The Loom and the Weavers

I have elsewhere called these artificial intelligence systems “ looms ,” and I think they are best understood as external attention systems —just as writing can be called an external memory system. Recommendation engines, predictive feeds, and language models perform the various functions of attention: filtering, noticing, selecting what matters fr... See more

She had gone to the machine to talk about the callow and exploitative dynamics of commodified attention capture—only to discover, in the system’s sweet solicitude, a kind of pure attention she had perhaps never known. Who has? For philosophers like Simone Weil and Iris Murdoch, the capacity to give true attention to another being lies at the absolu... See more

And then I heard an artist by the name of Holly Herndon say that the term AI is a huge disservice and collective intelligence is a far more accurate term.

Because if you strip LLMs to their essence, they are just a much better way of using statistics to aggregate human intelligence and connect everything we’ve all done together to get more use out o... See more

Technology

Vibe Check: AI and Behavioral Science in Silicon Valley

By Evan Nesterak

February 16, 2025

Every day, another feature of society is poised for an AI revolution. How will AI change (big inhale) our jobs, relationships, parenting, schools, art, music, sex, war, public safety, public policy, public transport, scientific research, health car... See more