TED: Time perception is influenced by heartbeats, with stimuli during heart contractions perceived as shorter.
TED: The speaker discusses the impact of beauty filters and the technological gaze on societal beauty standards, urging a celebration of diversity over conformity to digital ideals.
Veritasium: AI breakthroughs in protein folding and design are revolutionizing science and solving global challenges.
TED - Your experience of time may not only be in your HEAD — but in your HEART, too #TEDTalk #science
The perception of time varies depending on our focus, emotional state, and physiological responses. Sensory neurons in the heart send signals to the brain only during heart contractions, creating a rhythmic interaction between the brain and heart. This interaction affects how we perceive time. Stimuli occurring during heart contractions are perceived as shorter compared to those occurring when the heart is relaxed. This suggests that time perception is an embodied experience, influenced by both brain and body. The slowing of time during boredom might serve to expand perception and encourage exploration.
Key Points:
- Time perception is linked to heartbeats, with contractions shortening perceived duration.
- Sensory neurons in the heart communicate with the brain during contractions, affecting time perception.
- Time perception is an embodied experience, shaped by both brain and body interactions.
- Boredom may slow time perception to enhance awareness and encourage exploration.
- Understanding heart-brain interaction can provide insights into managing focus and emotional states.
Details:
1. ⏳ The Distortion of Time Perception
- Time perception can change based on the situation, such as experiencing time as moving faster during engaging activities, and slower during monotonous tasks.
- Time distortion is influenced by attention, emotion, and task complexity, with studies indicating that these factors alter our perception of time's passage.
- For example, a study found that participants engaged in complex tasks perceived time to pass more quickly compared to those doing simple, repetitive tasks.
- Understanding these dynamics can improve productivity by aligning tasks with optimal time blocks to enhance focus and engagement.
- Implementing time management strategies that consider time distortion effects could lead to more efficient work habits and better task completion rates.
2. 🧠 Heart and Brain Connection
- Sensory neurons are integral in linking emotional states to cognitive focus, influencing how emotions can affect attention and concentration levels.
- Understanding the impact of sensory neurons can lead to improved strategies for managing emotions and enhancing focus, crucial for both personal and professional environments.
3. ❤️ Rhythmic Heartbeat Communication
- Heart signals are synchronized with the heart's contraction, indicating the state of the body to the brain only during contraction phases.
- These signals remain silent during heart relaxation, implying a rhythmic pattern of communication between the heart and brain.
- This rhythmic communication is crucial as it helps the brain understand the body's current status, potentially influencing emotional states and decision-making processes.
- The synchronized signals during heart contraction may affect physiological responses, such as stress levels, by providing real-time data to the brain.
4. 🔄 Heartbeats and Perception Timing
- The brain and heart engage in a constant rhythmic dance where each heartbeat primes the brain for action and the intervals between beats prepare it for perception.
- Stimuli occurring during heart contractions are perceived as shorter in duration compared to those occurring between beats.
- Studies indicate that the timing of stimuli relative to heartbeats can affect how we perceive time, suggesting a physiological basis for time perception.
- Research shows that during the systolic phase of the heartbeat, when the heart contracts, the brain is less sensitive to external stimuli, providing evidence that heart rhythms can influence cognitive processing.
- Understanding the interplay between heartbeats and perception could inform strategies for improving attention and cognitive performance, potentially benefiting individuals with time perception disorders.
5. 🕰️ Embodied Experience of Time
- The perception of time is intricately linked to physiological states, particularly the heart's rhythm.
- Research indicates that the heart's relaxed state can cause variations in how time is perceived, highlighting a connection between bodily states and time perception.
- Time perception can contract or expand within each heartbeat, demonstrating that it is an embodied experience influenced by physiological rhythms.
6. ✨ Expanding Perception When Bored
- Research suggests that the sensation of time slowing down when bored may serve to expand perception and foster mental exploration. This phenomenon might encourage individuals to explore new ideas and think creatively, as their minds are more open to novel stimuli during these periods. For example, when people experience boredom, they might engage in daydreaming or creative thinking, which can lead to innovative solutions or personal insights.
TED - How Digital Culture Is Reshaping Our Faces and Bodies | Elise Hu | TED
The speaker shares a personal experience in Taipei, Taiwan, where they encountered automatic beauty filters on TikTok that altered their appearance without consent. This incident exemplifies the 'technological gaze,' an algorithm-driven perspective that influences how individuals perceive and present themselves. The speaker highlights the prevalence of beauty filters among young girls and how these AI-generated filters set unrealistic beauty standards. They draw parallels with South Korea's cosmetic surgery culture, where physical appearance significantly impacts professional and personal success. The speaker warns against the global trend of body augmentation and the pursuit of digital beauty, which can marginalize those who don't conform and exhaust those who try to keep up. They advocate for challenging these norms by celebrating diversity and disrupting systems that equate worth with appearance, encouraging individuals to embrace their natural selves.
Key Points:
- Beauty filters on social media apps can alter appearances without consent, promoting unrealistic beauty standards.
- The 'technological gaze' is an algorithm-driven perspective that influences self-perception and societal beauty norms.
- In South Korea, cosmetic surgery is prevalent, reflecting extreme societal pressure to conform to beauty standards.
- The pursuit of digital beauty can marginalize those who don't fit in and exhaust those who try to conform.
- Celebrating diversity and disrupting systems that equate worth with appearance can challenge harmful beauty norms.
Details:
1. 📱 Encountering the Technological Gaze
- Automatic beauty filters on apps can drastically alter a person's appearance without their consent, applying changes such as skin smoothing, skin lightening, teeth whitening, nose narrowing, and eye enlargement.
- These filters can result in a version of oneself that is fundamentally different from reality, leading to the notion of 'forced catfishing.'
- The experience highlighted the concept of the 'technological gaze,' where technology imposes a certain standard of beauty or appearance.
- Beauty filters impact self-image and societal standards by promoting an unrealistic beauty ideal.
- Studies have shown that prolonged exposure to these filters can lead to decreased self-esteem and body dysmorphia, especially among younger users.
- The 'technological gaze' is not just a passive observation but actively shapes how individuals perceive themselves and others, reinforcing stereotypes and biases.
2. 🔍 Understanding the Technological Gaze
- The 'technological gaze' is a concept where algorithmically driven perspectives shape how individuals perceive and modify their behavior based on data feedback.
- This gaze creates a self-reinforcing loop: machines learn from users and replicate behaviors, which influences further user actions.
- Originating from discussions on surveillance capitalism, this concept highlights the power of technology to mimic and modify human behavior, often without conscious awareness.
- Real-world examples include personalized content recommendations on social media, where algorithms adjust what users see based on past interactions, subtly steering user engagement.
- The implications of this gaze can lead to a homogenization of thought and behavior, as individuals become optimized for algorithmic efficiency rather than diverse human experiences.
- Understanding this concept is crucial for developing strategies to counteract potential negative effects, such as designing systems that promote human agency over algorithmic control.
3. 📸 The Impact on Young Girls
- 80% of 13-year-old girls in America have used filters or editing to alter their online appearance.
- Filters are increasingly hyperrealistic, often AI-generated, promoting specific beauty standards such as arched eyebrows, higher cheekbones, and plump lips.
- The discrepancy between real appearance and filtered images contributes to digital world dictating real-world beauty standards.
4. 💉 Cosmetic Culture in South Korea
- Seoul is a global hub for cosmetic surgery, emphasizing face and body optimization.
- Nearly 50% of Korean women have undergone some form of plastic surgery by their 20s, highlighting the cultural norm of cosmetic enhancements.
- South Korea is recognized as the cosmetic surgery capital of the world, with no other country matching its prevalence.
- Cultural influences, such as the high value placed on physical appearance and societal pressure, drive the widespread acceptance and pursuit of cosmetic procedures.
- The historical rise of cosmetic surgery in South Korea is linked to economic growth and Western beauty standards becoming increasingly influential.
- Public perception tends to view cosmetic surgery as a necessary enhancement rather than an optional luxury, contributing to its integration into everyday life.
- The societal impact includes both positive outcomes, such as increased self-esteem, and negative issues, like reinforcing unrealistic beauty standards.
5. 💪 Global Beauty Standards and Their Consequences
- The cosmetic procedure 'Traptox', involving Botox injections into the trapezius muscles, is gaining popularity for creating a longer neck appearance, reflecting the global influence of beauty standards.
- Botox injections are also being used in calves, showcasing the extent of cosmetic procedures for aesthetic purposes.
- A clinic in Seoul previously displayed altered jawbones, illustrating the extreme lengths some go to for a slimmer jawline, though such displays are no longer common.
- In Seoul, appearance significantly influences job prospects and social status, with headshots required on résumés and hiring decisions often based on facial aesthetics.
- Physical alterations are often pursued as a means to achieve economic security, highlighting how beauty is intertwined with personal responsibility and opportunity.
- Korea exemplifies an intensified form of 'pretty privilege', where physical appearance heavily impacts personal and professional opportunities, reflecting a global trend.
6. 💭 Challenging Narrow Beauty Ideals
- Fatphobia in the United States is driving significant off-label use of Ozempic, a medication primarily intended for diabetes, now increasingly used for weight loss.
- The societal reward for thinness and stigma against fatness are central to the increased use of such medications for weight loss.
- There's a call to reassess and broaden our beauty ideals, as narrow beauty standards expand the definition of 'ugly.'
7. 🤖 The Future of Beauty in a Digital Age
- Digital culture is reshaping our physical appearance, turning our bodies into ongoing projects, with enhancements becoming increasingly inaccessible for many.
- The pursuit of digital beauty is creating unattainable standards as AI's concept of attractiveness becomes more inhuman and cyborg-like.
- Historically, body augmentation trends have evolved from basic cosmetic surgeries to advanced digital technologies.
- AI-driven beauty standards challenge traditional notions of beauty, leading to psychological impacts such as reduced self-esteem.
- Case studies show a rise in digital beauty filters and applications, influencing users' perceptions of their natural appearance.
8. 🌍 Celebrating Diversity and Authenticity
- Challenge societal norms that prioritize looks as the primary measure of worth.
- Recognize the marginalizing effect of societal beauty standards on those who cannot conform.
- Acknowledge the pressure and cost for those who strive to conform to beauty standards.
- Promote a redefinition of beauty to include diverse and authentic expressions.
- Understand that solutions to societal biases (e.g., homophobia, racism) do not lie in conforming to a single standard.
- Encourage the celebration of diversity and individual differences inherent to the human condition.
- Aim to disrupt systems that equate personal worth with physical appearance.
9. 👩🎤 Embracing Your True Self
- The speaker emphasizes the importance of embracing one's true self, regardless of societal or algorithmic standards.
- Encourages individuals to feel comfortable with their own physical appearance, promoting self-acceptance and authenticity.
- Highlights the diversity of appearances as something to be valued and celebrated, implying that all forms are worthy.
Veritasium - What if all the world's biggest problems have the same solution?
The video discusses how AI, specifically DeepMind's AlphaFold, has revolutionized protein folding, a problem that took decades to solve manually. AlphaFold's AI can predict protein structures with high accuracy, advancing scientific research by decades. This breakthrough has applications in developing vaccines, understanding diseases, and creating synthetic proteins for medical use. Additionally, AI is being used to design new proteins from scratch, which can lead to innovations in medicine and environmental solutions. The video highlights the transformative potential of AI in various scientific fields, emphasizing its ability to solve complex problems and accelerate discovery.
Key Points:
- AI can predict protein structures accurately, saving time and resources.
- AlphaFold has unveiled over 200 million protein structures, aiding research.
- AI-designed proteins can neutralize snake venom and aid in vaccine development.
- AI accelerates scientific discovery, offering solutions to global challenges.
- AI's potential extends beyond biology to materials science and environmental issues.
Details:
1. 🔬 Solving Global Problems with Tiny Solutions
1.1. Protein Structure Breakthrough
1.2. Importance of Protein Structures
1.3. Challenges in Protein Structure Discovery
2. 🧬 The Complex World of Protein Structures
2.1. Cost of Protein Structure Determination
2.2. Understanding Protein Folding
2.3. Challenges in Protein Structure Prediction
2.4. Complexity of Protein Folding
3. 🏆 The CASP Challenge and Human Ingenuity
- The CASP competition was initiated in 1994 by John Moult to challenge researchers to create computer models that predict protein structures from amino acid sequences, with a perfect match scoring 100.
- Initially, no teams scored higher than 40, but the algorithm Rosetta led by David Baker began to emerge as a frontrunner by utilizing distributed computing through 'Rosetta at Home'.
- Baker innovated by introducing 'Fold It', a game that allowed humans to manipulate protein structures, leading to 50,000 gamers solving a key HIV enzyme structure, verified by X-ray crystallography, and earning them co-authorship in a research paper.
- Demis Hassabis, inspired by 'Fold It', founded DeepMind and launched AlphaGo, which gained fame for defeating the world champion in Go, later focusing on AI applications in science with a project called AlphaFold aimed at solving protein folding.
- Despite advancements, CASP predictions stagnated, highlighting the need for new approaches as even leading models like Rosetta saw diminishing returns post-CASP 8.
4. 🤖 AlphaFold: Revolutionizing Protein Folding
4.1. AlphaFold 1 Methodology
4.2. Role of Evolutionary Data in AlphaFold
5. ⚙️ Building AlphaFold 2: The AI Breakthrough
- AlphaFold 2 initially scored 70, which was below the CASP threshold of 90, necessitating further development.
- John Jumper was recruited to lead the AlphaFold project, focusing on integrating geometric, physical, and evolutionary concepts directly into the network, significantly improving accuracy.
- Three key steps for achieving better AI results: leveraging maximum compute power, utilizing a large and diverse data set, and employing superior AI algorithms.
- DeepMind had a strategic advantage with access to Google's extensive computing power, including tensor processing units.
- AlphaFold 2 was trained on the same data as AlphaFold 1 but achieved superior results due to enhanced machine learning techniques, highlighting that data was not the primary bottleneck.
- AI's capabilities extend beyond protein folding, demonstrating versatility in tasks such as email writing and phone call management.
- Advanced AI tools can simplify complex tasks like website building, as demonstrated by Hostinger's AI-powered website creation tools.
6. 🌐 Hostinger Ad Break
6.1. Hostinger Ad Offer
6.2. AlphaFold 2 and Transformer Algorithm
7. 🔗 AlphaFold 2's Success at CASP 14
- AlphaFold 2's success is attributed to the innovative use of the EVO Former, which refines information over 48 iterations to enhance prediction accuracy.
- The structure module of AlphaFold 2 does not explicitly encode amino acid chains, allowing each amino acid to be positioned independently, preventing the model from being constrained by traditional chain formations.
- This approach enables AlphaFold 2 to predict protein structures with a self-consistent picture, improving the folding accuracy and making it less prone to errors from preconceived structural constraints.
8. 🚀 Transformative Impacts of AlphaFold
- AlphaFold 2, developed by DeepMind, demonstrated exceptional performance at the CASP 14 event with model accuracy virtually indistinguishable from actual protein structures and surpassed the gold standard score of 90.
- AlphaFold solved a longstanding challenge in protein structure prediction, achieving what decades of global scientific efforts had not, by unveiling over 200 million protein structures in a short period.
- The technology accelerated research in various fields by several decades, contributing directly to the development of a malaria vaccine and overcoming antibiotic resistance by breaking down enzymes.
- AlphaFold's predictions also facilitated understanding of protein mutations in diseases such as schizophrenia and cancer, and aided biologists studying endangered species.
9. 🔮 Nobel Recognition and Future Applications
- The AlphaFold 2 paper has been cited over 30,000 times, indicating its significant impact on scientific research.
- John Jumper and Demis Hassabis were awarded one half of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on AlphaFold 2, highlighting the revolutionary nature of the breakthrough in understanding protein structures.
- David Baker received the other half of the Nobel Prize for designing completely new proteins from scratch, showcasing a major advancement in protein engineering.
- Baker's approach uses generative AI, similar to Dall-E, to design new proteins, demonstrating the innovative application of AI in biotechnology.
- His technique, "RF Diffusion," involves training AI by adding random noise to known protein structures and then having the AI remove the noise, enabling the creation of novel proteins for specific functions.
- This technology has led to the development of human-compatible antibodies capable of neutralizing lethal snake venom, which can be manufactured at scale and transported easily, improving survival rates significantly in venomous snakebite cases.
- Potential applications of this technology include developing vaccines, treatments for cancer and autoimmune diseases, and enzymes that can capture greenhouse gases or break down plastics.
- The rapid creation and iteration of proteins using this method is revolutionary, allowing for the design of proteins on the computer and obtaining their amino acid sequences efficiently.
10. 🌍 AI: Beyond Proteins and Into the Future
- DeepMind's GNoME program discovered 2.2 million new crystals with over 400,000 stable materials, impacting superconductors and batteries.
- AI is solving fundamental scientific problems, significantly accelerating the pace of discovery.
- Scientific discovery speed could increase up to 100,000-fold, changing research focus and methodologies.
- Future AI advancements might lead to curing all diseases and developing novel materials.
- AI's breakthroughs are not only immediate but have the potential for long-lasting benefits across multiple disciplines.
