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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Indiana Jones Goes to an Alien World and ChatGPT Gives Us Pictures
I’ve become interested in using photographs as prompts for image-making with ChatGPT. I’ve now done quite a bit of this, but have only posted two bitx so far,... Read more
Posted on 03 May 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Two Kinds of Happiness, “affective” and “effective” [First World Happiness...
Molly Young, My Miserable Week in the ‘Happiest Country on Earth,’ NYTimes Magazine, May 2, 2025. The article opens: “Coming to Helsinki in February is an... Read more
Posted on 03 May 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Adam Neeley: The Ethics of Fake Guitar
0:00 Intro 3:42 Part I - A Brief History of Faking Performances 10:15 Part II - How to Fake Musical Performances 15:07 Part III - Why Faking Performances is... Read more
Posted on 03 May 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Interview with R. Crumb, 2011
From the YouTube page: "Associated Press journalists Ted Shaffrey, Richard Drew and Matt Moore meet with illustrator Robert Crumb and his wife and... Read more
Posted on 02 May 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
ChatGPT Illustrates the First 36 Lines of "Kubla Khan"
Coleridge's "Kubla Khan" is noted for its visual richness, supposedly inspired by opium. But who knows? I decided to see what ChatGPT could do when asked to... Read more
Posted on 02 May 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Hoboken Potpourri
Posted on 02 May 2025
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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The Ultimate Import of Current Machine Learning Technology
During the 1990s David Hays and I sketched out an account of the major transitions in human cultural evolution; we called them ranks. “The Evolution of... Read more
Posted on 02 May 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Easy Money, Sant Andreu Jazz Band
534,340 views Premiered Mar 9, 2023 2021 EASY MONEY ( Benny Carter) del CD JAZZING 12 VOL 2 cD 1 JAZZ PARTY CELEBRATION 15 YEARS SANT ANDREU JAZZ BAND Joan... Read more
Posted on 01 May 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
ChatGPT Imagines Three Different Backgrounds for Three Small Sculptures
Here's a photo of three sculptures against a dark background. The two wood carvings were made by my grandfather, Axel Benzon. If you look at the base of Horus... Read more
Posted on 01 May 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Easter Eggs, Lilacs, Rose, Lilacs, Easter Eggs
Posted on 01 May 2025
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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How Much Code is Currently Generated by AI? [Vibe Coding and Metagramming]
It's as if the CEO are calling on each other, let's scream together now, "30% of our code is written by artificial intelligence". Read more
Posted on 01 May 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Good Wholesome Family Entertainment from Old Days [flexible Women]
From the YouTube page: I am sorry there is no music, but I doubt I could share this with you uncut, but this is all real with no CGI or trickery whatsoever. Read more
Posted on 01 May 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Where Are People Happiest and How Do We Know? For That Matter, What's...
Byron JohnsonTyler J. VanderWeele and Brendan Case, The Happiest Country in the World Isn’t What You Think, NYTimes, April 30, 2025. Read more
Posted on 01 May 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
ChatGPT Renders a Scene on Mars in Three Styles
I did this painting when I was, say, eight or nine year old. I wanted to see what ChatGPT would do with it, so I uploaded it and asked it to do three different... Read more
Posted on 30 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Dialog with Claude 3.5 on the Intellectual Potential of Man-Machine Interaction
I've posted a new working paper. Title above, links, abstract, contents, and introduction below. Academia: https://www.academia. Read more
Posted on 30 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Bunch of Tulips
Posted on 29 April 2025
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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The Concept of Superintelligence Just Isn't That Useful
Dwarkesh Patel interviews Ege Erdil and Tamay Besiroglu, co-founders of Mechanize, a startup dedicated to fully automating work. Before founding Mechanize, Ege... Read more
Posted on 29 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Claude 3.7 Describes a Country Scene Along with Three Variations Created by...
Sometime in the last two or three years I began thinking about the fact that the same transformer architecture that is used to create large language models... Read more
Posted on 29 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
In Defense of an Online Life
That's the title of a new post by Tyler Cowen over at Marginal Revolution. It's derived from a piece Cowen published at The Free Press, Why I (Often) Choose My... Read more
Posted on 29 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
When AI Became Decoupled from Any Understanding of the Human Mind
I’ve been thinking a bit about the history of AI and how it led to the current situation where it has become effectively decoupled from any attempt to understan... Read more
Posted on 28 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
