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¶ I've been thinking a lot about, and experimenting a lot with, the uses of AI — its promises, possibilities, pitfalls, and especially its uncanny (in many senses) insights into the shape of the human cultural corpus. ¶ Large Language models work in the principle of a predicting the next element in sequence of tokens — of words and fragments: given what came before, what comes next? ¶ The posts here combine older work and new, in the form of a collage, an experimenter's log, and a commonplace book.

Featured

• 🌐True/False Travel

  An experimental travel guide leverages LLMs to create a playful, structured, and surprising exploration of fictionalized destinations, blending accuracy with creative fabrication.

• 🕉️Infinite Reflection

  What you learn when you let LLMs follow their bliss

• 🖨️Reclaiming the Cliché

  What is it that makes the output of large language models and other varieties of generative AI so interesting, and then so boring? For me the most useful operative metaphor for AI’s promise and problems is the cliche.

• ✍️Blog Resurrection

  Using LLMs to pull thousands of old blog posts back from a grave of mangled database text and rotten links

Recent

• 🦌All the World's a Stag

  Game theory research reveals how political inequality destroys cooperation and why groups prove less trusting than individuals.

• 🙏Does Forgiveness Lead to Forgetting?

  New research reveals that forgiveness transforms the emotional weight of painful memories without erasing their details.

• 🪦World's Oldest Mummies Discovered in Southeast Asia

  Ancient remains from Southeast Asia reveal mummification practices dating back 12,000 years, predating Egyptian and South American examples.

• 🌊Ancient Egyptian Watersports Revealed in Tomb Paintings

  Plaster fragments from an 18th Dynasty tomb chapel near Thebes unveil scenes of recreational activities from over 3,300 years ago.

Archive

• 🧬Human red cone pigment gene quilt, by Beverly St. Clair

  A unique blend of art and science, this quilt explores the intricacies of the human red cone pigment gene through creative textile design.

• 🏬Boxes of worship

  The idea of transforming defunct big-box stores into churches offers a unique and creative reuse of space.

• 🌊One works and works for something, which then happens of its own accord

  Reflecting on the nature of political transformation and the interplay of effort and grace, Weschler captures the essence of spontaneous uprising in his writings.

• 😂Some classical humor

  Jokes can be tricky to translate, but here's a taste of classical humor from the Philogelos.