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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Ali Minai – "Not Your Typical Autocomplete"
A useful explanatory section from Ali Minai's wonderful essay, Thinking Through the Risks of AI, 3 Quarks Daily, April 3, 2023: As their name implies, LLMs focu... Read more
Posted on 04 April 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Contentment and the Happiness of Finns
Penelope Colston, The Finnish Secret to Happiness? Knowing When You Have Enough. NYTimes, April 1, 2023. Ms. Hansen was one of more than a dozen Finns we spoke... Read more
Posted on 03 April 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Judea Pearl Want "Manhattan Project of Intense Research to Make Machines More...
I'd strongly support the idea of a Manhattan Project of intense research to make machines more trustworthy and interpretable (regardless of, or in parallel... Read more
Posted on 02 April 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Yann Lecun on AI X-risk [AI-doom]
Rhetoric from AI doomers is not just ridiculous. It's dangerous and unethical. https://t.co/YEiSdtOwxJ— Yann LeCun (@ylecun) April 1, 2023 AI doomers reach the... Read more
Posted on 02 April 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Stop It! The Printing Press Did Not Create the Enlightenment. It’s a Bad...
OR: How and why is it the ChatGPT has a more coherent "understanding" of the role of the printing press in history than Walter Isaacson, Eric Schmidt, and... Read more
Posted on 02 April 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Ramble into Spring with AI Doom, Deep Learning Vs. Cultural Evolution, and...
Obviously I’ve been much taken with ChatGPT and the issues it raises. Here’s some quick thoughts on some of them. Why I’m skeptical of AI Doom This issue,... Read more
Posted on 01 April 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
ChatGPT on Intention: The Chinese Room and Lucy on the Beach, Plus Comedians
In my first year at Johns Hopkins I took a course called, I believe, “Types of Philsophy.” One lecture in the course was organized around a thought experiment... Read more
Posted on 01 April 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: From Liberty State Park, September 10, 2011
Posted on 31 March 2023
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Are We Publishing Too Damn Much?
There's too much science: “These findings suggest troubling implications… If too many papers are published in short order, new ideas cannot be carefully... Read more
Posted on 31 March 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Lew Soloff Has Georgia on His Mind
From the YouTube page: Lew Soloff performs the Hoagy Carmichael classic, "Georgia on my Mind" at the Velvet Note in Alpharetta, GA. Kenny Banks on piano, Che... Read more
Posted on 31 March 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
"Smoke on the Water" Like You've Never Heard It Before [I Promise]
From the YouTube page:Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water, played by a steam iron and two electric toothbrushes. I have started making Device Orchestra wireless. Read more
Posted on 31 March 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
MORE on the Issue of Meaning in Large Language Models (LLMs)
I've been having a long discussion with gjm over at LessWrong about a post I'd originally published here at New Savanna back on March 11, The issue of meaning i... Read more
Posted on 31 March 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Cover Looks Promising: "AI White Paper: Japan's National Strategy in the...
自民党・AIの進化と実装に関するPTとデジタル... Read more
Posted on 31 March 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Problem of Serial Recall in Humans [& the Problem of Stories in ChatGPT]
Yesterday I bumped an old post to the top of the queue because it bears on a matter I’m currently thinking about, narrative. The post is Bleg: Memory for... Read more
Posted on 30 March 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Economics of Biodiversity: The Dasgupta Review
The UK government commissioned Partha Dasgupta to prepare a review: The Economics of Biodiversity. The complete text, along with various abridgments, is... Read more
Posted on 29 March 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Motion Capture is Not at All Straightforward
From YouTube: The suits are just the beginning of the motion capture process. Motion capture has taken over a lot of computer animation for movies, video... Read more
Posted on 29 March 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Inching “Kubla Khan” and GPT into the Same Intellectual Framework @ 3 Quarks...
That framework is my intellectual history: From “Kubla Khan” through GPT and beyond... Read more
Posted on 28 March 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Cunk on Earth [Media Notes 89]
Think about the title for a moment, Cunk on Earth. “Cunk” – is that a person’s name, an interrogative, or what? I suppose we’re dealing with a mockumentary aime... Read more
Posted on 28 March 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Once Again, Someone Discovers the Powers of Music
An old man with Alzheimer’s might hear a Tin Pan Alley tune and suddenly recall his daughter’s name. Music is a kind of skeleton key, the neuroscientist and... Read more
Posted on 28 March 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Daisy Jones & The Six [Media Notes 88]
Daisy Jones The Six is a ten-episode mini-series on Netflix. I enjoyed it. The movie is framed as a series of interviews with band members years after the ban... Read more
Posted on 27 March 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
