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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My Personal Robot Companion, a Quick Take [ramble]
These ideas reflect the intersection of two thought streams: 1) the desire for an operating system that keeps my computer updated, automatically handles all... Read more
Posted on 12 December 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Fabric
Posted on 12 December 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Let’s Go Meta: Grammatical Knowledge and Self-referential Sentences [ChatGPT]
Language is a medium that humans use for sharing thoughts, attitudes, and feelings. In order to do so it has to be embedded in some physical medium, whether... Read more
Posted on 12 December 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Robots, Rice, and Kami in Japan [animism]
Here’s a passage about industrial robots in Japan from Frederik L. Schodt, Inside the Robot Kingdom: Japan, Mechatronics, and the Coming Robotopia (JAI. Read more
Posted on 11 December 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Longwood Gardens, December 2021
Posted on 11 December 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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ChatGPT Goes Through a Wormhole Hole in Our Shandyesque Universe [virtual Wacky...
Sometime last week I decided to see if I could provoke ChatGPT to produce something in the style of Tristram Shandy. Little did I know... Let’s have some fun.... Read more
Posted on 11 December 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
High Level Discourse Structure in ChatGPT: Part 2 [Quasi-symbolic?]
In my previous post I examined a simple pattern of alternation in ChatGPT’s text output, Of pumpkins, the Falcon Heavy, and Groucho Marx. I’ve decided to... Read more
Posted on 10 December 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
He’s Baack! And He Wants Your Eyes and Ears, This Trump Guy.
And he wants them more than your money, though he'll take that too. Thank you very much. From Katherine Miller, No One Knows What to Do About Trump’s 2024... Read more
Posted on 10 December 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
AI Doom? What About Robot Rights? A Quick Take on LessWrong.
I’ve known about LessWrong for years, just how many years I don’t know. But I’ve been hanging out there as a participant observer since early Spring. I mostly... Read more
Posted on 10 December 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The End of the World is Getting Nearer [October 30, 2027]
Back in April, 2022, I wrote a post entitled, Is the world coming to an end in 2033? That’s what the (AI) crowd says. It was about how a group of AI fans, if yo... Read more
Posted on 10 December 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Duchamp and Warhol Collaborate [Hallucinated City]
Posted on 09 December 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Fundamental Innovation And/versus More Practical Development [Bell Labs]
The relationship between fundamental innovation and practical technique and technology is tricky. Fundamental innovation requires playful open-ended... Read more
Posted on 09 December 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Of Pumpkins, the Falcon Heavy, and Groucho Marx: High Level Discourse Structure...
Kevin Roose’s New York Times article, The Brilliance and Weirdness of ChatGPT, included an example in which Keith Wynroe prompted ChatGPT to explain AI Alignmen... Read more
Posted on 08 December 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Ian Bogost on ChatGPT: “Treat It Like a Toy, Not a Tool.”
Brooks Riley just hipped me [whoa! I’m dating myself, aren’t I?] to a good article about Chat by Ian Bogost: ChatGPT Is Dumber Than You Think, The Atlantic,... Read more
Posted on 08 December 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Extra! Extra! In a Discussion About Astro Boy, ChatGPT Defends the Rights of...
You should read this in conjunction with a post I wrote some years ago: The Robot as Subaltern: Tezuka's Mighty Atom. As you may know, Mighty Atom, known as... Read more
Posted on 08 December 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
ChatGPT: "An Error Occurred. If This Issue Persists..."
I’ve been spending a fair amount of time playing with ChatGPT over the last couple of days. Most of the time it responds to a prompt instantly or very quickly.... Read more
Posted on 07 December 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Bells
Posted on 06 December 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Using One LLM to Vet the Work of Another: Countering GPT Jailbreaking
There’s an interesting post at LessWrong by Stuart Armstrong and rgorman, Using GPT-Eliezer against ChatGPT Jailbreaking. The opening paragraphs (without... Read more
Posted on 06 December 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
ChatGPT Talks About Trumpeters
My main ax, a Calicchio Solo Copper I play trumpet, so I decided to chat with ChatGPT about it. Here’s our first dialog: Tell me about brass instruments. Read more
Posted on 06 December 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
ChatGPT on Spielberg’s A.I., Attachmnt Theory, and AI Alignment
Cross-posted at LessWrong. A remark by MarcusOfCitium over at Astral Codex Ten prompted me to think about the relationship between John Bowlby’s concept of... Read more
Posted on 05 December 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
