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marsh.blue
nick
@marsh.blue
41 followers 180 following 4 posts
thinking about thinking things & trying to make AI go well

https://marsh.blue / https://oaisi.org
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Reposted by nick
talyarkoni.com
i asked Claude to write a Barthelme-esque short story with the aesthetic sensibilities of "The School", and it gave me this. i mean. i mean.
For six months we watched the pigeons building their civilization on top of the skyscrapers. First came the architecture: nests made not just of twigs and paper, but of lost earbuds, expired credit cards, and the tiny silver bells from cat collars. Then came their laws. "They have a supreme court," said Dr. Fernandez, who'd been studying them since the beginning. "Nine pigeons who sit on the ledge of the Chrysler Building and coo about justice." We didn't believe her at first, but then we didn't believe a lot of things that turned out to be true. The pigeons developed a currency based on blue bottle caps. They established schools where young pigeons learned to dodge taxi cabs and identify the most generous hot dog vendors. Some of us tried to join their society, climbing to rooftops with offerings of breadcrumbs and philosophy textbooks, but the pigeons regarded us with the kind of pity usually reserved for very small children or very old cats. "They're planning something," the conspiracy theorists said, but they always say that. Still, we noticed the pigeons holding what looked like town halls, thousands of them gathered on the roof of the public library, bobbing their heads in what might have been voting or might have been prayer. Our own civilization continued below theirs. We went to work, fell in love, lost keys, found keys, forgot anniversaries, remembered too late, all while the pigeons above us built something that looked suspiciously like a scaled-down replica of the United Nations building out of discarded takeout containers and stolen Christmas lights. Sometimes they dropped things on us: rejection letters for poetry we'd never submitted, tax returns from years that hadn't happened yet, photographs of ourselves sleeping that we couldn't explain. Dr. Fernandez said this was their way of communicating. We said Dr. Fernandez had been spending too much time on rooftops. The pigeons started their own newspapers, printed on leaves that fell upward instead… For six months we watched the pigeons building their civilization on top of the skyscrapers. First came the architecture: nests made not just of twigs and paper, but of lost earbuds, expired credit cards, and the tiny silver bells from cat collars. Then came their laws. "They have a supreme court," said Dr. Fernandez, who'd been studying them since the beginning. "Nine pigeons who sit on the ledge of the Chrysler Building and coo about justice." We didn't believe her at first, but then we didn't believe a lot of things that turned out to be true. The pigeons developed a currency based on blue bottle caps. They established schools where young pigeons learned to dodge taxi cabs and identify the most generous hot dog vendors. Some of us tried to join their society, climbing to rooftops with offerings of breadcrumbs and philosophy textbooks, but the pigeons regarded us with the kind of pity usually reserved for very small children or very old cats. "They're planning something," the conspiracy theorists said, but they always say that. Still, we noticed the pigeons holding what looked like town halls, thousands of them gathered on the roof of the public library, bobbing their heads in what might have been voting or might have been prayer. Our own civilization continued below theirs. We went to work, fell in love, lost keys, found keys, forgot anniversaries, remembered too late, all while the pigeons above us built something that looked suspiciously like a scaled-down replica of the United Nations building out of discarded takeout containers and stolen Christmas lights. Sometimes they dropped things on us: rejection letters for poetry we'd never submitted, tax returns from years that hadn't happened yet, photographs of ourselves sleeping that we couldn't explain. Dr. Fernandez said this was their way of communicating. We said Dr. Fernandez had been spending too much time on rooftops. The pigeons started their own newspapers, printed on leaves that fell upward instead…
December 16, 2024 at 4:48 AM
Reposted by nick
michaelnielsen.bsky.social
The git commits of technological history, viewed from 90,000 feet:
December 8, 2024 at 6:40 PM
Reposted by nick
alice.mosphere.at
"sorry your therapist is currently unavailable, would you like to continue this conversation with that rando on the street instead?"
December 1, 2024 at 9:56 PM
Reposted by nick
gjmcgowan.bsky.social
This Claude prompt is working well for me
December 1, 2024 at 12:01 PM
Reposted by nick
busbyj2.bsky.social
This one for Delhi is telling. Why air quality has not taken off as an issue in India yet is a bit baffling as it taking multiple years off people's life expectancy there. Air quality stripes plot for Delhi, India: airqualitystripes.info/stripes/?con...
Air quality in India over time. Very bad.
November 29, 2024 at 2:24 PM
marsh.blue
friends who study humanities seem to much prefer claude when they've been introduced - both in terms of interface/design and in tone.

a strong association between chatgpt and subpar academic work has already been built - claude being less well-known might benefit academic uptake!
daniel-eth.bsky.social Daniel Eth (yes, Eth is my actual last name) @daniel-eth.bsky.social · Nov 29
Claude be like “what are you talking about? everyone I talk to knows about Claude”. Call that the Anthropic principle.
November 29, 2024 at 10:56 AM
Reposted by nick
oxidist.bsky.social
www.ribbonfarm.com/2014/02/20/t...
The Cactus and the Weasel
www.ribbonfarm.com
November 19, 2024 at 4:29 PM
Reposted by nick
joejanizek.bsky.social
Crossposting from Twitter because I don’t think @jxmnop is on Bluesky right now — is the moral of the story that “Residuals are all you need”? “Eat When You Can, Sleep When You Can, and Don’t Mess with the Residual Stream”? github.com/NVIDIA/ngpt/...
Screenshot of Twitter thread on bug in nGPT baseline implementation
November 19, 2024 at 3:49 PM
marsh.blue
i wasn't quite anticipating how much more peaceful this place feels compared to twitter. my feed is full of people i like (and cool new people), rather than violence/engagement bait - refreshing!
November 15, 2024 at 4:15 PM
Reposted by nick
lastpositivist.bsky.social
This flow chart is also canonical

(sincere apologies but I do not think I can alt-text this)
November 11, 2024 at 7:45 AM