FIRST THEY CAME

Trump Hugging the Flag

Credit: nymag.com

First, they came for the news media, crying "fake news," promoting "alternative facts" and denying the reality of any unfavorable reports or evidence, and we did nothing.

Then they came for the "aliens" and immigrants, and though concerned, we did nothing.

Then they came for judges whose legal rulings prevented the separation and caging of migrant children at the border, and, though protesting, we did nothing.

Then they came for Homeland Security officials whose warnings of Russian election interference they rejected, and though surprised, we did nothing.

Then they came for the FBI Director who would not pledge complete loyalty, but it was 'complicated', and other concerns were cited, and we did nothing.

Then they came for the Attorney General whose required recusal opened the door for the Mueller Investigation, and who was no Roy Cohn, and, we did nothing.

Then they came for the Investigators themselves, accusing them of being "deep state"agents and labeling the investigation a "total hoax," and we did nothing.

Then they came for the "whistleblowers" who revealed corrupt dealings with a foreign power to undermine a potential political rival, and we, ultimately, did nothing.

Then they came for the Inspectors General in every Federal agency where questions were raised about administrative corruption, and we grumbled, but did nothing.

Then they came for the Public Health experts and officials, charging a "cabal" of scientists with undermining the President by promoting the "hoax" of a pandemic and the wearing of masks, and we've done nothing.

Then they came for peaceful Black Lives Matter protestors, smearing them as "subversives" and "anarchists" bent only on destruction, deserving of "retribution," and threatening to charge them with sedition, and we've done nothing.

Finally, they came for the Electoral System, claiming it to be "rigged," against them, suppressing voting, cutting short the census, shrinking the Postal Service, and undermining public faith in the integrity of the most basic mechanism of a functioning democracy, and so far, we've done..... 

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Les Adler

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This piece was inspired by Martin Niemöller, a prominent Lutheran minister and courageous opponent of Adolf Hitler. Niemöller survived seven years in Nazi concentration camps.

WARNING CONCERNING ACETAMINOPHEN IN PREGNANCY

Acetaminophen is one of the most widely used headache and pain relievers in the world. It's sold alone under brand names such as Tylenol and Paracetamol, or in combination with other ingredients  as Exedrin, Dristan and many others.

Credit: iStock

Acetaminophen is officially authorized for use during pregnancy. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 65 percent of American women use the medication at some point in their pregnancy.

However, several new studies raise red flags for pregnant women and their children.

A new study from Mt. Sinai Health System, in New York City concludes that pregnant women should limit their use of acetaminophen in any of its forms. The study found that expectant mothers' use of acetaminophen in early pregnancy (8-13 weeks) was associated with delayed language development in their daughters when tested at the age of 30 months.

Delayed language development is important in its own right, and because it tends to predict a range of neurodevelopmental problems in children.

""Given the prevalence of prenatal acetaminophen use and the importance of language development, our findings, if replicated, suggest that pregnant women should limit their use of this analgesic during pregnancy," said Shanna Swan, PhD, Professor of Environmental and Public Health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, the study's senior author.

Acetaminophen is found in many over-the-counter medications

Credit: Dome Poon

An international team of researchers followed 754 women who were part of the Swedish Environmental Longitudinal, Mother and Child, Asthma and Allergy study. Both the number of acetaminophen tablets taken early in pregnancy and measured concentration of the drug in the mothers' urine were strongly correlated with girl's later language development.

The effect was striking--girls whose mothers took acetaminophen more than six times in the first 13 weeks of pregnancy were six times more likely to show delayed development of language than girls whose mothers had not taken any of the drug, and the daughters of the 25 percent of mothers with the highest urine levels of the drug were 10 times more likely than those in the lowest 25 percent.

This is the first study to show this effect. As professor Swan points out, further research is needed to corroborate or modify the findings. Still, given the importance of language development in childhood, women who are or may be pregnant should certainly take notice.

In addition, three separate studies, just released, found that a mother's exposure to acetaminophen during pregnancy may reduce the number of eggs tucked away in their daughters' ovaries, and so reduce their eventual fertility. Although these studies were in mice rather than humans, researchers view it as significant for humans as well. "Although this may not be a severe impairment to fertility," says Dr. David Kristensen, at Copenhagen University Hospital, in Denmark, "it is still of real concern since data from three different labs all independently found that paracetamol may disrupt female reproductive development in this way, which indicates further investigation is needed to establish how this affects human fertility."

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The Swedish/Mt. Sinai study appears in the journal European Psychiatry, 10 January, 2018

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GOOGLE'S ALPHAZERO IS NOW SCARY SMART

What would you think if you taught your child the rules of chess at breakfast and found that by lunchtime she had beaten the world champion? Awe? Parental pride? A bit of fear perhaps?

That's essentially what just happened at Google's DeepMind subsidiary in London. They created an ultra-powerful game-playing computer system called AlphaZero based on a neural network capable of deep learning through reinforcement.

Unlike other chess-playing programs--which have outperformed humans since IBM's Deep Blue beat the human world champion, Gary Kasparov, in 1997--AlphaZero was not pre-programmed with any specialized knowledge or expertise about chess. It was simply given the rules of the game and allowed to learn by playing against itself.

Four hours later AlphaZero crushed the World Computer Champion, Stockfish, with 28 wins and zero losses in a 100-game tournament (the remaining games were ties).

 World Champion Gary Kasparov struggles against IBM's DeepBlue, 1997

Credit: iChess.net

British chess expert Colin McGurty sums up AlphaZero's achievement:

The AlphaZero algorithm developed by Google and DeepMind took just four hours of playing against itself to synthesise the chess knowledge of one and a half millennium and reach a level where it not only surpassed humans but crushed the reigning World Computer Champion Stockfish 28 wins to 0 in a 100-game match. All the brilliant stratagems and refinements that human programmers used to build chess engines have been outdone, and like Go players we can only marvel at a wholly new approach to the game.

Other chess experts describe AlphaZero's play as "divine," or "from another galaxy." 

As if one superhuman feat were not enough, the AlphaZero team used the same artificial intelligence (AI) system to tackle the games of Go and the Japanese chess game, Shogi. It took AlphaZero just two hours of play against itself to surge past Elmo, the Shogi Computer World Champion, and all of 8 hours to surpass AlphaGo (another DeepMind program), which itself dethroned the human Go champion, Ke Jie, earlier this year.

So, to summarize, in less than a day, starting as a blank slate knowing nothing more than the rules of the games, and simply by playing against itself, AlphaZero reached a superhuman level of play in three abstract games that have challenged humans for millennia. Not a bad day's work.

And just in case you're thinking that AlphaZero reached these superhuman levels simply by calculating faster than any other computer, that's far from the case.  It is blindingly fast compared to humans--for example searching 80 thousand chess positions per second, but it is tortise-slow compared to other chess-playing systems. Stockfish, which AlphaZero completely dominated, searches 70 million positions every second. The system's creators explain, "AlphaZero compensates for the lower number of evaluations by using its deep neural network to focus much more selectively on the most promising variations -- arguably a more 'human-like approach to search."

In recent years some very smart people including Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking have warned about the threat posed by out-of-control artificial intelligence. While the superhuman learning and game-playing of AlphaZero seem benign, and ubiquitous, mostly invisible AI applications help us every day in a huge variety of areas, there are red flags raised by robo-cops and soldiers, vital infrastructure managed by AI, increasingly capable and autonomous robots that may replace most workers, and the potential for super-intelligent AI creations that may not have the interests of humans at heart. AlphaZero, for example, could equally well learn to "play" at a superhuman level at politics, finance or war.

Gates and others emphasize that we need to figure this out before such intelligences emerge because once they do, like AlphaZero, they could leave us in the dust within a few hours.

So if your child became the world champion chess player after four hours of play, wouldn't you be scared? I would.

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You can read the scientific paper describing AlphaZero's accomplishments here.
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Ahora AlphaZero de Google está peligrosamente inteligente

¿Que pensaría si le hubiera enseñado a su niña las reglas de ajedrez a las ocho de la mañana y descubriera que a mediodía ella ha ganado contra el campeón del mundo? ¿Asombro? ¿Orgullo parental? ¿Quizás un poco de miedo?

Eso es esencialmente lo que pasó en DeepMind, un subsidiario de Google en Londres. Ellos crearon un sistema informático ultra poderoso para jugar juegos, se llama AlphaZero, lo que implementa una red neuronal artificial capáz de realizar un aprendizaje profundo a través del refuerzo autónomo.

Es importante darse quenta que programas que juegan al ajedrez han superado a los humanos desde entonces Deep Blue, de IBM, lo ganó el campeon del mundo humano, Gary Kasparov, en 1997. Deep Blue y todas los programas aun mas poderosos que han sido desarrolados después, empiezan con una gran cantidad de conocimiento y pericia dado por expertos humanos. Por el contrario, AlphaZero no fue programado con algun conocimiento especializado, ni pericia. Nada mas supo las reglas del juego, y recibió instrucciones de aprender a través de jugar contra sí mismo.

Cuatro horas más tarde, AlphaZero le aplastó el Campeón Mundial de Ajedrez por Computadora, Stockfish, con 28 victorias y zero derrotas en un torneo de 100 juegos (los juegos restantes fueron atados).

El experto de ajedrez británico, Colin McGurty, resume lo que logró AlphaZero asi:

El algoritmo AlphaZero desarrollado por Google y DeepMind necesitaba nada más cuatro horas de juego contra si mismo para sintetizar el conociemiento de ajedrez de un milenio y medio y llegar a un nivel donde el no solo superó los humanos pero aplastó el reinante Campeón Mundial de Computadora, Stockfish, 28 victorias a 0 en un torneo de 100 juegos. Todas las estratagemas y refinamientos que los programadores humanos usaban para construir engines de ajedrez han sido superados, y como los jugadores de Go, no podemos hacer más que maravillarnos con un enfoque totalmente nuevo para el juego.

Otros expertos de ajedrez describen el juego de AlphaZero como “divino,” o “de otra galaxia.”

Como si una hazaña sobrehumana no fuera suficiente, el equipo de AlphaZero usaron el mismo sistema de inteligencia artificial (AI) para tratar de dominar el juego de Go y el juego de ajedrez japonés, Shogi. AlphaZero necesitaba nada más dos horas de juego contra si mismo para abrumar a Elmo, el Campeon Mudial de Computadora de Shogi, y un totál de 8 horas para superar al AlphaGo (un otro programa de DeepMind), lo cual destronó el campeon humano de Go, Ke Jie, a principions de este año.

Entonces, para resumir, en menos de un día, empezando como una pizarra en blanco, sabiendo solo las reglas de los juegos, y simplemente jugando contra sí mismo, AlphaZero alcanzó un nivel de juego sobrehumano en tres juegos abstractos que han desafiado los humanos por milenia. No está mal para el trabajo de un día.

Y si estás pensando que AlphaZero alcanzó estos niveles sobrehumanos simplemente por calculando más rapidamente que alguna otra computadora, no es la verdad. AlphaZero si es deslumbrantemente rapido comparado con los humanos—por ejemplo buscando 80 mil posiciones de ajedrez cada sugundo, pero es lento como una tortuga comparado con otros sistemas que juegan al ajedrez. Stockfish, lo cual AlphaZero dominó por completo, busca 70 millones de posiciones cada segunda. Los creadores del sistema explican, “AlphaZero compensa el menor número de evaluaciones mediante el uso de su red neuronal profunda para enfocar mucho más selectivamente en las variaciones más prometedoras – discutiblemente un enfoque mas humano a la busqueda.

En los años recentes, algunas personas muy inteligentes, incluso Bill Gates, Elon Musk y Stephen Hawking han advirtido sobre la amenaza de inteligencia artificial fuera de control. Es verdad que el aprendizaje y el juego de AlphaZero parecen benignos, y hay un monton de aplicaciones de AI, ubicuos y en su mayoría invisibles, que nos ayudan diaramente y en una variedad grande de maneras. Pero, al mismo momento, debemos de notar la posibilidad de soldados y policías robóticos, infraestructura vital administrada por AI, robots cada vez más capaces y autónomos que pueden reemplazar la mayoría de los trabajadores, y el potencial para creaciones AI de inteligencia sobrehumano que no tendrían los intereses humanos “en sus corazones.”

AlphaZero, por ejemplo, podría “jugar” a un nivel sobrehumano a la política, las finanzas, o la guerra.

Gates y otros enfatizan que necesitamos resolver este asunto antes de que una inteligencia de este tipo surja, porque, una vez que aparezca, nos puede dominar o superceder entre pocas horas.

Entonces, si su hija se convirtió en campeona mundial de ajedrez después de cuatro horas de juego, ¿no estaría asustado? Yo si estaría.

An ill wind . . .

Third Roadsign Report from the institute

We sailed past yet another warning sign on our crash course towards irreversible climate change a few days ago.

As reported by the AP, two German-flagged cargo ships navigated the "northeast passage," powering their way from South Korea to Siberia (and on towards Rotterdam) via an arctic route that until now has always been blocked by ice.

Scientists cited in the AP story say that this is a clear indication of human-caused climate change, which has long been predicted to show up most dramatcally in Earth's arctic and antarctic regions.

It may be good news for shippers and other business interests who are eager to exploit the arctic, but it's not good news for the rest of us.

Earth's rapidly melting ice is thought to be one of the most likely triggers for irreversible climate change. Since ice reflects the sun's energy back into space, it helps to keep the planet cool. When ice is replaced with open ocean or terrain, solar energy is absorbed and retained. This sets up a feedback loop that melts more ice, which means more energy is absorbed--you get the idea.

At least, with President Obama rather than Bush in the White House, the U.S. is no longer actively blocking progress towards international agreements to fight climate change. However, the political will and skill to attack this enormous global problem still lag dangerously far behind the accelerating pace of global warming and climatic disruption.

Robert Adler

for the institute