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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What Does GPT-4 Have to Say About Coleridge, “Kubla Khan,” and Related Matters?
I’ve got a new article at 3 Quarks Daily: From “Kubla Khan” through GPT and beyond... Read more
Posted on 27 March 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
This is an EXCELLENT Video About Improvisation.
I particularly enjoyed the opening material about Charlie Parker. I didn't know it, but it wasn't surprising either. Here is a link to Thomas Owens' dissertatio... Read more
Posted on 27 March 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
How is a GPT Modified So That It Can Tell Stories?
GPT’s are constructed so as to continue a given text. I’d asked GPT-4 about that and reported its response in a previous post: So, just why do GPTs have to... Read more
Posted on 26 March 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Robots and Elder-care
Jason Horowitz, Who Will Take Care of Italy’s Older People? Robots, Maybe. NYTimes, Mar. 25. 2023. CARPI, Italy — The older woman asked to hear a story. Read more
Posted on 25 March 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Rodney Brooks Sounds a Cautionary Note About GPTs
Brooks just made a post specifically directed at the type surrounding transformers. First a bit of historical perspective: A few such instances of AI... Read more
Posted on 24 March 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: FR8s! Haven't Posted Any of These in Awhile
Posted on 24 March 2023
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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So, Just Why Do GPTs Have to Operate by Continuing an Existing String?
Why can’t they, you know, just come out with it, like we do? Yeah, I know, that’s how they’re trained; they’re trained to predict the next token. I’m not sure... Read more
Posted on 24 March 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Manga and AI in Japan
LOL! "At the same time, it turned out that Mr. Jerry Chi, the head of the Japanese branch office Stability AI Japan, is a fan of "Love Hina", so I would like... Read more
Posted on 24 March 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Why is Sweden So Successful in Music? Scenes, It Nurtures Scenes.
Henrik Karlsson, Scene creation engines and apprenticeships, Escaping Flatland, Mar. 21, 2023. After introductory material based on a story about specific... Read more
Posted on 23 March 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Adam Savage on Intuition [+ My Intuitions About Symbolic AI]
From the YouTube page: Adam shares his absolute favorite magic book growing up: Magic with Science by Walter B. Gibson. Picking up this vintage copy is giving... Read more
Posted on 23 March 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Hokusai "Great Wave" Print Sells for $2.8 Million
Christie’s sold Katsushika Hokusai’s “Under the Well of the Great Wave off Kanagawa” for $2.8 million–a record high for the iconic woodblock print https://t. Read more
Posted on 22 March 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Report from Academia.edu • I’m Back! • Mar 22, 2023
Here’s the stats from 7:30 this morning: I’m definitely down from the peak of March 13, but I seem to be running a bit higher than things were in February. Can ... Read more
Posted on 22 March 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
How to Make a Fart Sound Using Ableton • [Winnebago Trickster Cycle] • {ChatGPT...
I know, it's ridiculous. But it's also very human. Here, for example, is an excerpt from episode 23 in the Winnebago Trickster cycle as collected by Paul... Read more
Posted on 22 March 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
"Humans Are Not Special, Scale Is" [brain Evolution]
This is the main driving assumption of my research and it is still holding up after 10 years: Humans are not special, scale is. The other main fact (sparsity):... Read more
Posted on 21 March 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Interactive Story-telling with ChatGPT [What Does ChatGPT Know, and When?]
I’ve asked ChatGPT to tell many stories. Most of the time I’ve given it a simple prompt – often as simple as “Tell me a story” – but I’ve also asked it to... Read more
Posted on 21 March 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Software of the Future: Everyone Codes!
it seems likely to me that all computer users will soon have ability to 1) develop small software tools from scratch, 2) describe *changes* they'd like made to... Read more
Posted on 20 March 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Language, LLMs, and Culture: Out of Plato's Cave
Jon Evans, Language is out Latent Space, Gradient Ascendant, March 14, 2023. An analogy for how LLMs work: Another analogy, as two combined can be more... Read more
Posted on 20 March 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Steve Pinker on AI Doom [My Take: a Rube Goldberg Confabulation of Brobdingnagia...
Richard Hanania has posted an interesting conversation with Steve Pinker, Pinker on Alignment and Intelligence as a "Magical Potion", March 17, 2023. Read more
Posted on 20 March 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Khan Academy Has a GPT-4 Learning Guide
From the YouTube page: Khan Academy announcing its limited pilot of GPT-4 learning guide. We believe that AI has the potential to transform learning in a... Read more
Posted on 19 March 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
What’s up with Animal House [Media Notes 87]
I never saw it in theaters, though I certainly heard about it. Animal House came out in 1978, just as I was finishing graduate school and about to take my... Read more
Posted on 19 March 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
