Eryk Salvaggio
@eryk.bsky.social
Situationist Cybernetics. Gates Scholar researching AI’s impacts on the Humanities at the University of Cambridge. Tech Policy Press Writing Fellow. Researcher, AI Pedagogies, metaLab (at) Harvard University. Aim to be kind. cyberneticforests.com
Reposted by Eryk Salvaggio
ChatGPT marketed as a salve for loneliness, as shown in AI generated images on Christopher Street and 7th Ave in the West Village, NYC.
November 23, 2025 at 9:01 PM
ChatGPT marketed as a salve for loneliness, as shown in AI generated images on Christopher Street and 7th Ave in the West Village, NYC.
Reposted by Eryk Salvaggio
The spiritual unmooring of COVID—zoom, remote work, etc—primed us (I do not exclude myself) to experience the Machine as spiritually human. LLMs happened to come along at just the right time to synthetically fill the void.
What was ChatGPT? Now nearly three years old, we can look at OpenAI's LLM as a product of its time, optimized ever since to its earliest uses. While this period of deep disorientation and social isolation has been obscured from public memory, it remains embedded within the interface.
What Was ChatGPT?
A Chatbot Optimized for Social Distance
Three years after the launch of ChatGPT, we can finally speak in hindsight about what it was and how it came to be. Its meteoric rise shocked the world, gather...
mail.cyberneticforests.com
November 24, 2025 at 12:53 AM
The spiritual unmooring of COVID—zoom, remote work, etc—primed us (I do not exclude myself) to experience the Machine as spiritually human. LLMs happened to come along at just the right time to synthetically fill the void.
Reposted by Eryk Salvaggio
Are you a scholar in Games Studies, Museum Studies and/or Digital Humanities and want to help NMS develop research in Collecting Video Game Heritage? Come and apply to be an IASH Fellow at the University of Edinburgh!
Applications
Opens - Dec 25
Closes - April 26
www.iash.ed.ac.uk/iash-nationa...
Applications
Opens - Dec 25
Closes - April 26
www.iash.ed.ac.uk/iash-nationa...
IASH-National Museums Scotland Fellowship | IASH
www.iash.ed.ac.uk
November 26, 2025 at 1:24 PM
Are you a scholar in Games Studies, Museum Studies and/or Digital Humanities and want to help NMS develop research in Collecting Video Game Heritage? Come and apply to be an IASH Fellow at the University of Edinburgh!
Applications
Opens - Dec 25
Closes - April 26
www.iash.ed.ac.uk/iash-nationa...
Applications
Opens - Dec 25
Closes - April 26
www.iash.ed.ac.uk/iash-nationa...
Reposted by Eryk Salvaggio
I wrote about public libraries as spaces of civic solidarity, common knowledge, and public infrastructure — all endangered by commercial and federal saboteurs
Extralibrary Loan: Making the Civic Infrastructure We Need
Amid a war on public knowledge, libraries are pushing outward, enlarging the commons through new configurations of civic and creative life.
placesjournal.org
October 28, 2025 at 3:03 PM
I wrote about public libraries as spaces of civic solidarity, common knowledge, and public infrastructure — all endangered by commercial and federal saboteurs
Reposted by Eryk Salvaggio
"The prompt no longer read as text to be extended, but as a message awaiting a reply—though the underlying process hadn’t changed at all."
What was ChatGPT? Now nearly three years old, we can look at OpenAI's LLM as a product of its time, optimized ever since to its earliest uses. While this period of deep disorientation and social isolation has been obscured from public memory, it remains embedded within the interface.
What Was ChatGPT?
A Chatbot Optimized for Social Distance
Three years after the launch of ChatGPT, we can finally speak in hindsight about what it was and how it came to be. Its meteoric rise shocked the world, gather...
mail.cyberneticforests.com
November 25, 2025 at 12:42 PM
"The prompt no longer read as text to be extended, but as a message awaiting a reply—though the underlying process hadn’t changed at all."
Reposted by Eryk Salvaggio
"on OpenAI, nobody anticipated ChatGPT would become the success that it was. Their focus was on ... “general intelligence.” But ChatGPT’s sweep of the world suggests that these models did not need to be intelligent to find a user base, they needed to simulate a social experience"
What was ChatGPT? Now nearly three years old, we can look at OpenAI's LLM as a product of its time, optimized ever since to its earliest uses. While this period of deep disorientation and social isolation has been obscured from public memory, it remains embedded within the interface.
What Was ChatGPT?
A Chatbot Optimized for Social Distance
Three years after the launch of ChatGPT, we can finally speak in hindsight about what it was and how it came to be. Its meteoric rise shocked the world, gather...
mail.cyberneticforests.com
November 25, 2025 at 3:54 PM
"on OpenAI, nobody anticipated ChatGPT would become the success that it was. Their focus was on ... “general intelligence.” But ChatGPT’s sweep of the world suggests that these models did not need to be intelligent to find a user base, they needed to simulate a social experience"
Reposted by Eryk Salvaggio
What was ChatGPT? Now nearly three years old, we can look at OpenAI's LLM as a product of its time, optimized ever since to its earliest uses. While this period of deep disorientation and social isolation has been obscured from public memory, it remains embedded within the interface.
What Was ChatGPT?
A Chatbot Optimized for Social Distance
Three years after the launch of ChatGPT, we can finally speak in hindsight about what it was and how it came to be. Its meteoric rise shocked the world, gather...
mail.cyberneticforests.com
November 23, 2025 at 12:37 PM
What was ChatGPT? Now nearly three years old, we can look at OpenAI's LLM as a product of its time, optimized ever since to its earliest uses. While this period of deep disorientation and social isolation has been obscured from public memory, it remains embedded within the interface.
Reposted by Eryk Salvaggio
On the third anniversary of ChatGPT, I aimed to pull back from “AI” as a flowing current of new models, new data centers, new initiatives, “new new new” — and look at it as a product of a specific and unique moment in history. What *was* ChatGPT? A few points in the thread ⬇️
What was ChatGPT? Now nearly three years old, we can look at OpenAI's LLM as a product of its time, optimized ever since to its earliest uses. While this period of deep disorientation and social isolation has been obscured from public memory, it remains embedded within the interface.
What Was ChatGPT?
A Chatbot Optimized for Social Distance
Three years after the launch of ChatGPT, we can finally speak in hindsight about what it was and how it came to be. Its meteoric rise shocked the world, gather...
mail.cyberneticforests.com
November 24, 2025 at 9:28 AM
On the third anniversary of ChatGPT, I aimed to pull back from “AI” as a flowing current of new models, new data centers, new initiatives, “new new new” — and look at it as a product of a specific and unique moment in history. What *was* ChatGPT? A few points in the thread ⬇️
On the third anniversary of ChatGPT, I aimed to pull back from “AI” as a flowing current of new models, new data centers, new initiatives, “new new new” — and look at it as a product of a specific and unique moment in history. What *was* ChatGPT? A few points in the thread ⬇️
What was ChatGPT? Now nearly three years old, we can look at OpenAI's LLM as a product of its time, optimized ever since to its earliest uses. While this period of deep disorientation and social isolation has been obscured from public memory, it remains embedded within the interface.
What Was ChatGPT?
A Chatbot Optimized for Social Distance
Three years after the launch of ChatGPT, we can finally speak in hindsight about what it was and how it came to be. Its meteoric rise shocked the world, gather...
mail.cyberneticforests.com
November 24, 2025 at 9:28 AM
On the third anniversary of ChatGPT, I aimed to pull back from “AI” as a flowing current of new models, new data centers, new initiatives, “new new new” — and look at it as a product of a specific and unique moment in history. What *was* ChatGPT? A few points in the thread ⬇️
Reposted by Eryk Salvaggio
What can we learn when we stop for a moment to treat AI as a something of the future (as it is constantly presented to us) and look at it instead as something of the past? Great reminder that you sometimes just have to turn things upside down analytically.
What was ChatGPT? Now nearly three years old, we can look at OpenAI's LLM as a product of its time, optimized ever since to its earliest uses. While this period of deep disorientation and social isolation has been obscured from public memory, it remains embedded within the interface.
What Was ChatGPT?
A Chatbot Optimized for Social Distance
Three years after the launch of ChatGPT, we can finally speak in hindsight about what it was and how it came to be. Its meteoric rise shocked the world, gather...
mail.cyberneticforests.com
November 24, 2025 at 7:05 AM
What can we learn when we stop for a moment to treat AI as a something of the future (as it is constantly presented to us) and look at it instead as something of the past? Great reminder that you sometimes just have to turn things upside down analytically.
Reposted by Eryk Salvaggio
‘It's possible that the chatbot is one of the lasting transformations of our social life from the pandemic. The pivot to frame Large Language Models as intelligent may just blind us to how most users really see them: as social.’
By @eryk.bsky.social
By @eryk.bsky.social
What Was ChatGPT?
A Chatbot Optimized for Social Distance
Three years after the launch of ChatGPT, we can finally speak in hindsight about what it was and how it came to be. Its meteoric rise shocked the world, gather...
mail.cyberneticforests.com
November 23, 2025 at 1:08 PM
‘It's possible that the chatbot is one of the lasting transformations of our social life from the pandemic. The pivot to frame Large Language Models as intelligent may just blind us to how most users really see them: as social.’
By @eryk.bsky.social
By @eryk.bsky.social
Reposted by Eryk Salvaggio
“ChatGPT came into a world where proximity to others was correlated with the risk of death, as online connection was besieged by hostile political polarization, when everything was unmoored in ways no language could capture. It emerged at a time when loneliness felt essential to survival.”
What Was ChatGPT?
A Chatbot Optimized for Social Distance
Three years after the launch of ChatGPT, we can finally speak in hindsight about what it was and how it came to be. Its meteoric rise shocked the world, gather...
mail.cyberneticforests.com
November 23, 2025 at 12:25 PM
“ChatGPT came into a world where proximity to others was correlated with the risk of death, as online connection was besieged by hostile political polarization, when everything was unmoored in ways no language could capture. It emerged at a time when loneliness felt essential to survival.”
Reposted by Eryk Salvaggio
This is very good - I hadn't thought before about the place of ChatGPT as a post-pandemic technology mail.cyberneticforests.com/what-was-cha...
What Was ChatGPT?
A Chatbot Optimized for Social Distance
Three years after the launch of ChatGPT, we can finally speak in hindsight about what it was and how it came to be. Its meteoric rise shocked the world, gather...
mail.cyberneticforests.com
November 23, 2025 at 2:24 PM
This is very good - I hadn't thought before about the place of ChatGPT as a post-pandemic technology mail.cyberneticforests.com/what-was-cha...
Reposted by Eryk Salvaggio
Eryk's observation that ChatGPT "came into a world where proximity to others was correlated with the risk of death," is chilling. Seeing it through that lens makes the whole trajectory feel far more unsettling.
November 23, 2025 at 4:18 PM
Eryk's observation that ChatGPT "came into a world where proximity to others was correlated with the risk of death," is chilling. Seeing it through that lens makes the whole trajectory feel far more unsettling.
Reposted by Eryk Salvaggio
"a technology that emerged against an ongoing denial of collective trauma, adapted to a historic moment in ways that persist beyond it"
What was ChatGPT? Now nearly three years old, we can look at OpenAI's LLM as a product of its time, optimized ever since to its earliest uses. While this period of deep disorientation and social isolation has been obscured from public memory, it remains embedded within the interface.
What Was ChatGPT?
A Chatbot Optimized for Social Distance
Three years after the launch of ChatGPT, we can finally speak in hindsight about what it was and how it came to be. Its meteoric rise shocked the world, gather...
mail.cyberneticforests.com
November 23, 2025 at 3:18 PM
"a technology that emerged against an ongoing denial of collective trauma, adapted to a historic moment in ways that persist beyond it"
Reposted by Eryk Salvaggio
Another brilliant essay from @eryk.bsky.social, this time he writes the history of ChatGPT against the backdrop of mass loneliness and social distance. This history is still unfolding and the signs are not encouraging for where we are headed.
What was ChatGPT? Now nearly three years old, we can look at OpenAI's LLM as a product of its time, optimized ever since to its earliest uses. While this period of deep disorientation and social isolation has been obscured from public memory, it remains embedded within the interface.
What Was ChatGPT?
A Chatbot Optimized for Social Distance
Three years after the launch of ChatGPT, we can finally speak in hindsight about what it was and how it came to be. Its meteoric rise shocked the world, gather...
mail.cyberneticforests.com
November 23, 2025 at 12:43 PM
Another brilliant essay from @eryk.bsky.social, this time he writes the history of ChatGPT against the backdrop of mass loneliness and social distance. This history is still unfolding and the signs are not encouraging for where we are headed.
Reposted by Eryk Salvaggio
Interesting to think about the pandemic's influence on ChatGPT's current use cases, notably as AI companions, & their forced integration into schools. Enduring blame put on "lockdown" for its supposed interruption of students' social skills; now schools are stuffed w profoundly anti-social tech.
What was ChatGPT? Now nearly three years old, we can look at OpenAI's LLM as a product of its time, optimized ever since to its earliest uses. While this period of deep disorientation and social isolation has been obscured from public memory, it remains embedded within the interface.
What Was ChatGPT?
A Chatbot Optimized for Social Distance
Three years after the launch of ChatGPT, we can finally speak in hindsight about what it was and how it came to be. Its meteoric rise shocked the world, gather...
mail.cyberneticforests.com
November 23, 2025 at 1:59 PM
Interesting to think about the pandemic's influence on ChatGPT's current use cases, notably as AI companions, & their forced integration into schools. Enduring blame put on "lockdown" for its supposed interruption of students' social skills; now schools are stuffed w profoundly anti-social tech.
Reposted by Eryk Salvaggio
COVID+'AI' connection @eryk.bsky.social: "In many ways the collective attention & fear, has shifted from a conversation about the embodied concerns of a contagious, murderous disease to a collective fascination & horror w/ the unembodied abstraction of 'artificial intelligence'" tinyurl.com/3xs4mu8c
What Was ChatGPT?
A Chatbot Optimized for Social Distance
Three years after the launch of ChatGPT, we can finally speak in hindsight about what it was and how it came to be. Its meteoric rise shocked the world, gather...
tinyurl.com
November 23, 2025 at 1:05 PM
COVID+'AI' connection @eryk.bsky.social: "In many ways the collective attention & fear, has shifted from a conversation about the embodied concerns of a contagious, murderous disease to a collective fascination & horror w/ the unembodied abstraction of 'artificial intelligence'" tinyurl.com/3xs4mu8c
What was ChatGPT? Now nearly three years old, we can look at OpenAI's LLM as a product of its time, optimized ever since to its earliest uses. While this period of deep disorientation and social isolation has been obscured from public memory, it remains embedded within the interface.
What Was ChatGPT?
A Chatbot Optimized for Social Distance
Three years after the launch of ChatGPT, we can finally speak in hindsight about what it was and how it came to be. Its meteoric rise shocked the world, gather...
mail.cyberneticforests.com
November 23, 2025 at 12:37 PM
What was ChatGPT? Now nearly three years old, we can look at OpenAI's LLM as a product of its time, optimized ever since to its earliest uses. While this period of deep disorientation and social isolation has been obscured from public memory, it remains embedded within the interface.
Reposted by Eryk Salvaggio
Years ago, 2004, there were two identical Christmas movies made. Same cast, except that one featured a man married to a woman, and the other featured the same man married to another man.
The Story Behind The Viral 2004 Christmas Movie With Two Versions — One With Two Dads And Another With Straight Parents
“Back in those days, there was a little bit less open-mindedness to having gay characters,” director Sam Irvin told BuzzFeed News.
www.buzzfeednews.com
November 23, 2025 at 5:34 AM
Years ago, 2004, there were two identical Christmas movies made. Same cast, except that one featured a man married to a woman, and the other featured the same man married to another man.
Reposted by Eryk Salvaggio
Anthology's series "Avant-Garde Ads” features "filmmakers – even those who seem [to exemplify] anti-commercial purity and radicalism[, e.g.,] Stan Brakhage, Peter Kubelka, Jordan Belson, Bruce Baillie, Nathaniel Dorsky – have made ads, corporate films, PSAs, or other sponsored works."
Avant-Garde Ads: Part 1
The particular realm of cinema that Anthology Film Archives was put on earth to preserve, present, and celebrate is one that has famously been difficult to label, with filmmakers, programmers, and sch...
www.screenslate.com
November 23, 2025 at 3:59 AM
Anthology's series "Avant-Garde Ads” features "filmmakers – even those who seem [to exemplify] anti-commercial purity and radicalism[, e.g.,] Stan Brakhage, Peter Kubelka, Jordan Belson, Bruce Baillie, Nathaniel Dorsky – have made ads, corporate films, PSAs, or other sponsored works."
Reposted by Eryk Salvaggio
Never be afraid to avoid new things.
November 22, 2025 at 10:05 PM
Never be afraid to avoid new things.
Reposted by Eryk Salvaggio
Turns out this was all much ado about nothing and Google isn’t using your Gmail to train AI and if wanna turn all that stuff back on you can get your spam filters back
Looks like the article has been updated to suggest maybe they misread the policy.
I see people complaining that this also disabled their spam filters, though I still see new messages showing up in spam so it's still working fine for me after disabling things.
I see people complaining that this also disabled their spam filters, though I still see new messages showing up in spam so it's still working fine for me after disabling things.
[Correction] Gmail can read your emails and attachments to power "smart features"
Did you know that Gmail can use your emails and attachments for its smart features? Here's how to check your settings.
www.malwarebytes.com
November 22, 2025 at 11:06 PM
Turns out this was all much ado about nothing and Google isn’t using your Gmail to train AI and if wanna turn all that stuff back on you can get your spam filters back
Reposted by Eryk Salvaggio
It's my favorite day! It's the 38th anniversary of the Max Headroom signal broadcast intrusion!
1st incident lasted 25s during the 9PM news on WGN-TV in Chicago; The 2nd, 2hrs later, lasted ~90s on PBS affiliate WTTW during Dr. Who.
You can watch it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqge...
1st incident lasted 25s during the 9PM news on WGN-TV in Chicago; The 2nd, 2hrs later, lasted ~90s on PBS affiliate WTTW during Dr. Who.
You can watch it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqge...
Max Headroom 1987 Broadcast Signal Intrusion Incident
YouTube video by andrew867
www.youtube.com
November 22, 2025 at 6:37 PM
It's my favorite day! It's the 38th anniversary of the Max Headroom signal broadcast intrusion!
1st incident lasted 25s during the 9PM news on WGN-TV in Chicago; The 2nd, 2hrs later, lasted ~90s on PBS affiliate WTTW during Dr. Who.
You can watch it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqge...
1st incident lasted 25s during the 9PM news on WGN-TV in Chicago; The 2nd, 2hrs later, lasted ~90s on PBS affiliate WTTW during Dr. Who.
You can watch it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqge...
With or without the use of sycophantic chatbots, anyone attempting novel research has probably experienced a degree of rabbit-hole psychosis in which there is just no way to decide if an idea is groundbreaking or profoundly stupid (and often in hindsight turns out to be just, like, "mid")
November 22, 2025 at 3:58 PM
With or without the use of sycophantic chatbots, anyone attempting novel research has probably experienced a degree of rabbit-hole psychosis in which there is just no way to decide if an idea is groundbreaking or profoundly stupid (and often in hindsight turns out to be just, like, "mid")