Welcome to Parashift Recommends #19! Parashift’s weekly roundup of what the team read and thought about during the week (want to receive this by email? Sign up here).

Stanford researchers evolve embodied AI agents

A team of researchers at Stanford wondered: Does embodiment matter for the evolution of intelligence? And if so, how might computer scientists make use of embodiment to create smarter AIs? To answer these questions, they created a computer-simulated playground where arthropod-like agents dubbed “unimals” (short for “universal animals”) learn and are subjected to mutations and natural selection.

Embodied intelligence via learning and evolution

The intertwined processes of learning and evolution in complex environmental niches have resulted in a remarkable diversity of morphological forms. Moreover, many aspects of animal intelligence are deeply embodied in these evolved morphologies. However, the principles governing relations between environmental complexity, evolved morphology, and the learnability of intelligent control, remain elusive, because performing large-scale in silico experiments on evolution and learning is challenging.

Incentives and Creativity: Evidence from the Academic Life Sciences

Despite its presumed role as an engine of economic growth, we know surprisingly little about the drivers of scientific creativity. In this paper, we exploit key differences across funding streams within the academic life sciences to estimate the impact of incentives on the rate and direction of scientific exploration.

Tomorrow

A film about the solutions we need to stop the global ecological collapse. By the activist Cyril Dion and the actress Mélanie Laurent (“Inglourious Basterds”). With a million viewers in France. And awarded a César for best documentary film.

The billion dollar code

For those who speak German

In mitreißenden Bildern erzählt „The Billion Dollar Code“ eine zumindest halbwahre Story über die Vorgeschichte von Google Earth. Eigentlich jedoch handelt diese gewitzte deutsche Netflix-Serie von unserer digitalen Naivität.

Recording an Audio Track Using a Paper Cup

Dust-to-Digital posted a fascinating video in which a boy in a recording studio yelled into a paper cup that was connected to a spinning cardboard disc with a glass cup on top. Once the recording stopped, the engineer played the boy’s phrase back to him in perfect, although quiet, replication.

Building Infrastructure to Solve Self Driving Cars | COMMA_CON talks

Verkle trees

Verkle trees are shaping up to be an important part of Ethereum’s upcoming scaling upgrades. They serve the same function as Merkle trees: you can put a large amount of data into a Verkle tree, and make a short proof (“witness”) of any single piece, or set of pieces, of that data that can be verified by someone who only has the root of the tree.

State of AI Report 2021

The State of AI Report analyses the most interesting developments in AI. We aim to trigger an informed conversation about the state of AI and its implication for the future. The Report is produced by AI investors Nathan Benaich and Ian Hogarth.

Science 37 makes Nasdaq debut

Clinical research company Science 37 CEO David Coman joins the Yahoo Finance’s Adam Shapiro to discuss the company’s SPAC debut.

Enjoy exploring things! 💡

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See you next week!