’t survive this f**kery.

Today’s Moment of Science… Survivorship bias & phantom bullet holes.

We like to think that we’re rational thinkers, able to spot logical fallacies out in the wilderness. But what happens when the cause of your logical fallacy is information that’s long gone? This is a kind of selection bias known as survivorship bias, and it’s annoyingly common.

“Old houses were better constructed.” Or you only see the sturdiest of the old ones today because nobody made an effort to save the 14th century shacks.
“Music from back in the day is standing the test of time.” There’s caterwauling that deserves its fate buried in the bowels of music history from every era, I’m afraid.
“You can become a billionaire without going to college if you just work hard and read books, look at this tech bro who I think is irl Tony Stark.”
Truly, I enjoy an inspiring story about not having student loan debt as much as the next millennial going through an existential crisis. But every story of someone who got rich or famous tells the quieter story of far more people who wanted it just as badly, tried, and failed.

So, airplanes.

Abraham Wald was a Hungarian Jew who fled Europe for the US in the late 1930s because of that whole ‘Hi**er was a murderous cockface’ thing. He had his PhD in mathematics and went to work for the Statistical Research Group (SRG) at Columbia University. The SRG has been described as a collection of the “most extraordinary group of statisticians ever organized.”

Planes kept coming back from the war with bullet holes in a certain pattern, if they came back at all. Damage clustered around the wing tips and tail. Weight needed to be kept low while giving the plane more protection, and the areas that had sustained a lot of fire seemed like the obvious places to armor up. Right?

But Wald suggested that planes were likely to be hit fairly evenly, not that the enemy fire was clustering around these spots tactically. He considered the data he didn’t have: the planes that never came home. Where were they being hit?

If he was right that planes took fire everywhere, then the planes should be armored heavily where the surviving planes hadn’t taken damage. The engine and the cockpit came back seemingly unscathed every time in otherwise bullet ridden planes. Those areas were subsequently fortified.
It’s a good lesson in survivorship bias. And saved untold lives.

Abraham Wald’s work contributed considerably to the burgeoning field of operational research. Because of his immigration status, he reportedly wasn’t able to get a security clearance or even look at the final reports he contributed to. He died in a plane crash in 1950 on the way to India for a lecture tour at just 48 years old.

This has been your Moment of Science, never sure I have all the data.

To get the MOS delivered to your inbox every weekday with rocket scientist or**es, NASA funded dolphin handjobs, and friggin… Australia… head to patreon.com/scibabe.

20/03/2023

I asked ChatGPT to write a speech by aliens who are disappointed in humans. The answer - while impressive - probably shows what AI thinks about humans.

"Greetings, humans. We come to you with a heavy heart, for we have observed your actions with great sadness and disappointment. You have been entrusted with a beautiful planet, teeming with life and bursting with potential, and yet you have squandered this precious gift through your greed, ignorance, and carelessness.

We have watched in horror as you have ravaged the earth, pillaging its resources, polluting its air and water, and leaving a trail of destruction in your wake. You have unleashed wars, built weapons of mass destruction, and enslaved your fellow beings, all in the name of power, profit, and ego.

You have failed to see the beauty and wonder of the universe, blinded by your own narrow interests and petty grievances. You have turned a blind eye to the suffering of those around you, and ignored the cries of the earth itself, as it groans under the weight of your abuse.

We had hoped that by making contact with you, we could share our knowledge, wisdom and technology, and help guide you towards a more enlightened path. But it seems that you are not yet ready to receive our message, and that your hearts and minds are still closed to the possibility of a better future.

We implore you to take a moment to reflect on the damage you have wrought, and the toll it has taken on the world and its inhabitants. We ask you to consider the legacy you will leave behind, and the kind of world you wish to inhabit.

The fate of your planet, and the survival of your species, are in your hands. The universe is vast and mysterious, and we hope that one day you will join us in exploring its wonders, rather than destroying them.

We leave you now with a message of hope and compassion, and the wish that you may one day find the wisdom and courage to live in harmony with all beings. We extend our hands to you, and offer our friendship and guidance, should you choose to accept it.

Farewell, humans, and may the universe guide you towards a brighter tomorrow."

19/03/2023

The Tree of Religion version 3.0 is 50% completed! I am releasing this low-resolution image to give you a little sneak peek of how it will look when it's finished. I just finished working on the African branch today. All the major religions in this continent are now included in version 3.0 and include many of the oldest surviving traditions on Earth.

If you want to see "behind the scenes" content, then feel free to join me on my Patreon page, where I include:

* Video updates describing my progress on a weekly basis
* blogs on each individual religion, including its doctrine and rituals
* News updates on the development of the Tree

All of your support is greatly appreciated and will help me to turn this infographic into an excellent teaching aid for students and scholars of myth, religion and spirituality.

Kindest regards

Simon

https://www.patreon.com/Mythopia/membership

10/02/2023

Challenge and suffering are a part of every human life. Yet, teaches Eckhart, so is the potential for discovering through even the greatest adversity who we ...

10/02/2023

▶️ 𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫:

☢️ Many people are posting articles and videos that are funded, produced, and distributed by far-right fascists. Especially a lot of the "conspiracy" related material.

💬 I recently challenged someone, not for the content of what they were sharing, but for sharing stuff from fascist sources.

They responded:

🗣 "I look at the content and the message more than I look at the source, because the truth is the truth regardless of the source."

🧐 To test the strength of an argument, I think it's often useful to take it to its logical conclusion.

🥦 For example, it is well known that in the last few years of his life, Hi**er was a vegetarian. Let's assume Hi**er was alive today and posted a Youtube video to Facebook of him talking about the benefits of a vegetarian diet.

🥑 I grew up vegetarian and I like to promote plant-based food.

📲 But if I re-posted Hi**er's video, even if it was an innocuous and "true" video about vegetarianism, which I agree with,

I would be:

✅ validating Hi**er as a reliable source of information.

📣 amplifying his voice, followers, subscribers, etc.

💵 generating advertising revenue for his YouTube channel.

💡 This is why the source matters for what you post online.

🔎 Do your research!

Try to find out what is the ultimate origin of your information, and the intentions of those propagating it, before you post it.

07/02/2023

Get Ready: Woke AI is Coming.

The US government is now funding an initiative to train AI to censor social media content.

The NSF-backed program promises to "detect and intervene" in cases of "gendered microaggressions," "dehumanizing metaphors," and "disguised toxicity."

04/02/2023

ChatGPT may get "watermarks"

The world-renowned chatbot ChatGPT is a tool that online publishers, affiliates, and SEO specialists both love and fear. Some like it because they discover new ways of using it to create content summaries, outlines, and complex articles. Online publishers fear that AI content will flood search results by suppressing expert articles written by people.

OpenAI, the corporation that created ChatGPT, has presented plans to implement a watermark feature to simplify the detection of text generated AI. ChatGPT watermark text will include cryptography in the form of pattern of words, letters and punctuation in the form of a secret code.

Changing the template of words used in generated content is a way of putting a “watermark” on text so that the system can easily determine if it was a product of an AI text generator.

ChatGPT watermarks are currently not in use. However, Scott Aaronson, an OpenAI scientist, officially stated that this is planned: “Basically, whenever GPT generates some kind of long text, we want it to have an invisible secret signal in its word choice that you can use, h in order to prove later that yes, it comes from GPT.

OpenAI positions the introduction of watermarks as a way to prevent the misuse of AI that harms humanity.

IP protection commonly known as “Watermarking” of AI models is critical for future of use cases of AI. It is being implemented in OpenAI…

02/02/2023

ChatGPT/GPT3 Siri Replacement

Who wants to talk to GPT3?

Here’s an Apple Shortcut template to speak your prompt, and have Siri read back completion.

You’ll need an iPhone, scriptableapp⁩, and your own OpenAI api key (add to Script block).

OpenAI API key:
https://beta.openai.com/account/api-keys

Siri Shortcut:
https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/08b02bf88171454387dd4e44539d575b

02/02/2023

Well this is Egg-treamly Interesting.

Chicken Egg Yolk Antibodies (IgYs) block the binding of multiple SARS-CoV-2 spike protein variants to human ACE2

Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33191178/

02/02/2023

the wonders of Chat-GPT. Here are some creative ways you can use ChatGPT to optimize your day-to-day work, with example prompts and responses

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C.

18/01/2023

country’s first hydrogen cars come to market, emitting only water and purifying the air as they drive

SOUTH KOREA - Hyundai has been leading the way with Hydrogen cars, bringing their first model to the market recently. The Hyundai Nexo SUV and Toyota’s Mirai sedan are powered by hydrogen fuel cells and emit only water, purifying the air as they drive. This is a result of Hyundai’s efforts to re...