Anders Sandberg
anderssandberg
New paper out by Andrew E. Snyder-Beattie, me, Eric Drexler and @mbbonsall about how the timing of evolutionary transitions on Earth suggests intelligent life is rare: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/ast.2019.2149 There is life
Read more
#FridayPhysicsFun – Today I have been thinking about light sails. The propellantless, green way of getting from point A to B (often rather slowly). This is a *classic* idea. Kepler
Read more
"Don't mention the X!": the XKCD effect, naughty pictures, and information hazards - accidental "thinking loud" thread. TL;DR: what are the conditions for harmful ideas that act just through mention?
Read more
For me, the big story about #gpt3 is not that it is smart - it is dumb as a pile of rocks - but that piles of rocks can do
Read more
Friday physics fun: today is Midsummer Eve in Sweden. Midsummer proper is the summer solstice, when the Earth's axis is tilted most towards the sun in the northern hemisphere and
Read more
Friday physics fun: in 1778 Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon estimated that the Earth was 97,000 years old. He did it by heating metal spheres in his foundry and measuring
Read more