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Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

quantamagazine.org

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Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#11

Post by markburns »

grugagag wrote: post #7
dojomouse wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think ML is likely to be material to us making many more such discoveries. So much of the current constraint is not in the knowledge to identify the interesting pattern, but the capacity to look for it at scale.

Yeah but you missed the point op was making

That seems an uncharitable view of the reply.

The search space is huge, we sometimes find needles in haystacks by accident, isn’t it exciting that we have tools now that can systematically check every piece of hay?

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#12

Post by richrichie »

markburns wrote: post #11
grugagag wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but you missed the point op was making

That seems an uncharitable view of the reply. The search space is huge, we sometimes find needles in haystacks by accident, isn’t it exciting that we have tools now that can systematically check every piece of hay?

ML search is more about ‘averages’ based on samples.

Innovations like these are more about ‘shocks’ that surface fitting cannot capture.

Note universal approximation theorem applies only to smooth surfaces.

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#13

Post by tomrod »

richrichie wrote: post #12
markburns wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems an uncharitable view of the reply. The search space is huge, we sometimes find needles in haystacks by accident, isn’t it exciting that we have tools now that can systematically check every piece of hay?

ML search is more about ‘averages’ based on samples. Innovations like these are more about ‘shocks’ that surface fitting cannot capture. Note universal approximation theorem applies only to smooth surfaces.

Not always. Quantile regression exists. And you can develop "no match" categories.

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#15

Post by onionisafruit »

wdh505 wrote: post #5

I'm having visions of old people freezing their bodies and inducing "dormancy" so they can wake up when the world is a better place. I would invest in that company.

The real trick is being somebody that a future generation will go to the trouble of defrosting.

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#16

Post by COGlory »

kylehotchkiss wrote: post #2

> Karla Helena-Bueno discovered a common hibernation factor when she accidentally left an Arctic bacterium on ice for too long. I love how this story follows the magic pattern of so much of innovation and discovery - an accident. It's refreshingly human and not a mode of discovery that machine learning is going to completely take away from us.

I'm all for it. People get lucky, then try to rationalize the past with a skill narrative. Then they soak up all the grants.

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#17

Post by dghlsakjg »

COGlory wrote: post #16
kylehotchkiss wrote: post #2

> Karla Helena-Bueno discovered a common hibernation factor when she accidentally left an Arctic bacterium on ice for too long. I love how this story follows the magic pattern of so much of innovation and discovery - an accident. It's refreshingly human and not a mode of discovery that machine learning is going to completely take away from us.

I'm all for it. People get lucky, then try to rationalize the past with a skill narrative. Then they soak up all the grants.

> People get lucky, then try to rationalize the past with a skill narrative. Then they soak up all the grants.

They have to put themselves in the situation to get lucky first. This person got a graduate education, and was competent enough to be selected to be doing research in what is likely a multimillion dollar lab owned by an institution, then she had the knowledge and ability to notice and be able to identify what had "accidentally" happened with a micro-organism that we barely understand.

Luck was the smallest part of this discovery. I would say that the grant money is well spent funding someone so "lucky".

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#18

Post by bamboozled »

wdh505 wrote: post #5

I'm having visions of old people freezing their bodies and inducing "dormancy" so they can wake up when the world is a better place. I would invest in that company.

You don't need to freeze yourself, you just have children, that is how life goes on.

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#19

Post by vajrabum »

wdh505 wrote: post #5

I'm having visions of old people freezing their bodies and inducing "dormancy" so they can wake up when the world is a better place. I would invest in that company.

It's still sci-fi I think but we're getting a bit closer. This came out the other day. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40400591

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#20

Post by jrflowers »

Nicholas_C wrote: post #9
darth_avocado wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It won't be very useful if you're already old, more practical approach would be to freeze yourself in your youth until they find a way to stop ageing.

You could unfreeze yourself when they figure out how to reverse aging.

How does one unfreeze oneself
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