Links (July 2020)
OpenAI releases GPT-3 the long-awaited follow-up to GPT-2. Saying it’s impressive doesn’t do it justice. Tyler Cowen calls it the Hope 2020 Needs. See this awesome collection of GPT-3 demos and articles. It does everything from generating HTML layouts, serving as a fully functioning search engine, writing like an attorney (and translating “legalese” into simple plain English) to creating marketing content, Google ads or emails in your style from key points. If you are curious how GPT3 works see the following visualizations and animations:
Tanner Greer explores The Theory of History That Guides Xi Jinping. China’s strategic decision to follow “peaceful development” (building up its power and reshaping the global order through “win-win” development) depends on Xi Jinping’s belief that globalization and economic integration is an irrevocable historical law. Greer chillingly concludes:
“In days of depression and pandemic this is an unsettling thought.”
Let’s not forget that The World’s Most Technologically Sophisticated Genocide Is Happening in Xinjiang. This made me think since genocide itself is a relatively new term, we hopefully won’t need a word like "geogenocide" (genocide for geopolitical reasons).
In the TikTok War Ben Thompson ponders an appropriate response to China’s ideological war with liberalism and its expanding will to control information outside of its borders.
Thread on the death of “good faith debate” on social media by Lili Loofbourow (threadreaderapp link).
Joe Veix on the phenomenon of selling out your face to please YouTube's "Algorithmic Gods". It leads to an ever-escalating arms race for our attention.
I cannot but admire the following premise of Balaji’s Purpose of Technology:
If the proximate purpose of technology is to reduce scarcity, the ultimate purpose of technology is to eliminate mortality.
Nabeel Qureshi in How To Understand Things on intelligence that comes from virtues (like honesty and integrity), experience, being unafraid to look stupid, going slow and getting closer.
Relax and open a window somewhere in the world. A great site for a home page or a new tab in your browser.
How Four Americans Robbed the Bank of England. Great piece on 19th century Ocean’s 11 heist.
If you are a fan of data storytelling (r/dataisbeautiful) browse the charts on chartr.
Dario Perkins hilariously presents the rules to being a sellside economist. I particularly like rule 5:
How to get attention: If you want to get famous for making big non-consensus calls, without the danger of looking like a muppet, you should adopt ‘the 40% rule’. Basically you can forecast whatever you want with a probability of 40%. Greece to quit the euro? Maybe! Trump to fire Powell and hire his daughter as the new Fed chair? Never say never! 40% means the odds will be greater than anyone else is saying, which is why your clients need to listen to your warning, but also that they shouldn’t be too surprised if, you know, the extreme event doesn’t actually happen.
With the latest Twitter hack, many people speculate how the hacker’s left money on the table. That may have not been the case. Also, access to famous accounts private DMs may yet prove useful.
Bob Henderson thrilling recollection and lessons from losing $200 million in the 2008 financial crisis. Great insight into the illusion of control and how unlike physics markets are.
George Selgin presents his critical assessment series on the impact of the New Deal on the Great Depression.
Scraping Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy to generate a list of most-cited works.
Have you’ve ever wondered how the Swiss political system functions?
Fiction:
I used Scott Alexander’s Transhumanist Fables with the AI Dungeon to generate new fables.
In the spirit of the GPT-3, I enjoyed Brief Interviews with Hideous Bots by Zero HP Lovecraft. I love the gimmick of omitting the questions after David Foster Wallace.
Who knew that one Garfield comic strip can inspire a captivating story: Sivad's Question by gazemaize.