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The Science Thread

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This is posted elsewhere but felt it was interesting enough to be repeated on the science thread.

Antarctic Sea Ice Reaches New Maximum Extent

Two weeks after a new record was set in the Arctic Ocean for the least amount of sea ice coverage in the satellite record, the ice surrounding Antarctica reached its annual winter maximum—and set a record for a new high. Sea ice extended over 19.44 million square kilometers (7.51 million square miles) in 2012, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). The previous record of 19.39 million kilometers (7.49 million square miles) was set in 2006.

 
Ever wanted to understand why trains just can't go up hills ? Interesting and clever
 
I thought this latest example of how fast Artificial Intelligence is moving is fascinating and scary.

There are now relatively simple computers and programs that have learnt to play Texas holdem and beat the best human players in the world. Strategy, bluff, probability , incomplete information.

The program teaches itself and then goes out and thrashes the best human players in the world.


My poker face: AI wins multiplayer game for first time
Pluribus wins 12-day session of Texas hold’em against some of the world’s best human players

Ian Sample Science editor


@iansample
Thu 11 Jul 2019 19.00 BST Last modified on Thu 11 Jul 2019 19.55 BST

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Stressful hand … a player gets a message during the first day of the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas last week. Photograph: John Locher/AP
Rack up another win for the machines. An artificial intelligence called Pluribus has emerged victorious from a marathon 12-day poker session during which it played five human professionals at a time.

Over 10,000 hands of no-limit Texas hold’em, the most popular form of the game, Pluribus won a virtual $48,000 (£38,000), beating five elite players who were selected each day from a pool who agreed to take on the program. All of the pros had previously won more than $1m playing the game.

What counts as a beating for humanity ranks as a milestone for AI. No computer program has ever achieved superhuman performance against multiple poker players. A forerunner of Pluribus named Libratus made its name two years ago by trouncing top human players, but that program only played one-on-one.

“It’s the first time AI has achieved superhuman performance in a multiplayer game,” said Tuomas Sandholm, who developed Pluribus with his PhD student Noam Brown at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. The ability to beat five players at a time in such a complex game of bluff and hidden information opened up new opportunities for AI to tackle real world problems, he said.
https://www.theguardian.com/science...ayer-game-for-first-time-plurius-texas-holdem
 
If you like that bas, get a load of this.

For the first time, scientists have used artificial intelligence to create complex, three-dimensional simulations of the Universe. It's called the Deep Density Displacement Model, or D3M, and it's so fast and so accurate that the astrophysicists who designed it don't even know how it does what it does.

https://www.sciencealert.com/ai-sim...t-even-its-creators-know-how-it-s-so-accurate
 

Fharque! That is scary. The genie is well an truly out of the bottle.
I wonder what the computer would show for the fate of the earth if it was fed in the parameters around global warming ?
 
Came across more info on AlphaZero. This is the new computing system that basically teaches itself.
Essentially it was given the rules of chess and with no other input became the best chess player in the world in under a day. That is how long it took to keep playing chess games against itself and create a system that would overwhelm other computers as well any mere human.

Disturbing story on the power of AI.

AlphaZero: Shedding new light on chess, shogi, and Go

In late 2017 we introduced AlphaZero, a single system that taught itself from scratch how to master the games of chess, shogi (Japanese chess), and Go, beating a world-champion program in each case. We were excited by the preliminary results and thrilled to see the response from members of the chess community, who saw in AlphaZero’s games a ground-breaking, highly dynamic and “unconventional” style of play that differed from any chess playing engine that came before it.

https://deepmind.com/blog/article/alphazero-shedding-new-light-grand-games-chess-shogi-and-go
 

Very interesting.

I think that future military tactics may be decide by such algorithms.

God help us.
 
The first recorded automobile fatality happened in 1869 in Ireland.
The victim was a women scientist who was also raising 8 children mostly on her own.
Fascinating story on many levels.

The First Fatal Car Crash
Mary Ward, a naturalist and astronomer, decided to go for a ride in her cousin’s homemade automobile.

Sam Kean 7:00 AM ET


An 1860s Rickets steam carriage, akin to the car that Mary Ward fell from.National Motor Museum / Getty

https://www.theatlantic.com/science...-scientist-was-first-car-crash-victim/597037/
 
The slip rate along the San Andreas earthquake fault ranges from 20 to 35 mm /yr. producing 4.7 terra zeta szuahgq of energy. A steel bar attached to one side slides along another on the far side at slight angle and which is about 239 m. long or a bit more. This bar bends slightly and the energy is released to light 12386 houses.
 

Can you provide a link to that ?
 
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