We hear fluent speech, we think "fluent thought." But wait: "The human brain is hardwired to infer intentions behind words" - even where there is none. - Fast Company
"Suppose we are now willing to regard it as a live possibility that we really are living in a simulation. How much would it matter? Should it profoundly shake our understanding of the cosmos and our place in it?" - Slate
Or at least that was Milan's approach, even before the pandemic, when the city started turning 250,000 square feet of parking lots into playgrounds, picnic areas, and other car-free zones that turned out to be a true boon when COVID hit. - Fast Company
Aldous Huxley or George Orwell? Well, we thought it was Orwell. But now? "We are back to the future. Back to the Brave New World narcotic of media content that takes our mind off everything." - LitHub
Magic and mystery are what make jokes funny and creativity so tantalizing. Revealing how a magic trick is done or giving away a punchline will not win you any friends. So, as much as we profess interest in divining the “secret” to creative thinking, we’re also wary. - Washington Post
We shouldn’t be dismissive of people who believe in pseudoscience. In many cases they’re victims who have fallen for disinformation that’s been put forward by someone else, often people who stand to profit in some way. - Nautilus
It seems to me that the one indisputable thing we can say about our current illiberalisms, of the left and the right: All illiberalisms are intrinsically mechanistic. It is always their goal for mechanization to take command—as long as mechanization serves their ends. - Hedgehog Review
Pragmatism emerged in the US in the late 1800s as a response to the Enlightenment push for absolute truth. Pragmatists — like William James and John Dewey — were less interested in certainty and more concerned with immediate experience. They wanted to know what worked for ordinary human beings. - Vox
Where we’ve arrived instead is somewhere more foreign than artificial consciousness. In a strange way, a program like PaLM would be easier to comprehend if it simply were sentient. We at least know what the experience of consciousness entails. - The Atlantic
On the one hand, if we are solely responsible for the things we do wrong, some genuinely malevolent parties get off scot-free. On the other, if we locate responsibility entirely outside the individual, we relegate ourselves to sentient flotsam buffeted by currents beyond our control. - The Guardian
So, this is my answer: if I am being canceled I want my friends — and this includes not only my closest associates, but anyone who considers themselves friendly to me — to stand by, remain silent, and do nothing. If you care about me, let them eat me alive. - The New York Times
The frustration has become a persistent meme: that Google Search, what many consider an indispensable tool of modern life, is dead or dying. For the past few years, across various forums and social-media platforms, people have been claiming in viral posts that Google’s flagship product is broken. - The Atlantic
For thousands of years, global wealth – at least our best approximations of it – barely budged. But beginning around 150-200 years ago, everything changed. The world economy suddenly began to grow exponentially. Global life expectancy climbed from less than 30 years to more than 70 years. - BBC
92NY's CEO: "The 92nd Street Y is a lot like New York City. ... Amazing things happen here. But, like New York City, for a number of years we underinvested in maintenance and capital." - The New York Times
Part of the issue is language. "On the one hand, PaLM and other large language models are capable of understanding in the sense that if you tell them something, its meaning registers. On the other hand, this is nothing at all like human understanding." - The Atlantic
