Progress Forum

• AMA: Allison Duettmann, Foresight Institute
• NYC progress meetup on March 27 at NY Public Library

Opportunities

• ARIA (UK) is hiring program directors and other roles
• Seed funding for ideas to accelerate scientific progress (via @heidilwilliams_)
• Real Engineering (YouTube channel) hiring a 3D modeler

Announcements

• OpenAI launches GPT-4 (via @sama). Also, Anthropic opens access to Claude. And Poe can access both
• $50M for more FROs in drug discovery / proteomics (via @tkalil2050)
• Loyal receives FDA approval for a clinical study on an aging drug
• Zipline unveils a home delivery drone system
• Vesuvius Challenge: $1M prize to read ancient scrolls using AI (via @natfriedman)
• Aalo Atomics, a new nuclear startup (via @MattLoszak, not much detail though)
• Deirdre McCloskey joins Cato

Links

• “Nanomodular electronics”: 3D printing of microelectronics (via @Spec__Tech)
• John von Neumann asks, “Can we survive technology?” (via @michael_nielsen)
• Dan Wang’s annual letter for 2022

Queries

• What are some specific benefits enabled by human-level AI?
• What is a question to ask GPT to prove whether it has a world model?
• What are the best arguments that the “atomization” of society is real and important?
• What should Hannah Ritchie read about whether nuclear is too slow to build?
• What should Michael Nielsen read about AI safety, ethics, and policy?
• What should Emmet Shear read to get up to date on neuroscience?
• Who are good people to follow for deep timeless general insights?

Quotes

• Deirdre McCloskey on the spiritual benefits of economic progress
• “That salutary fear of the future that makes one watchful and combative”
• “The time will come when the machines will hold the real supremacy over the world”
• “I was born in this century in which the whole world became known”
• Vannevar Bush on paying attention to the quiet minorty vs. the noisy one
• Edsger Dijkstra: “we should occasionally welcome the nightmares”
• John Stuart Mill on the nature of credit

AI

• Is AI is the next big thing in computing history, industrial history, or human history?
• GPT-4 can explain memes and run an online business
• Duolingo launches a language tutor powered by GPT-4
• AI assistance for the blind (h/t @peterwildeford)
• John Carmack on how to build software skills that won’t be obsoleted by AI
• The “AI will expand your bullet points into prose and then someone else’s AI will turn them back into bullet points” thing is now an official product demo
• “Fascinating how nobody thinks image AIs are conscious”
• Cyrano de Bergerac, but with ChatGPT
• The Book of ChatGPT

Misc.

• Why did we build clockwork automata before we automated most human labor?
• Taking a driverless taxi around San Francisco
• In 1929 people thought skyscrapers would make the workday shorter (note that a shorter workday was a common prediction at that time!)
• Bottled gardens can last for decades; space colony ecosystems should be doable
• “There’s no intrinsic shortage of H2O. It falls from the skies!”
• The benefits of social media
• Charts and memes that show how rapidly the world can change
• Lamenting the demise of the sweeping multi-volume histical opus. Like this
• Bret Victor: “We are ants crawing on a tree branch.” Also, how to read
• A 14-Earths-tall swirling column of plasma

Politics & policy

• UK announces unilateral recognition for medicines approved overseas
• Another major infrastructure project abandoned in part due to legal challenges. And what Republicans should offer on permitting
• How laws get abused
• Luddites vs. safetyists
• “Consultation Nation”
• A parallel between banking regulation & pharma regulation
• Our antiquated lawmaking process will be seen as a bizarre relic, says Balaji
• Matthew Green: EU “chat control” law is “the most alarming proposal I’ve ever read”

Charts

• How technology helps us find love

• Changes in the colors of objects since 1800 (via @paulg)