Ponderings
Created to accompany an exhibition at the Computer History Museum in California, this nifty explainer from the video essayist Grant Sanderson (aka 3Blue1Brown) helps to demystify how large language models (LLMs) operate = even though, as Sanderson details, the inner workings can be mysterious even to those who program them. Offering a brief history of their evolution up to today, he deconstructs both the hidden scaffolding of these technologies and the innovations that have allowed them to improve so dramatically over the past decade. With a narrow focus that avoids controversies around the ethics of LLMs, Sanderson focuses on what's actually happening when one interacts with these technologies. Through this lens, he elucidates how LLMs are an intricate - and rather ingenious - collaboration between human and machine inputs.
Aeon Magazine, 20 February 2025
Cybernetics
A classic and influential work that laid the theoretical foundations for information theory and a timely text for contemporary informations theorists and practitioners.
With the influential book Cybernetics, first published in 1948, Norbert Wiener laid the theoretical foundations for the multidisciplinary field of cybernetics, the study of controlling the flow of information in systems with feedback loops, be they biological, mechanical, cognitive, or social. At the core of Wiener's theory is the message (information), sent and responded to (feedback); the functionality of a machine, organism, or society depends on the quality of messages. Information corrupted by noise prevents homeostasis, or equilibrium. And yet Cybernetics is as philosophical as it is technical, with the first chapter devoted to Newtonian and Bergsonian time and the philosophical mixed with the technical throughout. This book brings the 1961 second edition back into print, with new forewords by Doug Hill and Sanjoy Mitter.
Contemporary readers of Cybernetics will marvel at Wiener's prescience—his warnings against “noise,” his disdain for “hucksters” and “gadget worshipers,” and his view of the mass media as the single greatest anti-homeostatic force in society. This edition of Cybernetics gives a new generation access to a classic text.
MIT
Weiner, Norbert (1948). Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine
read the Forward, by Doug Hill, pp. ix-xix
Does this add to your understanding?
Economist
If you can trust the model is telling the truth about its thought process, he points out, then knowing what it's thinking should be as simple as reading the transcript.
Something else
Buster Voodoo
Rodrigo y Gabriela are a Mexican musical duo who specialize in playing fast, rhythmic acoustic guitars. The duo's members are Rodrigo Sánchez, lead guitar, and Gabriela Quintero, rhythm guitar.
They are originally from Mexico but gained a following after playing their music in the streets and bars of Dublin. Their acoustic style is very interesting because it's influenced by two genres that don't usually go together--flamenco and heavy metal. This duo is also an interesting blend of cultures. They grew up in Mexico City, listening to American rock bands like Metallica, and eventually gained their fame through a European audience.