The Invasion of Ukraine and Possibly Conscious Neural Networks
Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes
TL;DR
Our thoughts and prayers to the Ukrainian people in this difficult time. We make a few brief comments about the ongoing crisis followed by a brief discussion of conscious neural networks and end with a roundup of interesting science news from across the web.
The Invasion of Ukraine
The crisis in Ukraine is unfolding rapidly. It is impossible to say what the long term repercussions of the conflict will be, but we have unambiguously entered a dangerous new world.
Trends such as the rising importance of secure supply chains will only become more important in the years to come. Companies and countries will have to plan for a world in which conflicts routinely disrupt global trade.
Are Neural Networks Conscious?
The chief scientist of OpenAI made a controversial tweet, questioning whether large neural networks could be “slightly conscious.”
Famous AI researcher Yann LeCun, chief AI scientist at Meta immediately refuted the claim
The largest neural networks now can display powerful facsimiles of intelligent behavior. While these systems clearly lack the intelligence of a human, there is something new and even unsettling about their capabilities.
Weekly News Roundup
https://www.quantamagazine.org/most-complete-simulation-of-a-cell-probes-lifes-hidden-rules-20220224/: An ambitious new study undertakes a detailed simulation of a minimal cell.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/cobol-programming-shelf-life: The slow migration away from Cobol continues
https://www.wsj.com/articles/white-house-lays-out-broad-changes-to-address-supply-chain-shortfalls-11645696800: The Biden administration is continuing to explore methods of shoring up supply chain shortfalls.
https://physics.aps.org/articles/v15/27: A study of the physics of yarn
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/down-synthetic-details: A deep dive into process chemistry
Feedback and Comments
Please feel free to email me directly (bharath@deepforestsci.com) with your feedback and comments!
About
Deep Into the Forest is a newsletter by Deep Forest Sciences, Inc. We’re a deep tech R&D company building an AI-powered scientific discovery engine. Deep Forest Sciences leads the development of the open source DeepChem ecosystem. Partner with us to apply our foundational AI technologies to hard real-world problems. Get in touch with us at partnerships@deepforestsci.com!
Credits
Author: Bharath Ramsundar, Ph.D.
Editor: Sandya Subramanian, Ph.D.