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Researchers predicted that people would consistently underrate how much they might benefit from talking on the phone.Photograph by Stokkete / Shutterstock I’m one of the lucky ones. The onset of this pandemic has put a strain on the sanity of many people forced to isolate themselves from friends and family. If you live alone, or with roommates who you aren’t close with, you’ve likely had a harder time maintaining social connection compared to me, a husband and father. My in-laws, with whom my wife and I form a social pod, are a five-minute’s drive away. And across the bay, in San Francisco, live two of my best friends, with whom I’ve had a number of socially distanced “hangs.” Intimate communication is easy to come by. I’ve got 99 problems but feeling alone isn’t one.  More isolated people, though, are reverting to a practice that we thought we had heard the… Read More »People Are Discovering the Joy of Actually Talking on a Phone – Facts So Romantic

Reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine‘s Abstractions blog. Computer scientists are trying to build an AI system that can win a gold medal at the world’s premier math competition.Photograph by Valerie Kuypers / AFP / Getty Images The 61st International Mathematical Olympiad, or IMO, began yesterday. It may go down in history for at least two reasons: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic it’s the first time the event has been held remotely, and it may also be the last time that artificial intelligence doesn’t compete. Indeed, researchers view the IMO as the ideal proving ground for machines designed to think like humans. If an AI system can excel here, it will have matched an important dimension of human cognition. “The IMO, to me, represents the hardest class of problems that smart people can be taught to solve somewhat reliably,” said Daniel Selsam of Microsoft Research. Selsam is a founder of the IMO Grand Challenge,… Read More »At the Math Olympiad, Computers Prepare to Go for the Gold – Facts So Romantic