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"Consider abstract art. We've noted that machine learning, in aiming to make an accurate prediction, constructs a high-dimensional feature space that contorts and reconfigures the data representing features of the natural world. Likewise, artists "mash and rip" features of visual reality to create a system of forms, texture, and color that richly represent features of visual experience in an alien way. The subject of representation is abstracted but represented none-the-less. "

"Drowning in literature? Scientists often must manage research, teaching, and acquiring funding, and more. It can be hard to find time to read new papers in the field. It can also help non-specialists who are reading complicated papers and struggling to find the gist. Using this tool, you can enter a paper's abstract. The site will then generate a short summary. "The free tool, which creates what the team calls TLDRs (the common Internet acronym for 'Too long, didn't read'), was activated this week for search results at Semantic Scholar, a search engine created by the non-profit Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2) in Seattle, Washington."

"He had discovered that human learning was communal and interactive. For a robot, the acquisition of language was abstract and formulaic. For us, it was embodied, emotive, subjective, quivering with life. The future of intelligence wouldn't be found in our machines, but in the development of our own minds."

"When Fry returned to London, she realised how mathematicians, computer engineers and physicists are so used to working on abstract problems that they rarely stop to consider the ethics of how their work might be used"

"Once the image was in my Ethereum wallet, I didn't particularly feel like I owned it any more than the other screenshots in my Images file. But I did feel a nihilistic rush - the thrill of abstract money moving around."

"And lest you think we are dealing in long-term abstractions- this devastation has tangible, externalized cost; a recent study out of the University of New Mexico estimated that in 2018 every $1 of Bitcoin value was responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in the US, costs that are borne by those who will, for the most part, never see any return from cryptocurrency mining whatsoever."

"From this fact about language development, Chomsky posited an (abstract) innate module for language learning - not processing. From a neurobiological standpoint, the brain has to be ready to understand language from birth. While there are plenty of examples of language specialization in infants, the precise neural mechanisms are still unknown, but not unknowable. But objects of study become unknowable when scientific terms are misused or misapplied. And this is precisely the danger: conflating AI with human understanding can lead to dangerous consequences."