Archive for AlphaFold
[not so] hostile takeover on my Nature issue
Posted in Books, pictures, Travel, University life with tags AF beer, AI scare, AlphaFold, alternative meat, black holes, book review, bread, buckwheat, Caspian sea, CHANCE, chili pepper, cultivated meat, curry, English beer, flight mode, foie gras, fruit fly, group picture, Internet, internet security, Montréal, Nature, Nobel Prize, origin of bread, Parasite, rye bread, Singapore, solar system, wasps on November 29, 2024 by xi'anNobAIl prAIzes
Posted in Books, pictures, Travel, University life with tags AI, AlphaFold, Amazon, artificial intelligence, Boltzmann machines, Botlzman models, ChatGPT, Deep Mind, Friedrich Nietzsche, Google, Hopfield networks, Ising model, Markov random field, MCMC algorithms, neural network, Nobel Prize, Nobel Prize in Litterature, protein folding, South Korea, Stockholm, Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, Sweden, twitter, vegetarian diet on October 11, 2024 by xi'an
I am quite surprised that the NobAIl committee did not select ChatGPT‘s Sam Altman for their literature prize—since he made a reality of monkeys typing at random on a typewriter, hence bound to a.s. produce past and future masterpieces—, now betting on Twitter’s Dorsey, Williams and Stone for their peace prize— for achieving worldwide harmony if within each single-minded community in only 140 characters—, and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos for their Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel—for produing the ultimate monopoly of a single worldwide convenience store—, given their picks for physics—with spin glass Ising models that have always sounded to me like the worst possible illustration for MCMC techniques— and chemistry—for a deep learning predictor of protein structures, built by large teams and numerous CPU hours, achieving high success rates if not perfection, but prediction is not explanation, reminding me of Nietzsche’s “physics, too, is only an interpretation and exegesis of the world (to suit us, if I may say so!) and not a world-explanation”—… Keeping their sharp focus on AI’s, corporate funded research, and male recipients… (As coïncidences come, I am currently reading a book of the literature 2024 Nobel recipient, Han Kang, The Vegetarian, that I find stunning and immensely original!)
Nature tidbits [23/05/2024]
Posted in Books, Kids, pictures, Travel, University life with tags AI, AlphaFold, blue crabs, Cairo, Congress, Croatia, Deep Mind, Egypt, invasive species, Napoléon Bonaparte, Nature, open source, Philosophy of religions, proprietary code, Pula, pyramids, quantum computers, quantum entanglement, quantum internet, Ramses II, Tahir Square, US politics on August 12, 2024 by xi'an
When visiting Warwick last week, I read an issue of Nature in the plane and came across…
…a brand new and ambitious museum in Egypt for Egyptians (and others), incl. the repatriation of many artefacts, while hoping the tragedy of the unique Institute of Egypt, a research centre set up in 1798 by Bonaparte, being destroyed in 2011 by fire during the clashes between Tahrir Square protestors and military forces in Cairo, and finished by firemen flooding the place and its rare books, and remembering the sorry state of the surroundings of the Great Pyramids when I visited them almost twenty years ago,
…Nature editorial on its failing to publish AlphaFold3 code, with corporate knee-jerk newspeak,
…within an article on the “miracle” obesity drug(s), the sobering warning of half of the population turning obese by 2035…
…a Swiss experiment on paying researchers to spot errors in published papers, although I am unconvinced by the argument that paid readers would prove more reliable than benevolent ones,
…AI experts hired by the US Congress providing advice on federal AI legislation,
new achievements in developing quantum internet at the scale of a (so far small) city, a concept I had never met before (and which does not make total sense to me, incl. the appeal of quantum entanglement),
…support or lack thereof of harassed scientists within their institution (which would clearly be in the “lack” branch for my institution!),
…some “careers stories” of faith vs. science, that reports on a survey on how scientists with a religious affiliation experience their religion at work, or not, with some unconvincing arguments towards incorporating religion elements in scientific discussions,
…a (weekly) portrait of a biotechnologist cum fisherman fishing for blue crabs in Pula, Croatia—which we visited eleven years ago—, an invasive species that he encourages people to eat,
and much more stuff!
