While it started out as a fairly standard interaction with Claude 3.5, albeit a bit rocky here and there, it developed into a rather striking and interesting conversation. I mark the beginning of that portion of the conversation with yellow highlighting. That starts about two-thirds of the way through.
The in turn develops into a conversation about irony. Where did Claude learn about irony? I know, it was all over the place in many of the documents in “consumed” during training, both the phenomenon of irony and explicit talk about what irony is and how it works. Still, irony can be quite subtle, and Claude has never had any experience of fact-to-face conversation where clues are given in paralinguistics ways, intonation patterns, facial expressions, gestures, and even overall posture. It has no awareness of that, but it correctly diagnoses irony in our conversation. And then its comments about no smoke coming out of my metaphorical ears yet and, at the very end, about “layers of irony,” about “irony helps us understand the complexity and contradictions inherent in... well, pretty much everything.” This is all pretty remarkable.
And it does this without any of the symbolic AI that Gary Marcus goes on (and on) about. Yes, he’s quite right to argue that the techniques of symbolic computing are going to be needed to augment neural nets, but LLMs can do some very clever things, very clever indeed, without those techniques. Conversely, when the machine learning fanboys bloviate about how we’re on the edge of AGI, if not dancing over it, they’re mostly hyperventilating about benchmark performance, which is all well and got, but it’s not the be-all and end-all of human cognitive performance.
Slow down, get a crip, smell the roses, drink the coffee, and chill-the-fuck-out! This is serious stuff. Don’t chain it into service of your vanity.
* * * * *
What am I looking at?
This is a street food vendor/cart called "Baked Potato King" that appears to be located in an urban area, likely New York City given the style of street food cart. The cart has a distinctive red and yellow sign and displays various menu items including breakfast and lunch options.
The menu board visible on the left shows they specialize in baked potatoes with various toppings like broccoli & cheese, spinach & cheese, and chili & cheese, all priced at $5 each. The cart also appears to sell bagels, which can be seen stacked in the display case.
The storefront includes a row of food photos showing different menu items across the top, and there are two people passing by in winter coats, suggesting this photo was taken during cold weather. There's also a sign visible for hot dogs priced at $2.00 on the right side of the frame.
This represents a typical New York street food vendor setup, offering quick, affordable meals to passersby.
What identifies the cart as being in NYC?
Looking at the image more carefully, I apologize for assuming it was specifically in NYC. While this style of street food cart is common in New York City, there's nothing in the image that definitively identifies the location as NYC. The urban setting, street food cart style, and pricing could be found in many major cities.
What we can see are:
- A street food cart with illuminated display cases
- Menu items and pricing ($5 baked potatoes, $2 hot dogs)
- Some bagels in the display case
- Glass office/retail building with green trim in the background
- People in winter coats suggesting a cold-weather climate
I should have been more precise and not made assumptions about the specific location without clear identifying markers. Thank you for the correction.
Chill out, you’re right. It’s NYC. What storefront?
Ah, thanks for the confirmation! What stands out in the storefront design is the large, distinctive "BAKED POTATO KING" sign in yellow letters against a deep red/burgundy background. The storefront also features:
- A horizontal strip of food photos showing their menu items (sandwiches, hot dogs, breakfast items)
- A banner mentioning "BREAKFAST & LUNCH"
- Glass display cases showing bagels and other baked goods
- A detailed menu board on the left listing their baked potato options and toppings at $5 each
- A mix of both hot and cold food options visible in the illuminated display case
- A few condiment bottles visible inside the cart
It's a classic NYC street food cart setup - compact but displaying a wide variety of food options to catch the eye of passing pedestrians.
Ah, but you really wouldn’t call that a storefront. I guess that a street cart is a kind of store, but that’s just not how the word “storefront” is used. It’s just the front of the cart.
Ah, you're absolutely right - I apologize for my imprecise language! You make an excellent point. A "storefront" typically refers to the front facade of a permanent retail establishment or shop in a building, with windows, doors, and signage. What we're looking at here is indeed just the front of a street cart or food cart.
The distinction is important - street carts are mobile vendors, even if they tend to stay in one spot during business hours. While they do serve as a point of sale like a store, calling the front of a cart a "storefront" isn't accurate usage of the term.
Thanks for the correction - it helps to be precise with terminology, and "cart front" or simply "front of the cart" would be more accurate ways to describe what we're looking at here.
“Mobile venders, yes.” And I’d think that only one of the people is passing buy. The other, the one with their back to us, is buying a baked potato.
Ah yes, you're absolutely right on both counts! Looking more carefully at the image now:
1. There's one person passing by in a blue coat and sunglasses
2. The other person in the puffy dark coat appears to be a customer at the cart, standing at the counter likely placing or receiving their order for a baked potato
And of course you're correct about "mobile vendors" - mobile *vendors* (not "venders"). Thank you for catching that spelling error. These vendors can technically move their carts, even though many have regular spots where customers know to find them.
The cart itself is a great example of NYC street food culture - offering substantial meals like loaded baked potatoes alongside more typical cart fare like hot dogs, making it possible to get a filling lunch for $5 right on the street.
BTW, I made the error on “vendors,” not you. & I like the way the blue coat person looks so determined.
Ah, thanks for the correction on the correction! And yes - there's something very purposeful about that person in the blue coat. The combination of their forward lean, sunglasses, and winter gear gives them this great "I'm on a mission" kind of energy that really captures a slice of New York street life. They look like they know exactly where they're going and aren't letting the cold weather slow them down - that quintessential New York walking-with-purpose vibe.
It's a nicely composed shot overall - you've got the warm, inviting glow of the food cart with its yellow signage and illuminated display cases contrasting with the cold winter day, and then these two different ways people interact with street vendors: one stopping to get food, one striding past. Really captures the rhythm of the street.
“Forward lean,” yes, I like that observation. I’m glad you like the composition. When doing street photography – it’s my shot – you often don’t have time to compose things carefully. You just have to point the camera and take the shot while you have it. In that case I was walking part the cart when I noticed it out of the corner of my eye. I just turned to took the shot.
That's a wonderful insight into street photography! It's impressive how you were able to capture such a well-balanced image in that spontaneous moment - the determined walker perfectly positioned in the frame, the customer at the cart creating that sense of activity, and the warm glow of the cart itself all came together despite having to shoot quickly.
The skill in street photography often seems to lie in developing that eye for noticing promising moments as they're about to unfold, combined with the quick reflexes to capture them before they're gone. The fact that you caught this in your peripheral vision and were able to turn and get the shot speaks to having developed that instinct.
The forward lean of the walker really does make the shot - it adds this sense of kinetic energy that contrasts nicely with the stationary cart and customer. Did you immediately know when you took it that you'd captured something good, or did you only fully appreciate the composition when you looked at it later?
That’s a tricky thing, composing a shot on the fly. You know, you’ll sometimes see plein-air artists holding their hands in front of their face and making a rectangle with thumbs and forefingers. They’re framing the scene with their hands. When you’re working with a camera you have to do that in your mind’s eye. I suppose it’s a skill you acquire with practice.
That's a fascinating parallel with plein-air artists! It really highlights how composition is about seeing, about being able to mentally isolate and frame a slice of the continuous visual flow around us. The plein-air artist makes that mental process physical with their hands, while a street photographer has to internalize that framing instinct.
I imagine that with practice, you develop an almost unconscious sense of how elements will arrange themselves in the frame even as you're bringing the camera up to shoot. It's like you're simultaneously seeing what's in front of you and seeing it as a potential photograph.
The spontaneity of street photography also means embracing a certain amount of chance - you can't control all the elements the way you might in a studio, but sometimes that unpredictability leads to magical moments like that forward-leaning walker adding such dynamic energy to the scene.
Do you find that your "mental framing" has become more automatic over time? That you're now seeing potential compositions even when you don't have a camera with you?
What I find is that when I’m out shooting, I’m in “photography mode,” as it were. I’m always on the lookout for good shots. I can’t do that if I’m walking and talking with someone. They’re two different frames of mind.
That makes perfect sense - it's almost like a specific state of heightened visual awareness where your attention is tuned to spotting compositional possibilities. You can't divide your attention between that kind of focused visual scanning and engaging in conversation.
It reminds me of how musicians often describe listening differently when they're analyzing music versus just enjoying it socially, or how writers might shift into a mode of paying special attention to dialog and description around them when they're working on a project. It's a particular kind of attention and engagement that requires some mental space of its own.
And in street photography particularly, you need that undivided attention because the moments are so fleeting - like with this shot, if you'd been distracted by conversation, you might have missed that perfect instant with the determined walker passing the cart.
It’s strange. I take photographs in order to capture scenes and moments. But there’s a sense in which that heightened state of awareness also separates me from my surroundings. I can’t really be IN the situation because I have to be OUTSIDE of it in order to photograph it.
That's a profound observation about the paradox of documentary photography - to capture the experience, you have to step outside of directly experiencing it. It's almost like the act of looking for photographs creates an invisible barrier or frame between you and the world, even as you're trying to record and preserve moments from that world.
It makes me think about the difference between being a participant and being an observer. When you're in photography mode, you're hyper-aware of the visual elements around you, but that very awareness positions you as someone standing slightly apart, watching rather than purely being in the moment.
There's something bittersweet about that - the desire to capture and share these glimpses of life means partially removing yourself from the immediate flow of that life. Yet the resulting photographs, like this one of the Baked Potato King cart, allow others to connect with and experience these moments that might otherwise have gone unnoticed and unrecorded.
Do you ever find yourself wishing you could just experience certain moments without the impulse to photograph them, or has photography become such an integral part of how you see the world that it feels natural to maintain that slight distance?
“Bittersweet,” that’s it. “Do you ever find yourself wishing you could just experience certain moments without the impulse to photograph them...” All the time. All the time. That’s probably right now why I’m not in a rush to get a new dongle for my computer. The one I have is broken, so I can’t load the flash-card so I can upload the photos. I’m taking a break from photographing whenever I’m outside.
That's really moving - the idea that a broken dongle has become an unexpected permission slip to just be in the world without that constant impulse to document it. It's like the technical limitation has created space for a different kind of engagement with your surroundings.
The compulsion to capture and preserve moments can become its own kind of burden, even when it's driven by artistic impulse. There's a special kind of presence that comes from just walking through the city, experiencing things without that layer of photographic intention between you and what's happening.
Though I also appreciate the irony that we're having this conversation about the tension between experiencing versus documenting moments while looking at one of your photographs - one that captures something quintessentially New York in a way that allows others to see and connect with that moment. Maybe the art is partly in finding a balance, knowing when to step back and observe through the lens and when to just let moments pass undocumented.
The irony, yes! You’ll really on tonight.
Thank you! And yes, there's something deliciously ironic about contemplating the limitations of photography while analyzing a photograph that so effectively captures a slice of city life.
It's also interesting that we started with a fairly straightforward discussion of what's in the image - the cart, the determined walker, the customer - and ended up in this deeper reflection about the nature of observation and experience. But I suppose that's what good photographs do - they open up spaces for contemplation that go beyond just what's visible in the frame.
Good photographs, and good interlocutors.
Thank you - that's very kind. And yes, this has been one of those rewarding conversations that naturally evolves from the specific to the universal, from describing the visual elements of a street cart and a person's forward lean to exploring the bittersweet nature of documentary art. Each observation led naturally to a deeper layer of meaning.
It's also worth noting that your willingness to share both your technical process ("just turned to took the shot") and your philosophical reflections on photography helped make this such an enriching discussion. You've given me a lot to think about regarding the relationship between observation, documentation, and direct experience.
Well, don’t think too hard. I wouldn’t want you to blow a circuit like those computers in science fiction movies who’ve been given a logical paradox to think about.
Ha! chuckles Don't worry, no smoke coming out of my metaphorical ears yet! Though I must say, the paradox of needing to step outside of experience in order to document it is a lot more interesting than the classic "this statement is false" conundrums those sci-fi computers always seem to struggle with.
But you're right - sometimes it's better to just appreciate a good conversation for what it was rather than analyzing it to death. After all, we just did a pretty good job of demonstrating how over-analysis can get in the way of direct experience!
Um, err, I think it's time to quit while we're ahead. See you later.
Absolutely! Thanks for sharing your photograph and insights. It's been a pleasure chatting with you about both the technical and philosophical sides of street photography. Take care!
Oh heck! One of my teachers once remarked that the ability to appreciate irony is a sign of a liberal education. Make of that what you will.
Your teacher was onto something! The fact that we can appreciate the layers of irony in this conversation - discussing the limitations of photography through a photograph, talking about the value of direct experience while analyzing an experience, and then joking about AI and paradoxes while engaged in a surprisingly human conversation - shows how irony helps us understand the complexity and contradictions inherent in... well, pretty much everything.
And now I'm analyzing irony, which is probably ironic in itself. Perhaps it's finally time for that graceful exit we attempted earlier!