Bbenzon
Description
Humankind got its start on the African savannas some hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years ago. At various times in our cultural history we’ve moved to distinctly new cultural ground, as it were. And so we are moving now, and have been for the past half century. This blog is how I see that move. Intellectually, I'm broadly interested in culture and the brain. Within that compass, anything could show up here. Literature and films (including animation), certainly, music as well, and graffiti. But, other things may show up as well. It's a blog, don't you know, it moves.
MY BLOGS
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New Savanna
http://new-savanna.blogspot.com/
Humankind got its start on the African savannas some hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years ago. At various times in our cultural history we’ve moved to distinctly new cultural ground, as it were. And so we are moving now, and have been for the past half century. This blog is how I see that move. I'm broadly interested in culture and the brain. Within that compass, anything could show up here. Literature and films (including animation), certainly, music as well, and graffiti. But, other things may show up as well. It's a blog, don't you know, it moves.
LATEST ARTICLES ( 7356 )
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ChatGPT, Stories, and a Surprising Case of In-context Learning
Some weeks ago David Chapman pointed me to some work that researchers at Anthropic have done on something called induction heads (where “induction” refers to a... Read more
Posted on 01 February 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Just What We Need, More Fog
Posted on 01 February 2023
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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The Empire State Building in the Background of Three Shots Taken from the Same...
Posted on 01 February 2023
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Kimono Mom Philosophy @ 3QD
Here’s the link: A day in the life of Kimono Mom and Sutan https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2023/01/a-day-in-the-life-of-kimono-mom-and-sutan.html I just... Read more
Posted on 31 January 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Percent of Large-scale AI Results Coming from Academia
(From @jackclarkSF presentation to ~100 people in Congress yesterday.) pic.twitter.com/0RoG78nqwV— John Nay (@johnjnay) January 26, 2023I'm not sure what to mak... Read more
Posted on 31 January 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Five Shots of Hoboken
Posted on 30 January 2023
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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ChatGPT About Jack, a Pumpkin, Aurora, Merlin, a Cat, Magic Mushrooms, and...
Here I start ChatGPT with a basic story and then have it elaborate on it in stages. Tell me a story about a hero. Once upon a time, there was a young man named... Read more
Posted on 30 January 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Peter Thiel’s Second Thoughts About Funding Eliezer Yudkowsky and Friends
That’s my speculative and somewhat polemical framing of a middle passage in this video, which presents a talk Peter Thiel recently gave before the Oxford... Read more
Posted on 30 January 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Six Versions of "Unchain My Heart," a Lesson in Comparative Funkology
It's Ray Charle's song. Here's a live version from 1964. Note the quick tempo: Here's some local musicians somewhere in the USA about 10 years ago. Read more
Posted on 30 January 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Our Robot Overlords Have Landed. They Treat Us Like Machines and Fire Us...
Elizabeth Spiers, Layoffs by Email Show What Employers Really Think of Their Workers, NYTimes, Jan. 29, 2023. Halfway through: Perhaps the most appalling... Read more
Posted on 29 January 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
When Should You Use ChatGPT?
A simple algorithm to decide whether to use ChatGPT, based on my recent article (https://t.co/tTzD0RAM0M) pic.twitter.com/rs9vr1lAvI— Aleksandr Tiulkanov... Read more
Posted on 29 January 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Being a Girl, a Geisha, a Wife, a Mother, and a YouTuber [Kimono Mom]
I talked too much late at night | Q A Early in this video, Moe talks about her relationship with Sutan and her philosophy of childrearing. Here is her central... Read more
Posted on 28 January 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Waiting for the C Train
Posted on 28 January 2023
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Is the "civilized" World Afflicted with “workism”?
Ross Douthat, Is ‘Workism’ Dooming Civilization? Notes on the New Pew Parents Study. NYTimes, Jan. 27, 2023. Seven paragraphs in: On the other hand, when you as... Read more
Posted on 28 January 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
BibleGPT
What if you could talk to the Bible?Try now: https://t.co/sL7dtiyneDDescribe your situation or ask a question! Cites specific verses from the Bible. Works in... Read more
Posted on 27 January 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Taking Stock of Your Life, Backstage, Who's More Nervous? [Kimono Mom]
Starting at c. 0:28: Moe: This is Mr. Nakajima the head of KUDEN. KUDEN is a stage where you can talk about your life experiences in 15 minutes. Many famous... Read more
Posted on 27 January 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Beyond ChatGPT: The Return of Secretaries, in the Fullest Sense [my Mother Worke...
Hollis Robbins, Secretary jobs in the age of AI, guesting in Noahpinion, Jan. 17, 2023. Opening paragraphs: The ‘secretary’ literally means ‘person entrusted... Read more
Posted on 27 January 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: An Eclectic Mix from the Last Few Weeks [cosmos|hallucinated City]
Posted on 27 January 2023
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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How the Chatster Conjured up a Fake Citation, Step by Step
ChatGPT is based on a language model, which assigns a probability distribution over sequences of words. A rough way to think about it: Given the start of a... Read more
Posted on 27 January 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Japan is Changing, Female Employment Increasing [Kimono Mom]
Noah Smith has an interesting article about how Japan has changed since the 1990s, Actually, Japan has changed a lot (Jan 24). Read more
Posted on 26 January 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
