Great article. It's worth considering the Japanese reaction to the bomb - people thought it was cluster munitions or other conventional explosives leading to them taking sub-optimal follow-on steps. While the physicists figured it out, it was not obvious at the time to many people who experienced it firsthand what happened.
I don't think it's going to be about a single prompt; reverse engineering multiple prompts interacting with themselves is hard. There's a lot of cool things to be done with:
(a) creating a pipeline of prompts that combine outputs of previous prompts into new prompts in a predefined manner
and (b) designing prompts to generate other prompts
With the right type of online learning and possibly some of the weights frozen, GPT-3 could gain an unlimited memory instead of the fixed 2048 token memory.
I think it would be jumping to conclusions to say because the military has vulnerabilities that the entire military industrial complex is a fraud. Pieces of it certainly are sub-optimal and arguably fraudulent though such as DCGS (the "opportunity to improve" terminology used for it in DOD speak means failure)
Leadership in the US Government wasted a lot of time trying to play down the pandemic [1] as did large (conservative) news organizations [2]. Both are now trying to blame China, arguably to shift blame from themselves.
It didn't need to be that way; South Korea's government action back in January helped them while the US Government's action hindered response [3].
If you read the entirety of [3], the American CDC's test was produced and approved at roughly the same time in early february as the Korean tests. The problem was a flaw in the test setting the process back, not a lack of government initiative. The remaining lesson in comparing SK and US here seems to be to rely on the private sector and not the govt in a crisis.
by the way, on reddit I see people from practically every western country complaining about their government initially downplaying and being slow to react to the virus.
This can all be true and it's still worth nothing to talk about this problem as if it we can wash our hands of blame and assign it all to China.
The US government is not responsible for the emergence of the epidemic. The US government is definitely responsible for the policy responses in the US that have shaped the course of its emergence here.
And we can see that several governments that are not China have handled a threat that emerged outside their borders and about which they presumably had no better access to information about... much better than we have.
Maybe there's blame to cast on China, but it's a lot more productive for citizens of each country to hold their own governments to account.
From that NY Times article Denmark has an interesting shaped curve that might cause the casual observer to think it's been brought under control.
Denmark were very good at testing widely initially and have subsequently changed the criteria for who gets tested to only be for those presenting with acute symptoms. I haven't been able to find out why they changed but my assumption is limited testing capacity and they're preparing for an increase in the number of cases so want to prioritise.
I will be very interested at the end of this to see how Denmark's response is rated, but it does feel like they have been among the better performers globally.
Dane here. Yes, it's because of limited testing capacity (new machines arrived recently and they are ramping up to 1000 tests per day, additional capacity will among other things go to surveillance of cases with mild symptoms, modeled on our existing system for influenza-like illness surveillance where samples are, well, sampled among a specific subset of GPs), but it's not only those with severe symptoms who are tested, it's anyone who is hospitalized (which also includes members of vulnerable populations with only moderate symptoms) and health care workers, with the goal being to prevent hospital-acquired infections. In a single sentence, the strategy could be summed up as "people who aren't in the hospital should assume it's COVID-19 if they have symptoms and act accordingly, but once they get to the hospital we can't afford to assume".
This is daily data. The effectiveness of interventions doesn't change every day.
You're just assigning meaning to random noise.
I agree it's possible to do better and we should learn from other nations, but I think it's unrealistic to expect that USA be #1 in everything. Sometimes other nations will do better.
> This is daily data. The effectiveness of interventions doesn't change every day.
There's many endeavors in which the effectiveness of interventions can change daily, either with the conscientiousness of application, or in changing conditions that need response. On top of that, there's all kinds of systems where an intervention can introduce an oscillating contribution to the output.
I can't see any reason why viral containment responses wouldn't have potential interventions in any of those categories, and there are several good reasons why it's likely, perhaps chief among them that effectiveness of control in any system relies heavily on good data feedback.
> You're just assigning meaning to random noise.
First and foremost I'm describing distinctions between characteristics that show up in the plots you brought to the discussion. Those distinctions aren't speculation, they're there. Your attribution of them to "random noise" is at best just as much speculation as my attribution to intervention differences is. And considering how smooth some of those exponentials are there is almost certainly something functional rather than noisy going on behind them, whether it's something I've already mentioned related to containment efforts, or something else like differences in how continuity of social contact works in parts of the world represented by noisier graphs.
I would note though that blaming other countries is rarely useful, since you have virtually 0 power to influence the decisions of other countries. However, you do have some measure of power to affect the decisions of your own country, so assessing and blaming the response that your own country had is more useful than looking at others.
So you can absolutely say that China deceived the world and deserves our ire. But you should also wonder why the WHO chose to believe the famously information-controlling Chinese authorities, why your own government chose to believe China and the WHO playing its game. You can also choose to ask whether your own government, once the reality of what was happening in China got out, had a fast enough and acute enough response.
The answer will vary by country and by individual assessing this, but it is far more useful than only blaming China. To give some examples of my own opinions, Taiwan, Japan, and SK are probably examples of governments that did most things right so far. Italy and Iran are examples of governments that have done horribly initially but may be rallying now. The UK and the Netherlands are examples of countries that are not reacting well enough even today. As for my own country, I am mostly satisfied with most of the decisions taken, and their timing, though I am concerned with the amount of testing the government is doing. Based on future data on the actual effectiveness, I may end up blaming my own government, if for example the lack of testing proves fatal, and I can act on that blame by voting them out office when I get the next chance.
>That's not about shifting blame from the US government. That's placing the blame where it belongs.
But for some reason Japan and South Korea were informed and handled the problem, so what conspiracy explains this? Japan has good spies? Japan has supernatural future prediction technology?
> But for some reason Japan and South Korea were informed and handled the problem, so what conspiracy explains this? Japan has good spies? Japan has supernatural future prediction technology?
According to the timeline of Japan's response in [1], the US responded at the same time as Japan. Their first countermeasure listed in [1] was a travel restriction enacted on February 3, the same time as US restrictions[2,3]
Thank you for the response, I am so confused when people try so hard to shift blame so their favorite tribe avoids any responsability. Like 2 weeks back this people were trying to say that is just like flu and today when this does not work then China is at fault because this is worse then flu and China should have done a better job handling it in internally, and also convincing this skeptics that is worse then flu to also handle it better in their own tribe. I assume that at the point you discover that is worse then flu you need to have more then one data pont, so the virus has spread already - if skeptics won't believe you what can you do? the skeptics were just waiting for more numbers.
I am not defending China, just trying to address the blame shifting and maybe convince some people that the next one can originate in their own country and we all need to be better prepared.
What exactly are we supposed to see in those links?
I see two photos of people standing close together. Neither group is practicing social distancing.
The Japanese are wearing masks (not N95 masks) whose effectiveness is still being debated, but that's about custom, not government response.
The photo from America shows a bigger room, but I suspect that's just a choice of photo and Japanese airports had big rooms full of people in January too. Perhaps not, but certainly a photo of a small room doesn't disprove the existence of big rooms.
The important point of the Japanese mask-wearing custom is the reason why they are worn: To protect others from infection. That purpose doesn't need N95 protection.
The current US Airport situation was in the news here in Germany, but perhaps not in the US. It breaks with most distancing guidelines. People are much too close to each other (compared to the advised 1-2m distance), and shared the same room (and air) for many hours. What good is that whole measure if you practically guarantee that more infected people will enter the country afterwards?
My overall point was related to the dates of both posts. Yes, on paper both Japan and the US implemented similar-sounding measures at about the same time. But one has to look at the actual implementation.
I wonder if wearing masks is actually an effective custom that might become more popular in the West.
But it's not an option right now, there are no face masks available. That's a custom that has to exist before the pandemic starts so people will already have masks.
Recent experience with SARS meant East Asian countries had procedures in place, took the threat seriously and that the general population did likewise.
I know a few people that were in the far east during the SARS-COV1 outbreak it scared the living shit out them. Those countries including China reacted swiftly and forcibly once they were aware of what they were up against.
Meanwhile in the Trump Administration was actively blocking attempts to perform surveillance by public health authorities as recently as Feb 27th.
> State health officials joined Chu in asking the CDC and Food and Drug Administration to waive privacy rules and allow clinical tests in a research lab, citing the threat of significant loss of life. The CDC and FDA said no. "We felt like we were sitting, waiting for the pandemic to emerge," Chu told the Times. "We could help. We couldn't do anything." They held off for a couple of weeks, but on Feb. 25, Chu and her colleagues "began performing coronavirus tests, without government approval,"
That’s on the FDA more than the White House, though obviously that’s where the buck stops. The FDA being incompetent or obstructive during a pandemic seems less than ideal.
“The White House considered issuing an executive order greatly expanding the use of investigational drugs against the new coronavirus, but met with objections from Food and Drug Administration scientists who warned it could pose unneeded risks to patients, according to a senior government official.
The idea to expand testing of drugs and other medical therapies was strongly opposed by the FDA’s senior scientists this week, the official said, and represented the most notable conflict between the FDA and the White House in recent memory.”
So federal regulators (not Trump) told researchers not to test samples from a research study without the patients' permission?
Seems reasonable to me. They should have gotten permission from the participants instead of asking regulators to waive patient privacy.
> as part of a research project into the flu, she and a team of researchers had been collecting nasal swabs from residents experiencing symptoms throughout the Puget Sound region.
> To repurpose the tests for monitoring the coronavirus, they would need the support of state and federal officials. But nearly everywhere Dr. Chu turned, officials repeatedly rejected the idea,
Eh, how about we get through this before we start assigning blame. I get that PR is important, but US should focus its energies elsewhere. I just don't see it as productive.
Thank you for questioning that. Some articles (like [1]) said he was arrested, but the BBC said[2]:
> Four days later he was summoned to the Public Security Bureau where he was told to sign a letter. In the letter he was accused of "making false comments" that had "severely disturbed the social order".
> "We solemnly warn you: If you keep being stubborn, with such impertinence, and continue this illegal activity, you will be brought to justice - is that understood?" Underneath in Dr Li's handwriting is written: "Yes, I do."
I misunderstood. But the point remains the same, just replace "jailed" with "threatened".
Imagine the same scenario, but now Team A and Team B are on opposite sides of the world, and Team A is an authoritarian regime that won't let anyone get near Forest A and won't let anyone talk about Forest A, and instead of a forest fire, the danger is microscopic, invisible to the naked eye and to satellites.
Would you still blame Team B for not knowing about the danger immediately?
I'm not blaming team B for not knowing about it immediately, I'm blaming them for their shrugging response even after it's terribly obvious what's happened.
And you seem to say Team B is still utterly blameless, it's all Team A's fault.
From what I've read, the US response was hindered mostly by a faulty reagent in the CDC's test kits, which led to an inability to test patients for the virus.[1] How is a faulty reagent Trump's fault?
And even with that hinderence, the course of the virus, the number of people hospitalized, and the government policies in the US seem to be proceeding in parallel with most other developed nations.
I'd disagree with your claim that you've responded (in my view your "Aaah you're attacking me" is just a deflection), but as I've written, I'm walking away. Enjoy that cognitive dissonance!
There's no cognitive dissonance. Just a lot of disappointment every time I read the facts behind the latest "scandal" and find that it's just anti-Trump spin.
Let's not bring that nonsense here. Let's discuss facts and evidence and make an effort to put partisanship aside.
Hah, how high and mighty. I try to discuss facts and evidence and you just deflect and consider it spin... Of course, you get to leave feeling like the person you're arguing is was just "spinning" stuff, and with your perceptions intact, because, hey "I can't be a chump, right, I'm too clever to be one!", right?
would an extra month's notice have done anything? I get the sense Obama could have told him exactly when it would happen, and he'd have still done nothing until American deaths started ramping up
>ability to surveil other countries for outbreaks of diseases
This extends beyond the NSC pandemic response team, one would think the intelligence community would have some insights assuming the rebuilt their Chinese network after the CIA debacle in 2010. This wasn't a natural disaster like Maria or Katrina with limited forecasting, WHO was alerted to on Dec 31st.
E: Though TBH I think US would have waffled regardless, even their response to Ebola, Operation United Assistance, didn't materialize until the first US death on US soil. Things aren't real until they affect votes or undermine foreign policy interests.
Despite all these previous lies, the US press now reports “no new domestic coronavirus cases in China!” as if there is some reason to believe it’s true.
I have a WSJ subscription. I don't know of any easy way around their paywall, makes it one of the special cases for scraping because you would actually need to login.
I'm not sure I would agree that the article doesn't matter that much. It's an argument that while the FCC's going along with what the courts decided, they're not necessarily doing so in good faith because they tried to bury the announcement with fluff and didn't use a title that would be understandable to the average user.
Like a telco, Facebook allows people to communicate with one another without going through another intermediary. However, it's not one-to-one like your phone, it's one-to-many.
Like a newspaper the messages are broadcast out to everyone that's subscribed to receive them. However, there's limited editorial control by Facebook (except for content breaching their policies).
If we thought of Facebook as a glorified listserv with a pretty UI (and a bunch of tracking cookies and injected ads) would it still seem like it should be treated as a publisher?
You're asking questions which nobody should care about, which goes to show how effective it is to make weird pointless statements like the ones Zuckerburg is making. Placing Facebook in a category is a pointless exercise.
What do you mean by dictate what you see? Aside from the sponsored content/ads, isn't it just a prioritized queue of what your Facebook friends posted?
