Eryk Salvaggio
@eryk.bsky.social
12K followers 4.6K following 2.9K posts
Situationist Cybernetics. Gates Scholar researching AI & 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
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eryk.bsky.social
Uni Oslo, for just a too-quick visit!
eryk.bsky.social
If people have ideas for what to do in Oslo, I’m all ears!
Reposted by Eryk Salvaggio
judithbeyer.bsky.social
#ContraAI 🤖 "The decision to equate human thought with complex machine slotting ... presupposes that human expression is only and without exception the automation of grammar, that words always and without exception determine ... when they will appear."
mail.cyberneticforests.com/what-machine...
What Machines Don't Know
Imagining Language Without Imagination It's important to acknowledge that Large Language Models are complex. There's an oversimplified binary in online chatter between the dismissive characterizatio...
mail.cyberneticforests.com
eryk.bsky.social
Giving away control can be compelling to some people, and I think LLMs channel that energy of “handing it over to forces beyond our control.”
Reposted by Eryk Salvaggio
sven.blacksky.app
Reading this fantastic essay slowly as I would drink a good bottle of wine (if I did drink), every other paragraph contains a banger:

« For the same reason that a dog can go to church but cannot be Catholic, an LLM can have a conversation but cannot participate in the conversation. »
eryk.bsky.social
I've been re-acquainting myself with NNs, transformers and LLMs this week, so these are early thoughts. But I am starting to think about language without the capacity to imagine language, i.e., an LLM unable to imagine itself participating in language. mail.cyberneticforests.com/what-machine...
What Machines Don't Know
Imagining Language Without Imagination It's important to acknowledge that Large Language Models are complex. There's an oversimplified binary in online chatter between the dismissive characterizatio...
mail.cyberneticforests.com
eryk.bsky.social
Only skimming this but it seems like it’s integrating into one model what is done externally already, re: filtering training data, generating synthetic text, etc, but with sketchier results on accuracy than if they stood alone?
Reposted by Eryk Salvaggio
techpolicypress.bsky.social
Studies are beginning to reveal fissures in the argument that AI boosts productivity, writes Tech Policy Press fellow @eryk.bsky.social. Nonetheless, companies and governments are pouring investments into speculative growth without ample evidence.
Generative AI’s Productivity Myth | TechPolicy.Press
People may be using artificial intelligence, but that doesn’t mean it’s useful, writes Eryk Salvaggio.
www.techpolicy.press
eryk.bsky.social
New from me on productivity, AI, and the problems in how we measure it: “AI’s core function is completing goals as if they were a yes/no checkmark: having a text, rather than writing the text; having a numbered list of ideas rather than finding a good idea.” www.techpolicy.press/generative-a...
Generative AI’s Productivity Myth | TechPolicy.Press
People may be using artificial intelligence, but that doesn’t mean it’s useful, writes Eryk Salvaggio.
www.techpolicy.press
Reposted by Eryk Salvaggio
justinhendrix.bsky.social
The push to maximize productivity is at the heart of the current rush to adopt AI, writes Tech Policy Press fellow Eryk Salvaggio, but that doesn’t mean it’s useful. “On a social scale, productivity gains that don’t lead to pay raises, or lead to layoffs, are not productivity gains at all.”
Generative AI’s Productivity Myth | TechPolicy.Press
People may be using artificial intelligence, but that doesn’t mean it’s useful, writes Eryk Salvaggio.
www.techpolicy.press
Reposted by Eryk Salvaggio
stephenroddy.bsky.social
Great read. It’s got me thinking about all of the things machines don’t care about.
eryk.bsky.social
I've been re-acquainting myself with NNs, transformers and LLMs this week, so these are early thoughts. But I am starting to think about language without the capacity to imagine language, i.e., an LLM unable to imagine itself participating in language. mail.cyberneticforests.com/what-machine...
What Machines Don't Know
Imagining Language Without Imagination It's important to acknowledge that Large Language Models are complex. There's an oversimplified binary in online chatter between the dismissive characterizatio...
mail.cyberneticforests.com
eryk.bsky.social
Confession: I [he] once [previously|formerly|in the past] worked [was employed|had a job as] as a spam [SEO|online marketing|slop] author [writer|slinger|creator] ... for a brief time as an undergrad. Desperate times. Was indeed soulless work.
Reposted by Eryk Salvaggio
nilspooker.bsky.social
Super Essay zur Differenzierung der LLM's in der Dichotomie zwischen den Evangelisten und Hatern. Nicht die Qualität der Ausgabe ist das Problem, sondern die Uniformität als ausschließliche Rechenoperation nach einem festen System, ohne die Kontexte individueller menschlicher Gedankengenese. 1/
eryk.bsky.social
I've been re-acquainting myself with NNs, transformers and LLMs this week, so these are early thoughts. But I am starting to think about language without the capacity to imagine language, i.e., an LLM unable to imagine itself participating in language. mail.cyberneticforests.com/what-machine...
What Machines Don't Know
Imagining Language Without Imagination It's important to acknowledge that Large Language Models are complex. There's an oversimplified binary in online chatter between the dismissive characterizatio...
mail.cyberneticforests.com
eryk.bsky.social
Thinking about AI & our "models of models," "vector space" creates a metaphor of motion that feels multidimensional. It's a helpful metaphor, and translates calculus well, so it's useful. But tracking change is not limited to motion, so "flat" can be useful too.
Reposted by Eryk Salvaggio
bildoperationen.bsky.social
In this great piece, Eryk reminds us that in order to be sceptical about so-called AI, we don’t have to dismiss LLMs as mere fancy auto-complete. As a colleague from linguistics once remarked, we overestimate AI as a simulation of thinking, but we may underestimate it as a model of language
1/
eryk.bsky.social
I've been re-acquainting myself with NNs, transformers and LLMs this week, so these are early thoughts. But I am starting to think about language without the capacity to imagine language, i.e., an LLM unable to imagine itself participating in language. mail.cyberneticforests.com/what-machine...
What Machines Don't Know
Imagining Language Without Imagination It's important to acknowledge that Large Language Models are complex. There's an oversimplified binary in online chatter between the dismissive characterizatio...
mail.cyberneticforests.com
eryk.bsky.social
Tech is full of philosophers who couldn’t get jobs in philosophy
Reposted by Eryk Salvaggio
simongroth.com
“Current architectures of LLMs cannot imagine, but they can sequence … For the same reason that a dog can go to church but a dog cannot be Catholic, an LLM can have a conversation but cannot participate in the conversation.”
eryk.bsky.social
I've been re-acquainting myself with NNs, transformers and LLMs this week, so these are early thoughts. But I am starting to think about language without the capacity to imagine language, i.e., an LLM unable to imagine itself participating in language. mail.cyberneticforests.com/what-machine...
What Machines Don't Know
Imagining Language Without Imagination It's important to acknowledge that Large Language Models are complex. There's an oversimplified binary in online chatter between the dismissive characterizatio...
mail.cyberneticforests.com
Reposted by Eryk Salvaggio
dryad.technology
What I'm listening to today: "Olson"

Boards of Canada arranged to play on a DEC PDP-1 from 1959. The PDP-1 doesn't have sound, but it does have front-panel light bulbs for debugging, so they rewired the light bulb lines into speakers to create 4 square wave channels

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wubk...
Boards of Canada "Olson" on a 1959 PDP-1 Computer
YouTube video by Joe Lynch
www.youtube.com
eryk.bsky.social
Recent posts re: Meta’s goals to build solipsistic networks that simulate social interaction through sycophantic LLMs to replace their dead mall vibe reminded me of this text, written in 2023, which tied the logics of social media analytics directly to logics of generative AI.
eryk.bsky.social
“Now AI promises to further constrain those relationships, to move us from a time when one could speak and hear from many to a time when one can speak only to ourselves: one-to-none communication, a throwback to the days of yelling at the TV, but now the TV can adjust.” (From 2023).
The Hypothetical Image — Cybernetic Forests.
The history of AI images as data analytics, and AI art as the aestheticization of Big Data’s politics.
www.cyberneticforests.com
eryk.bsky.social
“Now AI promises to further constrain those relationships, to move us from a time when one could speak and hear from many to a time when one can speak only to ourselves: one-to-none communication, a throwback to the days of yelling at the TV, but now the TV can adjust.” (From 2023).
The Hypothetical Image — Cybernetic Forests.
The history of AI images as data analytics, and AI art as the aestheticization of Big Data’s politics.
www.cyberneticforests.com