Tyler Cowen believes that ChatGPT o3 is AGI. "On a vast array of topics and methods, it wipes the floor with the humans."
Alex Taborrok asks ChatGPT o3 what his blind spots are.
Claims of evidence for life on K2-18b, a planet 120 light years away. (NPR, NY Times, BBC) The evidence is Dimethyl Sulfide detected by the James Webb telescope. On earth, all non-laboratory DMS is made by living things, but it is a 9-atom molecule that's easy to make in a lab, so it could just be weird atmospheric chemistry.
Richard Hanania, "The Based Ritual," how MAGAs talk to each other. Not paywalled when I read it.
Interesting thread on Twitter/X about what it means to "see like a school."
Review of a new history of the Americas: "It may make sense to think of the United States as a wealthy Latin American country, rather than an offshoot of Europe mysteriously governed by cowboys."
Fascinating tomb found in Peru, apparently people who all died in the same conflict.
Andrew Heaton, "Your Tribalism is Dumb"
Study finds that when people try to ban books from US libraries the popularity of those books goes up by an average of 12%.
Who's up and who's down in the US right now.
The decline of manufacturing jobs in China.
I just learned that Neil Gaiman is in legal hot water after his former nanny accused him of rape. Other women have also made allegations of sexual misconduct. His wife is divorcing him, and, we are told, has referred to him as "Weinstein." Oy.
On the other hand, author Junot Díaz has been removed from the Norton Anthology of World Literature and scratched from a bunch of course syllabi because of "MeToo" charges that MIT, which investigated him, found to "lack merit." The Norton editors freely admit that because of the (unproven) charges against him, he was too much of a liability for them to risk including him.
Roman bridgehead fort found in Austria.
First video of a colossal squid in the deep ocean.
Sabine Hossenfelder on some new research into how human brains create consciousness, 5-minute video.
Donald Trump takes a break from his war on "criminal" immigrants to reassure agribusiness and hoteliers that he won't deport their workers. Matt Yglesias: "The premise of Trumpian immigration politics is that the typical illegal inmigrant is a violent criminal, but Donald Trump the golf course owner who hangs out with rich Florida landowners at his luxury resort is aware that it’s mostly just people working." Trump seems to want a guest worker program, which would be ok with me, but Congress has never been willing to authorize one of meaningful size.
Capybaras overrun an exclusive neighborhood in Buenos Aires (NY Times; Time; El Pais).
2 comments:
It might be mentioned that this colossal squid is a baby. It's about a foot long.
Granted, it will get much bigger. (If it survives.)
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