Big Bad Uzbek Solar Laser

I'm ending this year with an uplifting example of engineering, Uzbekistan's 1MW solar-powered Nd:YAG laser research facility. I'm not exactly sure what the intended research objective is, but if I had to wager a guess, I'd say it has something to do with energy transmission from orbit. What (relatively) poor, resource-rich, Uzbekistan, with its large deserts, is to gain from orbital solar power is somewhat unclear, so I may be wrong here. Still, while I'm posting this for the obvious Dr. Scaramanga connotation, this project is an example of rationally justifiable, cost-efficient science with a clear objective, at least if compared to madman's schemes such as magnetic confinement fusion, the Space Launch System, or the occasional FP7 project (link in German), or most of what I've seen at AGI-11 this year. Cheers to 2012 !

A Change to the Link List was Overdue

I'm no longer linking to the Singularity institute blog, as I do no longer wish to be associated with this organization in any way. Dresden Codak gets the boot for displaying Megatokyo Syndrome (glacial pacing, asking for donations for broken computers, etc.) and Pink Tentacle seems, sadly, to be defunct since April (I dearly hope this guy is OK).

Replacing them are Gene Expression, a blog on "human evolution, genetics, genomics and their interstices"; something like a 21st century Rassenlehre without any of the associated wickedness; Hark! A Vagrant, a webcomic, by the wonderful Kate Beaton, on topics like Sherlock Holmes, Canadians, Tesla, Chopin and Liszt, book covers, and much more; and Monsieur LaMoe (moderately NSFW), who lends a unique voice to the world's hikikomori, and whose status as a real person vs. a consortium of writers is still under debate. (I'm leaning somewhat towards "real person".)

Loriot is Dead

German comedian Loriot died yesterday, aged 87. He will be missed.

Paper Drafts

Here are draft versions of two short papers. They are on machine ethics and decision theory in the context of reinforcement learning. Comments are welcome.

Altruistic Reinforcement Learning

Abstract:

This article presents a modification of reinforcement learning where an agent’s action lead to rewards being received by a second agent interacting with same environment. This model can be useful in the development of powerful AIs. Agent policies are proposed for dealing with observable rewards, with non-observable rewards in perfectly rational agents, and with non-observable rewards in bounded rational agents.

Newcomblike Problems and Optimal Agents

Abstract:

This article discusses the family of Newcomblike problems in the context of reinforcement learning. It reframes the problem of rational decision making as one of obtaining maximal rewards in a wide range of environments. Newcomblike problems are characterized by correlations between agent and environment policies. An optimal policy, taking into account these correlations, is given for known environments. For unknown environments, a quality criterion for policies is formulated.

Spy

The picture above shows an East German spy. I am not making this up.

It was taken during an official course on how spies should dress, and was recently dug out by artist Simon Menner. See his online Stasi gallery for more spy pictures.

Make now mistake - despite the occasional screw-up, the East German state security was in fact a (deadly) effective, and ruthless, organization.

Another spy pic, more Austin Powers style:

The End of the Shuttle Program

LUKE:You were raised Jewish, right?

ELIEZER: Well that’s what I used to think, and then at one point I was watching a space shuttle launch on TV and getting tears in my eyes and realizing that I didn’t really get tears in my eyes for anything Judaism-related. That was when I realized that my childhood religion that I’d sort of grown away from over time, but still had the power to bring tears to my eyes, wasn’t Judaism so much as space travel.

(Luke Muehlhauser interviewing Eliezer Yudkowsky)

Celebrating the last launch of a space shuttle earlier today, a little music video by Yours Truly. Yoko Kanno's "BLUE" (performed by Mai Yamane, Yoko Kanno & the Seatbelts) from Cowboy Bebop set to Discovery's last launch, and a slideshow of a few shuttle-related images. This is in personal memoriam of A.K., who didn't make it for Discovery's final flight by a few weeks.

The 34 Year Old Scientist

Watson discovered the structure of DNA when he was 24. Heisenberg formulated the uncertainty principle when he was 25. Newton claimed to have developed his gravitational theory when he was 24. Darwin embarked on the Beagle when he was 22.

I could go on for hours like this.

But wait. Crick was 37 when he discovered the structure of DNA. Schroedinger was 38 when he published on wave mechanics. Newton cast his gravitational theory in mathematical form when he was 37, his earlier insights likely being purely speculative. Darwin finalized the theory of selection when he was 47 (Wallace being 33 at the time.)

Of course I may be biased here. Ever so many examples and counterexamples don't prove a point. One has to look at the data that's out there.

Falagas et al. (2008) ask "At what age do biomedical scientists do their best work?" and answer with the following age histogram of the top 5 highly cited articles for a random subset of 300 bioscientists:

(The corresponding histogram for the single-most cited paper looks noisier, propably based on people's tendency to cite summary reviews written in later years.)

Costas et al. (2010) perform a more thorough analysis for scientists working at the Spanish National Research Council. Their results indicate that while the number of publications per scientist per year increases somewhat with age, the expected number of citations per publication decreases. However, their study lumps together all age groups younger than forty. (Top, Low, and Medium refer to three performance classes of researchers).

Finally, the widely cited and awesomely titled Kanazawa (2003) "Why productivity fades with age: The crime–genius connection" examines the age at what 280 famous scientists made their single key contribution to science:

Quite depressing overall, but it seems you don't have to go fishing before you turn 40 (Einstein was 41 in 1920). At 34, chances are 50:50 that the best of your work still lies ahead. Even better (or worse, depending on your personal situation), the corresponding curve for the 72 scientists in Kanazawa's dataset who never married looks significantly different:

(This might be somewhat confounded by the unknown fraction of (closet) gay scientists in the sample.) Newton, Erdös, Tesla (and Anton Bruckner) immediately come to my mind as straight men who denied themselves the pleasures of female company, and were productive well into their forties, or later. (The catch being that Tesla and Newton became funny at around 50; Erdös was born that way; and Bruckner, well, that depends on your opinion on watertight underwear.) Crick, Schroedinger and Darwin were all married.

Falagas, M. E., Ierodiakonou, V. and Alexiou, V.G. (2008): At what age do biomedical scientists do their best work? The FASEB Journal 22,12 4067-4070

Costas, R, Van Leeuwen, T.N., Bordons, M (2010): A bibliometric classificatory approach for the study and assessment of research performance at the individual level: The effects of age on productivity and impact. J ournal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 61, 8 1564–1581

Kanazawa, S. (2003): Why productivity fades with age: The crime-genius connection. Journal of Research in Personality, 37, 257–272