Early Computer-Generated Music, the Ugliest Color, and the Shared Experience of Robots: Lux Recommends #52
Welcome to Lux Recommends #52, the newest edition of what we at Lux are reading and thinking about (and want to receive this by email? Sign up here).
Articles
How Robots Can Acquire New Skills from Their Shared Experience: “if each robot must learn its full repertoire of skills for these tasks only from its own experience, it could take far too long to acquire a rich enough range of behaviors to be useful. Could we bridge this gap by making it possible for robots to collectively learn from each other’s experiences?” How robots are acquiring a shared mind, with increasing speed of growth. — Zavain
On the cognitive value of having a bazillion tabs open on your browser: Clive Thompson examines tabs and piles of papers and how messes are conducive to thinking. — Sam
The Day Jobs of Esports’ Biggest Stars: “esports are in the same state that basketball was in during the 1950s.” Question is, how quickly does it catch up? — Adam G
First recording of computer-generated music — created by Alan Turing — restored: “The machine, which filled much of the lab’s ground floor, was used to generate three melodies; God Save the King, Baa, Baa Black Sheep, and Glenn Miller’s swing classic In the Mood.” — Sam
Ranking Potential Saboteurs of Elon Musk’s SpaceX Venture: Love a good conspiracy theory.— Adam G
Would it be immoral to send out a generation starship? “Asking about the permissibility of generation ships might give us a fresh perspective on the permissibility of the constraints we impose now on human lives, here on the biggest generation ship of them all — our planet.” — Sam
Penn Station Reborn: “Decades ago, New York lost one of its grand entryways. What if a new one were hiding in plain sight?”— Jeff
This Is The World’s Ugliest Color — And It Has An Important Job: “Pantone 448 C, a “drab, dark brown” also called “opaque couché,” was specifically selected after three months and multiple studies by research agency GfK. The agency was hired by the Australian government to find a color that was so repugnant that if it was on tobacco products, it would dissuade people from smoking.”— Adam K
Books
But What if We’re Wrong by Chuck Klosterman: “Klosterman visualizes the contemporary world as it will appear to those who’ll perceive it as the distant past.” — Josh
Dark Orbit by Carolyn Ives Gilman: Science fiction that touches on the nature of space-time, consciousness, First Contact, and more. Fun read. — Sam
Television
Westworld: An awesome remake with an awesome cast from Anthony Hopkins to Jeffrey Wright to a foreboding dark character in Ed Harris who plays exactly what I pictured the character of Judge Holden to be in Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. You can feel a latent longing of artificial intelligences embodied in precisely-3D-printed cyborgs who repeat their daily existence as playthings of real human fantasy, to break free if not seek revenge and a cadence of clues that a crescendo is building to chaos! Cannot wait to watch more!— Josh
Videos
Russia Gets So Cold That Waves Literally Freeze — Adam K
1990 Match Sprint World Championships: This is a 1000 meter sprint cycling race. Not exactly what you expect when you think sprinting, but due to aerodynamics, tactics reign supreme.— Jeff
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