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maybe: leif weatherby

@leifw.bsky.social

870 followers 850 following 150 posts

Hegel, cybernetics, Buffalo Bills

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maybe: leif weatherby @leifw.bsky.social · Jun 24

Language Machines is out today, can be ordered from @uminnpress.bsky.social www.upress.umn.edu/978151791932... - gathering a few parergonal writings below 1/

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Tyler Shoemaker @t-shoemaker.bsky.social · 2d

The first in a (jam-packed) series of events on cultural AI this year from DTL. More incoming!

maybe: leif weatherby @leifw.bsky.social · 2d

The Digital Theory Lab at NYU will host Karen Hao for a book talk on Empire of AI on Monday, October 13, RSVP required here:
as.nyu.edu/research-cen...

Karen Hao on Empire of AI

Lunch will be available for the event. Event begins at 12pm

as.nyu.edu

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maybe: leif weatherby @leifw.bsky.social · 2d

The Digital Theory Lab at NYU will host Karen Hao for a book talk on Empire of AI on Monday, October 13, RSVP required here:
as.nyu.edu/research-cen...

Karen Hao on Empire of AI

Lunch will be available for the event. Event begins at 12pm

as.nyu.edu

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maybe: leif weatherby @leifw.bsky.social · 7d

Man if only cognitive maps were still functioning

Ted Underwood @tedunderwood.com · 7d

We're already in the Torment Nexus; what I want is a map of it

maybe: leif weatherby @leifw.bsky.social · 10d

Oh amazing to hear! I hope it’s, well, generative

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maybe: leif weatherby @leifw.bsky.social · 10d

Hi! Ty

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Ben Recht @beenwrekt.bsky.social · 10d

Greg Olsen is so committed to the decision-theory bit: "Just because the outcome is good, doesn't mean the decision was correct."

Anyway, Carson Wentz.

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maybe: leif weatherby @leifw.bsky.social · 14d

It was! And they let it slip

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Tyler Shoemaker @t-shoemaker.bsky.social · 14d

Extremely good stuff from Leif here

maybe: leif weatherby @leifw.bsky.social · 14d

i was on Disintegrator podcast, a really awesome conversation
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/3...

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maybe: leif weatherby @leifw.bsky.social · 14d

i was on Disintegrator podcast, a really awesome conversation
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/3...

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maybe: leif weatherby @leifw.bsky.social · 14d

the political economy of bad thinking, a really great piece about the *hostile synergy* between B and X from Henry

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maybe: leif weatherby @leifw.bsky.social · 16d

The humanities long since in its Cringe Era

Ted Underwood @tedunderwood.com · 16d

The AHA was right to try to produce guidance on AI, but I wonder if it's even possible. This statement got dinged , of course, for being insufficiently critical. But they were working so hard to be critical that they wrote sentences (like the blue one) that are def false.+

bsky.app/profile/hist...

AI produces texts, images, audio, and video, not truths.

Generative AI is a remarkable technological achievement, but it has undeniable limitations. An awareness of these limitations is important for instructors and students alike. LLMs produce text using an algorithm to select each word from existing books, articles, images, and other media, including AI-created sources. AI texts do not reflect truth; rather, they echo and synthesize, sometimes poorly, sources on which the model has been trained. Generative AI reproduces the limitations of its own training material. By contrast, historians learn to identify and dissect author biases, experiences, social environment, and hidden motivations. Students need to learn to interpret AI-generated content with a critical lens, using their historical training to assess material rather than passively accept it as true or complete.

maybe: leif weatherby @leifw.bsky.social · 20d

Real different vibes man, good luck

Reposted by maybe: leif weatherby

Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 23d

I'm going to write on this, but the subtext is that the Nate Silver crowd have shifted hard away from political science, and hard towards the Silicon Valley mindset as a foundational source for purportedly better grounded knowledge. This by @beenwrekt.bsky.social and @leifw.bsky.social

The Bookmaker | The Point Magazine

In the lead-up to the 2008 election, Nate Silver revolutionized the way we talk about politics, bringing cold, hard, numerical facts to a world that had been dominated by the gut feelings of reporters...

thepointmag.com

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maybe: leif weatherby @leifw.bsky.social · 26d

extremely imporant one-two from Dan here:
"First, the communication of the polling results to policymakers is likely to be at least as difficult a problem as the election forecast presentation, probably much more so. Second, the technical problems with polling are going to be worse."

Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 26d

a little bit of good natured blog beef, in which I say that @beenwrekt.bsky.social and @leifw.bsky.social are more right than wrong about the state of polling, contra @andrewgelman.bsky.social

backofmind.substack.com/p/you-cant-t...

you can't take it back in a disclaimer

thoughts on the state of opinion research

backofmind.substack.com

Reposted by maybe: leif weatherby

Jesse Raber @jraber.bsky.social · Sep 2

UChicago alumni: we are drafting a letter targeting a few of the more persuadable-seeming trustees urging them to change course on humanities funding. Please sign:

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Explanation to follow ...

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maybe: leif weatherby @leifw.bsky.social · Sep 2

Find the lie (in this case)

maybe: leif weatherby @leifw.bsky.social · Sep 2

*Carr

Reposted by maybe: leif weatherby

Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · Sep 1

"automated language results from Goedel and Jackobson systems interacting together, without cognition. The incomplete and greedy combine to show us what language is in the absence of cognition and present a strong attractor for meaning."
—Leif Weatherby, Language Machines

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max mccarthy @maxmcc.com · Aug 27

loving @leifw.bsky.social’s Language Machines so far. in particular:

“It seems that mental illness, or at a minimum neurosis, should be a criterion for passing the Turing test, but it is equally unlikely that this view will ever be adopted by engineers or journalists.”

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maybe: leif weatherby @leifw.bsky.social · Aug 27

Language Machines is in The Observer!

maybe: leif weatherby @leifw.bsky.social · Jun 24

Language Machines is out today, can be ordered from @uminnpress.bsky.social www.upress.umn.edu/978151791932... - gathering a few parergonal writings below 1/

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Atle Mikkola Kjosen @klumpen.bsky.social · Aug 22

Finally got these two in the mail, been looking forward to reading both.

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maybe: leif weatherby @leifw.bsky.social · Aug 20

🙏

maybe: leif weatherby @leifw.bsky.social · Aug 18

An almost universally acknowledged point that mysteriously disappears whenever conversation turns to AI

conputer dipshit @davidcrespo.bsky.social · Aug 18

basically I think I reject the concept of "direct contact" in use there. it's a bad metaphor for how cognition works

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maybe: leif weatherby @leifw.bsky.social · Aug 18

Text is part of the world