[-] realChem@beehaw.org 23 points 11 months ago

why would I want to use it?

You wouldn't, but that's fine with Match Group: JP Morgan[^1] are loving this new monetization strategy. If they think they can get more money out of their users they will, the experience and usefulness of their app be damned. Very similar to aggressively monetized mobile games, but extra icky since they're monetizing human relationships.

[^1]: I'm sure other investment firms are pleased as well, but JP Morgan was the firm mentioned in the article

[-] realChem@beehaw.org 13 points 1 year ago

Sentient, spacefaring bees, according to the article! Not what I was expecting but still, sounds pretty intriguing!

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The Oldest Living Shark (www.livescience.com)
submitted 1 year ago by realChem@beehaw.org to c/science@beehaw.org
[-] realChem@beehaw.org 24 points 1 year ago

It seems like you're working under the core assumption that the trained model itself, rather than just the products thereof, cannot be infringing?

Generally if someone else wants to do something with your copyrighted work – for example your newspaper article – they need a license to do so. This isn't only the case for direct distribution, it includes things like the creation of electronic copies (which must have been made during training), adaptations, and derivative works. NYT did not grant OpenAI a license to adapt their articles into a training dataset for their models. To use a copyrighted work without a license, you need to be using it under fair use. That's why it's relevant: is it fair use to make electronic copies of a copyrighted work and adapt them into a training dataset for a LLM?

You also seem to be assuming that a generative AI model training on a dataset is legally the same as a human learning from those same works. If that's the case then the answer to my question in the last paragraph is definitely, "yes," since a human reading the newspaper and learning from it is something that, as you say, "any intelligent rational human being" would agree is fine. However, as far as I know there's not been any kind of ruling to support the idea that those things are legally equivalent at this point.

Now, if you'd like to start citing code or case law go ahead, I'm happy to be wrong. Who knows, this is the internet, maybe you're actually a lawyer specializing in copyright law and you'll point out some fundamental detail of one of these laws that makes my whole comment seem silly (and if so I'd honestly love to read it). I'm not trying to claim that NYT is definitely going to win or anything. My argument is just that this is not especially cut-and-dried, at least from the perspective of a non-expert.

[-] realChem@beehaw.org 17 points 1 year ago

Well I hear what you're saying, although I don't much appreciate being told what I should want the outcome to be.

My own wants notwithstanding, I know copyright law is notoriously thorny – fair use doubly so – and I'm no lawyer. I'd be a little bit surprised if NYT decides to raise this suit without consulting their own lawyers though, so it stands to reason that if they do indeed decide to sue then there are at least some copyright lawyers who think it'll have a chance. As I said, we'll see.

[-] realChem@beehaw.org 11 points 1 year ago

Yeah I've heard a lot of people talking about the copyright stuff with respect to image generation AIs, but as far as I can see there's no fundamental reason that text generating AIs wouldn't be subject to the same laws. We'll see how the lawsuit goes though I suppose.

[-] realChem@beehaw.org 22 points 1 year ago

Exciting stuff. I've long since vowed never to pre-order anything from Bethesda ever again though, so I'll be waiting to hear what the vibe is once other folks start playing it. Right now it very much seems like it could either be great or disappointing. We'll see in a couple weeks' time I s'pose

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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by realChem@beehaw.org to c/science@beehaw.org

Not what I initially expected this article to be about, but I do love this kind of cross-cutting research that takes ideas from one field and applies them to a seemingly entirely different field. (Also makes me wish I'd been able to take a topology class at some point.)

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Actual Progress (imgs.xkcd.com)

Alternate title: how my PhD project is currently going

[-] realChem@beehaw.org 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I've always heard that "organic" farming is really not especially different from conventional farming, including from some folks in agriculture. Like, they still use chemical pesticides and stuff, just different ones that are less effective and so sprayed more heavily.

I don't have anything to back that up with though, so there's a reasonable chance you have better info here. I'd be interested to know more if you've got standards and such you can share?

[-] realChem@beehaw.org 24 points 1 year ago

Flash games will work again? Moving away from NFTs? Well dang, I might just make a new neopets account! Lots of nostalgia there, it'd be cool to mess around with again after all these years.

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Science Q&A (beehaw.org)
submitted 1 year ago by realChem@beehaw.org to c/science@beehaw.org

Hey folks! Here's a pinned post where you can ask science questions!

Here's a quick rundown of what this post is and isn't:

  • This is a place where you can ask science-related questions!
  • This is a place to provide science-based answers to others' questions!
  • This isn't reddit's askscience community. By this I mean we don't have the resources (or, really, desire) to vet users' credentials, and you shouldn't expect that whoever is answering your question is necessarily an expert. That said, this community does have a large share of professional scientists and engineers, and I'm hoping that those folks will be interested in sharing their expertise when they can.
  • This isn't a place to ask for medical advice – since we can't vet qualifications these kinds of questions won't be allowed here in the interest of preventing harm, and I'll remove any comments that ask personal medical questions. If you have a question about medicine that's not asking for advice, that is fine and allowed.
  • This isn't the only place on this community where you're allowed to ask questions! If you have a question related to another post, ask in the comments there. If you have a question not related to another post, I'd like it if you tried asking here first (to help this thread gain some traction), but you're also free to ask in a separate post if you'd prefer (or both).

I'm going to post this inaugural thread with no set expiration date. I'm currently thinking a new thread maybe every 2–4 weeks, but I'd like to see what the volume of comments here ends up being like before deciding for sure.

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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by realChem@beehaw.org to c/science@beehaw.org

Edit: Alright, it's been more than 48 hours! We got lots more feedback this time, and most of it has been in support of the idea! I'm going to give this a try, and see if it gets any traction. If not many people end up using it I can always just unpin and let the post fall down the sorting list.

@wjs018@beehaw.org made an interesting point about pinned comments being less visible to folks browsing from feed other than /c/science itself, but I'm hoping that having the pinned post might let some folks realize that asking questions is even allowed on this community in the first place! I'll make it clear that asking questions as a separate post is also allowed (at least for now, may change if the feed ends up being flooded by them but that's the opposite of the current situation so I'm not too worried).

Original text of this post below:

So it turns out if you set a language on your post, anyone who hasn't explicitly picked any languages in their profile can't see it. So I'm gonna repost this with no language selected and see if we get a little more feedback this time.

There were a couple of Q&A posts here ~~yesterday~~ the other day that got some pretty good engagement, and I was wondering if folks would be interested in a weekly/biweekly pinned Q&A post?

I don't think it makes sense at this point to do anything like reddit's /r/AskScience does in terms of organizing themed panels or vetting people's credentials, nor is that something that's really supported by lemmy as a platform at the moment. It seems, though, that we do have a fair number of users around who are working scientists and engineers in a pretty wide variety of fields.

So: if a pinned Q&A post existed, would you ask questions? Likewise, would you contribute answers? If you wouldn't use it, I'd love to know that too! Do you think it would be better to leave things as they are and just ask questions in post form? Let me know here in the comments, and also of course feel free to raise any additional thoughts or concerns you might have. If it seems like enough folks are interested I can set up a thread to try the idea out.

3
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by realChem@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org
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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by realChem@beehaw.org to c/science@beehaw.org

A lot of science communication in the media can be, to say it gently, not the best. Important things get left out, conclusions are often misrepresented or extrapolated to things that they really don't say, and methods are often left out completely.

I want to find some more sources for good science communication that people have generally found to be both accurate and well written for folks outside the field (since if all we wanted was accuracy, we'd just read the primary literature).

I've always personally been a fan of Quanta. They occasionally write about topics I'm well versed in (materials / crystallography) and I find that on those topics they're very accurate, so I assume that's also true about the articles they write in other fields. I also think that the folks writing for them do a good job at the communication aspect, e.g. being willing to cover the basics a bit before jumping into the new science.

What about you all? Do you have a favorite or a go-to for high quality science writing?

[-] realChem@beehaw.org 12 points 1 year ago

I've been watching a lot of her videos lately! I found the one on Gell-Mann amnesia to be really interesting and linked it here the other day; maybe a good one for a next watch if you haven't picked yet.

[-] realChem@beehaw.org 14 points 1 year ago

Exactly. Some things just can't be studied as part of a double blind RCT. For example, see: Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma related to gravitational challenge: systematic review of randomised controlled trials

The perception that parachutes are a successful intervention is based largely on anecdotal evidence. Observational data have shown that their use is associated with morbidity and mortality, due to both failure of the intervention and iatrogenic complications...

The paper is funny, but the authors are making a serious point. RCTs are great when they're possible, but just because they're not possible doesn't mean we can't gather strong evidence anyway.

[-] realChem@beehaw.org 29 points 1 year ago

Really interesting to hear an actual expert with experience at depth (and at this exact site) discuss this story. I'm glad the anchor didn't cut in too often and let him speak at length. Thank you for sharing!

7
submitted 1 year ago by realChem@beehaw.org to c/science@beehaw.org

Here's the relevant paper (which does not appear to be open access, unfortunately): Polygonal tessellations as predictive models of molecular monolayers

[-] realChem@beehaw.org 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I feel like I should clarify because the article didn't do a good job at explaining: perovskite is a kind of structure, not a particular material. They have the generic formula ABX~3~ (where A and B are different kinds of cations and X is some kind of anion), although not everything with the formula is a perovskite.

Simple perovskites include some lead-containing materials like lead titanate, but also lead-free materials like barium or strontium titanate. And in general there are a lot of different kinds of perovskites, especially because some of the structural sites can be filled by small organic molecules instead of pure elements.

Edit: I think I was misreading the journal article before my edit (it's early I'm not awake yet lol). I had said it looks like they're using a lead-based perovskite but actually I can't tell what exactly they're using with a quick skim. The article is very review-y, the formula I thought they were using is from another paper. I'll have a more thorough look later.

Edit 2: It's a review paper, and the way it was described in the linked news article is kinda misleading. Its not specifically about this company's particular composition or architecture.

10
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by realChem@beehaw.org to c/science@beehaw.org

There were a couple of Q/A posts here yesterday that got some pretty good engagement, and I was wondering if folks would be interested in a weekly pinned Q/A post?

I don't think it makes sense at this point to do anything like reddit's /r/AskScience does in terms of organizing themed panels or vetting people's credentials, nor is that something that's really supported by lemmy as a platform at the moment. It seems, though, that we do have a fair number of users around who are working scientists and engineers in a pretty wide variety of fields.

So: if a pinned Q/A post existed, would you ask questions? Likewise, would you contribute answers? Do you think it would be better to leave things as they are and just ask questions in post form? Let me know here in the comments, and also of course feel free to raise any additional thoughts or concerns you might have. If it seems like enough folks are interested I can set up a thread this week to try the idea out.

Edit: Okay, based on upvotes it looks like only about 3% of monthly /c/science users are interested enough in this to click the arrow, so I'm gonna leave it be for now (although it might be worth a revisit in the future). I think @Auster@kbin.social makes a good point about the possibility of a self-sustaining cycle, but the Q/A posts that prompted me to ask about this have actually gotten much more engagement than this pinned post did. Perhaps it's because a lot of people are engaging with /c/science via their own feeds and not visiting the community directly? But either way it seems like, for now at least, individual question posts would probably get more engagement.

3
submitted 1 year ago by realChem@beehaw.org to c/science@beehaw.org

A very thought-provoking video about Gell-Mann amnesia, its compliment (which she calls Mann-Gell amnesia, which I think is a fun name), and science communication

Also the beginning of the video is framed around reddit, which I think is interesting to bring up in the context of lemmy/beehaw, building a new community, and the choices we make about how we communicate with each other online

1
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by realChem@beehaw.org to c/science@beehaw.org

This paper describes an amazingly deep principle underlying a lot of physics. The paper might be a little tricky if you're not familiar with group theory, but it's got some pretty good illustrations that help a lot.

The one-line takeaway is:

It is only the absence of some symmetry elements, which is obligatory. It is this property – dissymmetry – which makes phenomena

Essentially, if you can find a broken symmetry in some effect, you know that you'll also find that broken symmetry in (the superposition of) it's causes. You can't necessarily say anything about the set of symmetries of the causes, but you can about their dissymmetries.

The reason I love this paper so much is because it's part of a line of mathematical thinking about science that eventually lead to Emmy Noether's famous theorem, where she was able to prove that wherever we find a conserved quantity (e.g. energy, momentum, etc) it is due to an underlying continuous symmetry in the system. (This isn't the same thing as this paper is discussing, but her result uses this same application of ideas from group theory to physics.)

Note: This paper should be available as part of an open archive but sometimes it's hard for me to tell, since I have institutional access; lmk if you can't access the paper

1
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by realChem@beehaw.org to c/science@beehaw.org

I've been curious how many working researchers we've got in this community, and what you all do!

If you're working in science (physical or social), engineering, etc in a research capacity, give a shout in the comments and let us know what you work on! Same goes for students and amateur scientists at any level. (And by amateur I mean those of you who are working on your own experiments but just not being paid for it / not working on a degree; I'm upset that "amateur" has a negative connotation, it shouldn't.)

I'm currently a PhD candidate, working on transmission electron microscopy and electronic materials (mainly ferroelectrics). In the past I've been involved in research / product development in a few different industries, including medical devices, aerogels, and materials for RF devices.

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realChem

joined 1 year ago