robwwilliams

5 ms·

31.
by robwwilliams 5mo ago
Not in my fields of science: Genetics and neuroscience. The combination of Opus 4.7 Adaptive used with well structure project folders is amazingly useful.
32.
by robwwilliams 5mo ago
Completely on the mark! Algorithms can differ qualitatively. Recursion.
33.
by robwwilliams 5mo ago
It would have to explain how we construct “Now” from atemporal cells that are without a clock.
34.
by robwwilliams 5mo ago
Mainly because of recursive processes that modulate attentional focus, but of a special sort that we are just beginning to understand.
35.
by robwwilliams 5mo ago
Good first step of demolishing (yet again) the phlogiston of the brain. Even Chalmers does not argue for the hard problem with any vigor today. Rovelli’s arguments were made a dozen times over by Dan Dennett, and made better. His critique o
36.
by robwwilliams 5mo ago
What made University of California Santa Cruz so attractive to undergraduates in the 70s was no grading of performance and engagement but instead written evaluations. I loved being able to concentrate on great subjects with the help of ofte
37.
by robwwilliams 5mo ago
No. Then the fraction of population variance attributable to genetic differences would tend to increase and heritably would also increase.
38.
by robwwilliams 5mo ago
Agreed, the Dynomight article is on-the-mark. I work in this field and was really puzzled when I read this paper. Yes, it is obvious that excluding extrinsic causes of death will increase heritability estimates. But is death from influenza
39.
by robwwilliams 5mo ago
We have many bits and pieces of causal structure for some human traits courtesy of GWAS and PheWAS but you are right that lifespan genetics of humans is seriously compromised by rapid changes in life styles and environments.
40.
by robwwilliams 5mo ago
You are making a point that shares much with Foucault’s work: trying to understand why and how fields like psychology and sociology came to be crystallized into academic pigeonholes. Your frustration is what he studied. If you want a deeper
41.
by robwwilliams 5mo ago
Urban/industrial and refinery complex; not at all rural. Located about 8 miles southwest of downtown Memphis (3231 Paul Lowery Rd) on a bend of the river.
42.
by robwwilliams 6mo ago
Zeiss and Schott are both owned in their entirety by a foundation that is not allowed to sell shares. Most of the dividends go to larger research institutions in southern Germany (about $80 million to Heidelberg, Stuttgart, Tübingen, Freibu
43.
by robwwilliams 6mo ago
Yes, and less than $1 billion/year spent on the basic biology of aging by NIH/NIA. Funding for research on the root causes of aging is decimal dust compared to distal consequences such as cancers, cardiopulmonary diseases, renal f
44.
by robwwilliams 6mo ago
The single best predictor of Alzheimer’s disease is chronological age. Yet of NIA’s $4.5B FY2025 budget, about 60% goes to Alzheimer’s and related dementias; only 9% to the Division of Aging Biology, which funds the basic mechanisms of agin
45.
by robwwilliams 6mo ago
There is no single root cause. Many scientists have preferred to ignore this fact and that has been a serious problem. Everyone likes a simple story. Age-related diseases are not simple stories.
46.
by robwwilliams 6mo ago
Life extension in the private sector is dominated by hocus-pocus and unwarranted optimism. The genetics of mortality is amazingly complex. See this open access monster paper that came out in Nature this week—admittedly “in mice” on mortalit
47.
by robwwilliams 6mo ago
The focus is definitely on scientific fraud, but what makes the fraud so easy in this case is singing and selling the same song that the big teams are singing and selling. You can fly under the radar AND get funded, and if you are “lucky” b
48.
by robwwilliams 6mo ago
The major problem has been lock-in of the Abeta 42 peptide fragment as the cause. This monomaniacal focus was rewarded by grant awards to team players. Karl Herrup has a terrific book on the topic How Not to Study a Disease — The Story of A
49.
by robwwilliams 6mo ago
Depends in goals. For long free-firm discussions I find Opus 4.7 Adaptive better/deeper than Opus 4.6 Extended. But usual caveats apply: first week of use and token budget seems generous now on Max 5X.
50.
by robwwilliams 6mo ago
Senior author here (with Danny Arends, co-lead). We mapped 59 genetic loci (large chunks of chromosomes) that shape mortality across the full mouse lifespan, with strong and often antagonistic sex effects. Happy to answer questions about th
51.
Dynamics of genetic and somatic trade-offs in ageing and mortality(nature.com)
4 points by robwwilliams 6mo ago|1 comments
52.
by robwwilliams 6mo ago
Yep; second time in five months we have gone from 1 million back to 200 thousand.
53.
by robwwilliams 6mo ago
There are different level of who gets locked in. Almost every health care system in the USA is locked in to either an Epic/Oracle barrel or a Cerner barrel. I hope AI breaks this duopoly open soon.
54.
by robwwilliams 6mo ago
Also running gemma-4 on Apple M5 Max. As fast or faster than Opus 4.6 extended but not of course the same competence. However, great tunability with llama.cpp and no issues related to IP leakage.
55.
by robwwilliams 6mo ago
With Gemma-4 open and running on laptops and phones I see the flip side. How many non-HN users or researchers even need Opus 4.6e level performance? OpenAI, Anthropric and Google may be “rent seeking” from large corporations — like the Orac
56.
by robwwilliams 6mo ago
Agree: it is Anthropic's aggressive changes to the harnesses and to the hidden base prompt we users do not see. Clearly intended to give long right tail users a haircut.
57.
by robwwilliams 6mo ago
Yes, and over the last few weeks I have noticed that on long-context discussions Opus 4.6e does its best to encourage me to call it a day and wrap it up; repeatedly. Mother Anthropic is giving preprompts to Claude to terminate early and in
58.
by robwwilliams 7mo ago
Very cool. An evolutionary biologist would say: Welcome to the party! Mutation rate modulation is the AI engineers’ heat. And selection does the trimming of the outliers. Some more serious biomorphic thinking and we may get to the next big
59.
by robwwilliams 7mo ago
Capybaras in Brazil were Friday fish.
60.
by robwwilliams 7mo ago
Yes, especially with shifts in focus of a long conversation. But given the high error rates of Opus 4.6 the last few weeks it is possibly due to other factors. Conversational and code prodding has been essential.

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