researcher @UCBerkeley Epistemic Cycles Lab lead @longnow editor Artificial Humanities @UExeterPress
Berkeley, CA
- Tweets 6,315
- Following 1,888
- Followers 3,565
- Likes 7,077
Pinned Tweet
Siblings are finally united!
What is writing and reading in the time of AI?
Ted Chiang, Ken Liu, Sheila Heti, Sasha Stiles, James Yu, and other amazing writers reflect and offer new possibilities.
3
9
48
5,115
Chatbot ELIZA had a SPACKS script that acted as a poetry critic and interpreting bot as one of its first educational uses.
The name and poem the script analyzed came from poet Barry Spacks who, in turn, wrote the poem "To a Computer Writing Verses."
(More about these early days of ELIZA in my Afterword to David Avidan's My Electronic Psychiatrist, which should be out soon.)
1
44
Nina Beguš retweeted
We're excited to be able to continue our work (with @begusgasper) on rethinking language, thanks to @schmidtsciences HAVI.
We will test what properties of human language (sound change, dialect, and more) appear in nonhuman communication. This research lays the groundwork for reconceptualizing language as an evolutionary information technology applicable across human, animal, and machine communication.
UC Berkeley researchers are developing AI models that learn language by imitating speech, much like babies do. Their work could make AI more efficient while revealing new insights into how humans and other species communicate.
bit.ly/4BeESMn
8
40
2,340
Nina Beguš retweeted
I’m excited to lead the Epistemic Cycles Lab!
We will develop a historical study of information technologies that will help us identify mechanisms for preserving, producing, and organizing knowledge in the age of AI.
Announcing our first Long Now Labs awardees in partnership with the Protocol Institute. We received 370+ exceptional submissions — and we’re thrilled to unveil the three awardees chosen to develop their concepts into prototypes. The awardees for Book of Time are:
▪️Matthew Caren and Anastasha Rachel Gunawan for “Lagu Hantu,” a handmade instrument installation that remembers everyone who has ever played it.
▪️Eirini Malliaraki (@irinimalliaraki) with “One Billion Clocks” a kinetic sculpture that tracks the metabolic time of soil
▪️Sarah Friend (@isthisanart_) for “Thermodynamic Clock for LLMs” which will test whether giving models access to different experiences of time will alter their behavior
Over the coming year, each team will develop its concept into a working prototype with $25,000 in funding and support from Long Now. Their work will appear alongside 27 selected submissions in the Book of Time anthology, coming in spring 02027.
For our second Lab, Epistemic Cycles, UC Berkeley scholar Nina Begus (@ninabegus) will serve as Lab Lead. She’ll convene an interdisciplinary working group to build an atlas of information ruptures (from writing to generative AI) and of how societies have repaired them.
Our third Lab, Interspecies Protocols, launches in 02027.
Thank you to everyone who applied, to our partners at the Protocol Institute, and to our review panel. Read the full description of these incredible projects on Ideas here: na2.hubs.ly/H08xGzF0
4
6
35
1,367
What happens to writing when machines can write? How are novelists, poets, and screenwriters responding to AI, and what does it mean for creativity, authorship, and the future of storytelling?
Join us on November 18 at UC Berkeley Sutardja Dai Hall as we explore these questions through our new collection of essays, First Encounters with AI.
1
7
12
530
Nina Beguš retweeted
Highly recommend applying to this position! It's a post-doc++ with a lot of independence, decent pay, cheap housing in Manhattan, an excellent placement record (cds.nyu.edu/faculty-fellow-a…), and unlimited bite-size snicker bars!
NYU CDS is hiring its next cohort of Faculty Fellows! 🗽 A chance to do independent research, with a light teaching load and better conditions than a typical postdoc. If you're finishing a PhD in ML/NLP/data science or nearby, apply:
apply.interfolio.com/193498
2
5
69
9,010
Nina Beguš retweeted
How bad is administrative bloat in higher ed?
At MIT, the “student body has grown by 8% and its faculty by 9% since the mid-1980s. By comparison, the tally of administrators jumped by 189%.”
149
808
4,143
212,951
Californian kids when it rains:
- Is school still on?
- Is drinking rain healthy for you?
We came a long way from: What’s that thing falling from the sky? during La Niña years.
1
8
800
We take issue with AI when it's coming for our joy of insight.
Proofs in math are a testimony of truth as beauty. The solution matters just as much as the process.
Math at that level has always been closer to art and philosophy.
2
1
15
1,193
Nina Beguš retweeted
Schmidt Sciences is hiring Associates to help run our grantmaking programs!
This role is a great opportunity for generalists to shape funding in AI safety. You would join a small team and directly impact cutting-edge safety research.
Apply ASAP if interested. Link below ⬇️
6
19
146
12,186