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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Skippy, Author of "From Grundrisse to Hundrisse: How the Dogs Broke out of the...
Posted on 20 February 2023
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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The Hundrisse Chronicles: ChatGPT on the Marxian Imaginary [more Fun Than a...
I said 'what?' Kind of worried. And then he said, 'I DON'T THINK MY MOM IS GOING TO GIVE MY DOG BACK.'John: Ooh, Karl Marx's unpublished 'Hundrisse'. [I'm that... Read more
Posted on 20 February 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Hypothetical Brainy Jellyfish [imagined and Drawn by a Human]
Soft-bodied marine animals have evolved all kinds of adaptations. Why do complex brains show up only in cephalopods? Why don't we see complex neural... Read more
Posted on 20 February 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Idea That ChatGPT is Simply “predicting” the Next Word Is, at Best,...
Yes, I know that that is how ChatGPT is trained. The result of that training is that it builds up a complex structure of weights on the 175 billion parameters o... Read more
Posted on 19 February 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
On the Street in Hoboken, NJ
Posted on 19 February 2023
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Exploring Lily’s World with ChatGPT [things an AI Won’t Do]
As you know, I’ve been spending a lot of time exploring how ChatGPT tells stories. Most of the time I’d just ask it to tell a story, or tell a new story based o... Read more
Posted on 19 February 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
I See Spots
Posted on 19 February 2023
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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AI and the Future: Are We There Yet?
Tyler Cowen has just posted a section from his current Bloomberg column: Why AI will not create unimaginable fortunes. I responded: Interesting. I wonder what... Read more
Posted on 19 February 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The 1893 World's Columbian Exposition (aka Chicago World's Fair)
World's Columbian Exposition Read more
Posted on 18 February 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Should Laborers Own Shares in the Robots That Replace Them?
Nathan Gardels, When The Blue-Collar Backbone Meets Generative AI, No�ma, Feb. 17, 2023. Opening paragraph: U.S. President Joe Biden is doing the right... Read more
Posted on 18 February 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Along the Shore
Posted on 17 February 2023
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Cory Doctorow on Google's Anxiety About Its Corporate Identity [chasing the...
Cory Doctorow, Google’s chatbot panic, Medium, Feb 16, 2023. The lede: "On the infinite insecurities of a self-styled creative genius who really just buys... Read more
Posted on 17 February 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Stephen Wolfram is Looking for “semantic Grammar” and “semantic Laws of Motion”...
Wolfram has a very interesting account of how ChatGPT works, What Is ChatGPT Doing … and Why Does It Work? Toward the end he talks about “Meaning Space and... Read more
Posted on 16 February 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Long Story of How Neural Nets Got to Where They Are
This is a fascinating discussion between Stephen Wolfram and Terry Sejnowski. These guys, Sejnowski especially, are pulling names from all over the place.... Read more
Posted on 16 February 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Brief Note on the History of Academic Literary Criticism
John Guillory writes about his recent book, Professing Criticism, in The Chronical of Higher Education (Feb. 13, 2023), ‘We Cannot All Be Edward Said.’ He is... Read more
Posted on 15 February 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Fog on the Hudson, "No Diving"
Posted on 15 February 2023
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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ChatGPT: The Saga of Jack the Criminal
Back on January 30, 2023 I decided to see what kind of crime stories I could elicit from ChatGPT. Here’s a complete list of the prompts I gave it, in order: ... Read more
Posted on 15 February 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Sutan Gets a Totoro Birthday Cake and Visits Ghibli Park
On at least one occasion, probably more, Moe (aka Kimono Mom) has mentioned that her fans are familiar with anime. Anime also shows up in the videos here and... Read more
Posted on 14 February 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Far and Near Along the Shore
Posted on 14 February 2023
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Why LLMs Are Good at Generating Code
13. Why do LLMs appear much better at generating code than generating general text?Because, unlike the real world, the universe that a program manipulates (the... Read more
Posted on 14 February 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
