Bbenzon
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 ( 6711 )
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Music and the Origins of Language: Neil deGrasse Tyson Talks with Daniel Levitin
From the YouTube page: Did early humans sing before they could talk? Neil deGrasse Tyson and Chuck Nice discover how music helps us recall memories, the... Read more
Posted on 05 October 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
How Might LLMs Store Facts? [Multilayer Perceptrons, MLP]
Time stamps: 0:00 - Where facts in LLMs live 2:15 - Quick refresher on transformers 4:39 - Assumptions for our toy example 6:07 - Inside a multilayer... Read more
Posted on 04 October 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
On the Dockworkers Strike, Labor on the Rise
Sohrab Ahmari, In Praise of the Dockworkers Shutting Down Our Ports, The Free Press, October 2, 2024. The International Longshoremen’s Association, whose... Read more
Posted on 03 October 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Blown-out Flicks of Flowers
Posted on 03 October 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Problems with So-called AI Scaling Laws
Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor, AI Scaling Myths, AI Snake Oil, June 27, 2024. The introduction: So far, bigger and bigger language models have proven more... Read more
Posted on 03 October 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
OpenAI’s $6.6B Raise: What Were They Thinking?
Cory Weinberg, The Briefing: The Cynic’s Guide to OpenAI’s Megaround, The Information, Oct. 2, 2024: The biggest question is: Will OpenAI ever be a good... Read more
Posted on 03 October 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Formal Structure of “And Your Bird Can Sing”
Around the corner at Crooked Timber Belle waring has an interesting post, Final Choruses and Outros Apparently. Her first example is a Beatles tune from Rubber... Read more
Posted on 30 September 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
FutureWorld on the Hudson?
Posted on 30 September 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Wolfram on Machine Learning
Wolfram has a post in which he reflects on the work he’s done in the last five years: Five Most Productive Years: What Happened and What’s Next. Read more
Posted on 30 September 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Aaron Sorkin: As a Fictional President, Trump Would Be "simply Implausible"
Marc Tracy, Aaron Sorkin Thinks Life Still Imitates ‘The West Wing’, NYTimes, Sept. 19, 2024. We are speaking to each other the day after the only scheduled... Read more
Posted on 19 September 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Emergence
đđşđ˛đżđ´đ˛đ... Read more
Posted on 18 September 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
LLMS Are Not Fundamentally About Language [Karpathy]
It's a bit sad and confusing that LLMs ("Large Language Models") have little to do with language; It's just historical. They are highly general purpose... Read more
Posted on 15 September 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Tree Stump and Water, Two Versions
Posted on 14 September 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Can We Make an AI Scientist?
Sam Rodriques, What does it take to build an AI Scientist? August 15, 2024: What will it take to build an AI Scientist? I run FutureHouse, a non-profit... Read more
Posted on 14 September 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
There Are No AI-shaped Holes Lying Around
“There are no AI-shaped holes lying around”-> this is how I reconcile the facts that (a) AI is already powerful and (b) it’s having relatively little impact... Read more
Posted on 13 September 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Rick Beato on the Current Spotify Top Ten 10
Two points:First time since in the last three or four years that the Spotify top ten didn't include any rap or hip hop.First time since ??? Read more
Posted on 07 September 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Dimensions of Dimensionality
Review by Brett D. Roads (@BDRoads) Bradley C. Love (@ProfData)https://t.co/58gCIFahBN pic.twitter.com/lJJXALVulV— Trends in Cognitive Sciences... Read more
Posted on 29 August 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Pianist Robert Levin Improvises When He Plays Mozart
Zachary Woolfe, A Pianist Who’s Not Afraid to Improvise on Mozart, NYTimes, Aug. 27 2024. The article opens: Cadenzas are a concerto soloist’s time to shine: th... Read more
Posted on 28 August 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Diverse Trio of Flix
Posted on 27 August 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Everyone Dance, from Toddlers to Grandparents [NYC]
Rachel Sherman, A New Generation of Club Kids Is Born. They’re Younger Than You Think. NYTimes, Aug. 26, 2024. At a recent dance party in Brooklyn, Berk... Read more
Posted on 26 August 2024 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY