scott townsend

Used To Wait For It. Used to sleep at night before the flashing lights settled deep in my brain.

[scott townsend @scott4townsend]

“The brain is a complex computational device...that takes sensory information as input, transforms it...stores it, analyzes it, integrates it, applies decision rules to it, and then translates the output of those rules into the muscular contractions that we call “behaviour”.”

[Gregg Carlstrom @glcarlstrom]

A few thoughts on today, in no particular order. First, among Israelis: impossible to overstate the level of shock. The intelligence failure resembles 1973, but you almost have to go back to 1948 to find an analogue for the violence that played out in cities and towns. 🧵

[Derek Thompson @DKThomp]

Pretty wild if the story ends up being that big pharma was doing clinical trials on diabetes medication and sorta kinda accidentally discovered a weight-loss miracle drug ... and then, wait, oh-by-the-way, it's also the cure for addiction?

[Paul Bloom @paulbloomatyale]

I'm paying for GPT-4, but is there any clear advantage it has over Bing Chat?

[scott townsend @scott4townsend]

This flopping is getting out of control! @KevinOConnorNBA @ChrisVernonShow

[Paul Graham @paulg]

The inexorable decrease in kids' ranges. (via @eshear)

[Jonathan Kay @jonkay]

We are all so very proud of you, CBC. It gets better.

[Moritz Rudolf @MoritzRudolf]

🇨🇳 Foreign Minister Qin Gang is currently in Europe.

After visiting 🇩🇪 & 🇫🇷, he will meet his Norwegian counterpart on May 12.

Why 🇳🇴?

Qin arrives in Oslo one day after 🇳🇴 takes over as chair of the Arctic Council (2023-2025) from 🇷🇺

Why is this relevant?
🧵

[Paul Graham @paulg]

Observation suggests that people are switching to using ChatGPT to write things for them with almost indecent haste. Most people hate to write as much as they hate math. Way more than admit it. Within a year the median piece of writing could be by AI.

[Matthew Sivieri @MattyBoySwag143]

The notion that "poverty causes crime" invoked to excuse poor people from responsibility is not new.

Dostoevsky wrote about "socialists" saying the same thing, in 1866.

[Catherine McKenna @cathmckenna]

That a bunch of folks in official Ottawa knew that MP Chong's family was being targeted by the Chinese, decided not to tell him & no apparent consequences is appalling on personal, political & diplomatic level. But not surprising based on my experience. Be serious.

[Margaret McCuaig-Johnston 🇨🇦 @M_Johnston1]

See thread on the important initiative being taken by @UWaterloo to sever collaborations with @Huawei. Other universities are sure to follow. Now @FinanceCanada should step in with funding to fill the gap, & rectify universities’ absence from the recent Budget. @ISED_CA

[Rob Henderson @robkhenderson]

Very interesting piece from @G_S_Bhogal: https://t.co/eImrFTH7z3

[Greg Brockman @gdb]

Interesting first results of applying GPT embeddings to early diagnosis of dementia — 80% accuracy on a challenge dataset of speech recordings. Note also the paper was submitted in August; we've released much better embeddings since then! https://t.co/udfEAlLFpC

[Michael Grunwald @MikeGrunwald]

I did some fun reporting last week in the Bay Area, checking out companies making meat and dairy products without animals. I ate some of the future of food. Here’s a thread with some of the cool stuff I got to try! 1

[Rayhan E. Asat @RayhanAsat]

It didn’t take long. The #Chinese gov announced that any individual who shares news about “the Fire in Uyghur #Urumqi city” beyond the gov narrative would face a penalty. They urge citizens to respect the Covid policy.
Chinese gov’s various control machinery is already activated.

[POLITICOEurope @POLITICOEurope]

Huawei is giving up on Europe.

The reason has little to do with the company’s commercial potential and everything to do with politics.

Here, we take you inside the Chinese tech company’s strategic pivot away from Europe – and how the US played a part 🧵
https://t.co/G2KrOWZlnU

[Mark MacKinnon @markmackinnon]

No heat, no water, no WiFi - life in Kyiv is getting harder as the war enters a 10th month. ⁦@ZelenskyyUa⁩ says Ukrainians would go without basic services as long as it meant being without Russia. The Kremlin is putting that to the test. My report https://t.co/tnlMqMqZkm

[Manya Koetse @manyapan]

Watching these talks, I want to know more about the interpreters behind the scenes. Are they in the room or in another room? Do all parties bring their own or are they centrally organized? Is there a Chinese-Dutch translation for Rutte or would he get the translation in English?

[Jason Choi @mrjasonchoi]

The Definitive Thread on FTX

I met SBF before FTX started, and witnessed their rise and fall. I can't stand @nytimes's puff piece.

If anyone wants to know what happened, send them this.

[Ben Norton @BenjaminNorton]

French President Macron very respectfully spoke with Venezuelan President Maduro at UN climate conference COP27

Macron made it clear France recognizes Venezuela's constitutionally elected government, referring to Maduro as president and proposing dialogue