Hopefully a non-profit that supports a group of monks would be motivated by more than just the bid with the highest amount of money, especially since they seem to have always allowed public access to the waterfall.
“The foundation put the property up for open auction in early February, meaning there was no minimum or maximum bid, she said. It accepted the offer the state made under the bill that passed.”
Why is this important? Do you not think that at some point, probably sooner rather than later, math researchers across the world will have access to similar capabilities?
This is sort of like discounting putting humans in space because only a few nations have the means to actually do it at the moment.
> Anthropic is ramping up its efforts very quickly in biology and medicine
I hope they have better sandboxes in their biology lab than they did in their cyber security lab.
More seriously, these sociopaths will soon release lab-made viruses into the world to prove AI's capability and to force governments into regulation of open models. It should be obvious by now that with their savior complex, the goals (cure cancer, AI safety, save humanity) justify any means.
Wondering if the hallucination also occurs to other animals?
Would dogs taking the L. asiatica see little humans or little dogs? Probably neither, but then does that mean the fungus had targeted humans genetically?
We know with extremely high certainty that classical psychedelics effect other animals similarly given the neuroscience [1]. But this is not a classical psychedelic. We don't know how it works yet, what receptors it operates on, or what the pharmacology is doing.
So would dogs see little humans or little dogs? We can't say for sure. But the best guess might actually be most likely little dogs, or maybe little smells of little dogs. Dogs show conspecific preference (species-focus) while we show facial preference [2] and they have a strong focus on olfactory sense while we're more visual. The vividness might show up in ways we can't really perceive through smell like they can.
And the answer to "does that mean the fungus has targeted humans genetically" is almost definitely no. The study the article is based on [3] mentions that lilliputian hallucinations predate this mushroom, appear across cultures' folklore, and are reported in alcohol withdrawal, dementia, and macular degeneration. The effect seems fundamental to how the human mind and brain work. So it's more likely that the mushroom is disrupting something and the brain is resolving that disruption into little people, because that's what it does with pattern matching.
This mushroom is an ectomycorrhizal symbiote of the Yunnan pine tree, is ancient with the genus being at least 5 million years old compared to modern humans 300k, and requires undercooking which isn't compatible with human targeting so it doesn't make sense to have any genetic human target.
The fungus supplies a non-targeted disruption and the resulting little people content we describe is the human brain's response. A dog getting the same disruption would resolve it into whatever a dog's machinery produces, or maybe they metabolize it into nothing recognizable.
> does that mean the fungus had targeted humans genetically?
very utilitarian and anthropocentric world view.
Why would a random thing in the world specifically targeting humans with some niche effect? Did cocoa plant target humans specifically with its pleasing flavor (after having been heavily processed), while being toxic for many other animals?
Why would a random thing in the world specifically target anything? Nature throws things against the wall and keeps what sticks.
Look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedychrum_rutilans, a parasite on a parasite. Did it target beewolves specifically? And now its hosts are dying, was it his fault he chose the 'wrong' target?
Not the anthropocentricity is to criticise, but the idea of nature targeting. OP asked a well meaning question where sth. can be be learned from. Thank you.
The whole targeting phrasing mixes cause and effect. Evolution, as we currently understand it, is working differently: it is random effects and seeing what sticks, as you phrased, not targeting anything specifically.
The level of consciousness where the phrase targeting makes sense is way higher.
With utilitarian and anthropocentric world view you mean the 'target thinking' ascribing intention to nature, and not what is targeted, which are only incidentally humans here.
We need more and stronger open source/weight models considering how deeply and intimately these bots are going to be integrated in our lives.
I hope that Dario Amodei fails in his quest to regulate open models out of existence to line his pocket under the guise of safety. Amodei/anthropic will end up being the most harmful force in the next few decades where progress in AI is concerned.
I hope people realize sooner than later that this is a replay of early Microsoft vs open source situation and Amodei is the new Gates on a crusade against open source/Linux.
It'd attract all sorts of billionaires to bid on it and make it unaffordable for the public.
(The story seems to be old though, so hopefully it did end up being sold to the public.)
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