Sunday, March 17th 2024
Ishan Anand integrates GPT-2 into Microsoft Excel, showcasing the Transformer architecture's next-token prediction. The 1.25GB spreadsheet, available on GitHub, uses GPT-2 Small with 124 million parameters. Anand's creation, despite limitations like handling only 10 tokens, serves as a valuable educational tool for various professionals new to AI. The spreadsheet operates solely on local PCs, avoiding cloud API calls. Anand advises against using it on Mac or cloud spreadsheet apps due to compatibility issues.
New research links rapidly melting Arctic ice to increased summer heatwaves and droughts in Europe. The Arctic's warming causes ice melt, sending fresh water into the North Atlantic, disrupting ocean currents. A "freshwater anomaly" could trigger a drought and heatwave in Southern Europe this summer and in Northern Europe within five years. Rising temperatures affect weather patterns, leading to more severe heatwaves, wildfires, and droughts in Europe. Rising global temperatures intensify Arctic ice melt, posing risks to lives and livelihoods. Taking action, from using renewable energy to advocating for policies, can help mitigate the impacts of climate change on weather patterns and ocean currents.
Geologists reveal the dawn of Earth’s sixth ocean
In the vast deserts of Ethiopia, a remarkable phenomenon has been quietly unfolding since 2005—an extraordinary 35-mile-long crack known as the East African Rift. This geological feature holds the key to a profound transformation that will reshape political boundaries, economic landscapes, and the very geography of our planet, potentially leading to the emergence of Earth's sixth ocean. The movement of the Somalian tectonic plate relative to the larger Nubian tectonic plate is of colossal significance, not witnessed since the separation of South America and Africa hundreds of millions of years ago. Published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, a study reveals that these colossal plates are gradually drifting apart, offering landlocked nations like Ethiopia and Uganda newfound opportunities for economic growth and development. Renowned marine geophysicist Ken Macdonald predicts the flooding of the Afar region, leading to the formation of a new ocean and a distinct continent in East Africa. Researchers estimate that the complete transformation resulting in the emergence of a separate continent and a new ocean will take another 5 to 10 million years, highlighting the ever-evolving nature of our planet.
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Artificial intelligence is making its way into Excel, the Arctic is liquefying, Africa is tearing apart: the world is reinventing itself, driven by the combined forces of technology and nature. I often say that the future is already here, but unevenly distributed. Integrating GPT-2 into Excel is like grafting a rocket engine onto a 2CV. It's like when I played with ChatGPT, the extraordinary blending with the ordinary, the tool becoming a creative partner. Technology is nothing but an extension of our curiosity, a way to push the boundaries of the impossible.
The melting of the Arctic ice and the birth of a new ocean in Africa speak to me of a world in flux, where our actions and inactions have irreversible consequences. These geological and climatic phenomena, even though they operate on different time scales and magnitudes, remind me that everything is interconnected. The climate crisis, through these events, becomes the backdrop of our era. Technology, for all it can achieve, must also help us understand and mitigate our impact on the planet.
These three articles, like my journal notes, remind me that we are living in an age of paradoxes. We are capable of conceiving tools of immense power, while facing geological and climatic upheavals that underscore our vulnerability. Our greatest challenge is to navigate between creation and destruction, between innovation and conservation. We are the creators and actors of a world in constant transformation. What if our genius lies in our ability to evolve in a complex world, not seeking to dominate it, but to coexist with it?
Generation cost: 8299 tokens/0.06$