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
"Interpassivity is so dominant that doing+making are referred to as obstacles to pleasure. You don't read a book because reading is work, LLMs can summarize. You don't learn an instrument because practice is work. Skillsets distract from the time we might set aside for passive consumption."
This week I reach back to the 1990s and the concept of “interpassivity,” a critique of the widespread idea that “interaction” was inherently liberating for an audience. But to think in nuanced and critical ways about creativity with generative AI, the “gesture of disappearance” has new salience.
From Interactive to Interpassive
Where AI Art Meets Cognitive Offloading
There is the joke about AI: we wanted robots to do our dishes so we could have time to make art, but we got robots that make art while we do the dishes. We can...
mail.cyberneticforests.com
November 30, 2025 at 2:20 PM
"Interpassivity is so dominant that doing+making are referred to as obstacles to pleasure. You don't read a book because reading is work, LLMs can summarize. You don't learn an instrument because practice is work. Skillsets distract from the time we might set aside for passive consumption."
This was a Hal Hartley film
this is quite the detail
November 30, 2025 at 12:43 PM
This was a Hal Hartley film
Reposted by Eryk Salvaggio
"Interpassivity is so dominant today that doing and making are referred to as obstacles to the pleasures of not participating."
This is what gets me.
Anecdotally, the people that love AI in my world are people that want to opt out of a ton of shit that I think is necessary and it *grinds* me.
This is what gets me.
Anecdotally, the people that love AI in my world are people that want to opt out of a ton of shit that I think is necessary and it *grinds* me.
This week I reach back to the 1990s and the concept of “interpassivity,” a critique of the widespread idea that “interaction” was inherently liberating for an audience. But to think in nuanced and critical ways about creativity with generative AI, the “gesture of disappearance” has new salience.
From Interactive to Interpassive
Where AI Art Meets Cognitive Offloading
There is the joke about AI: we wanted robots to do our dishes so we could have time to make art, but we got robots that make art while we do the dishes. We can...
mail.cyberneticforests.com
November 30, 2025 at 12:24 PM
"Interpassivity is so dominant today that doing and making are referred to as obstacles to the pleasures of not participating."
This is what gets me.
Anecdotally, the people that love AI in my world are people that want to opt out of a ton of shit that I think is necessary and it *grinds* me.
This is what gets me.
Anecdotally, the people that love AI in my world are people that want to opt out of a ton of shit that I think is necessary and it *grinds* me.
This week I reach back to the 1990s and the concept of “interpassivity,” a critique of the widespread idea that “interaction” was inherently liberating for an audience. But to think in nuanced and critical ways about creativity with generative AI, the “gesture of disappearance” has new salience.
From Interactive to Interpassive
Where AI Art Meets Cognitive Offloading
There is the joke about AI: we wanted robots to do our dishes so we could have time to make art, but we got robots that make art while we do the dishes. We can...
mail.cyberneticforests.com
November 30, 2025 at 12:10 PM
This week I reach back to the 1990s and the concept of “interpassivity,” a critique of the widespread idea that “interaction” was inherently liberating for an audience. But to think in nuanced and critical ways about creativity with generative AI, the “gesture of disappearance” has new salience.
Language is only one aspect of human thinking, and much of our intelligence involves our non-linguistic capacities. Why then do so many of us intuitively feel otherwise?”
Grateful to The Verge for publishing my essay on why large-language models are not going to achieve general intelligence nor push the scientific frontier.
www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...
www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...
Is language the same as intelligence? The AI industry desperately needs it to be
The AI boom is based on a fundamental mistake.
www.theverge.com
November 30, 2025 at 9:17 AM
Language is only one aspect of human thinking, and much of our intelligence involves our non-linguistic capacities. Why then do so many of us intuitively feel otherwise?”
Spoke to Le Temps on the anniversary of GPT 3 and questioning where the promised revolution is. (French) www.letemps.ch/cyber/chatgp...
ChatGPT fête ses 3 ans: un impact planétaire massif, mais une révolution encore très incertaine - Le Temps
Trois ans après son lancement, ChatGPT s’est imposé dans le quotidien de centaines de millions de personnes. L’adoption a été fulgurante, mais les bénéfices concrets de l’intelligence artificielle gén...
www.letemps.ch
November 29, 2025 at 5:41 PM
Spoke to Le Temps on the anniversary of GPT 3 and questioning where the promised revolution is. (French) www.letemps.ch/cyber/chatgp...
Reposted by Eryk Salvaggio
Reposted by Eryk Salvaggio
We need more research and articles like this about how people are actually using LLMs and chatbots, instead of ones wishcasting in either direction, so we can make informed decisions about how to help people make better sense of the world where they are at
The ChatGPT effect: In 3 years the AI chatbot has changed the way people look things up. By @debmsu.bsky.social
"shift of the tool people reach for first for finding information is at the heart of how ChatGPT has changed everyday technology use."
theconversation.com/the-chatgpt-...
"shift of the tool people reach for first for finding information is at the heart of how ChatGPT has changed everyday technology use."
theconversation.com/the-chatgpt-...
The ChatGPT effect: In 3 years the AI chatbot has changed the way people look things up
ChatGPT has dramatically altered how people retrieve information, muscling aside Google search as the first stop on the hunt for answers.
theconversation.com
November 26, 2025 at 9:45 PM
We need more research and articles like this about how people are actually using LLMs and chatbots, instead of ones wishcasting in either direction, so we can make informed decisions about how to help people make better sense of the world where they are at
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.