Carolyn Dicey Jennings

Quaking Aspens. That’s the post.

Unbelievably, it was 15 years ago I said yes to loving and supporting David, and he to me. It was a beautiful, peaceful morning in Yosemite. We met in the graduate lounge 5 years prior. Most of our friends were philosophers. So, of course, our reception was full of objections/replies. Here is one ❤️

There is something really lovely about someone critically engaging with your work and finding a better version of what you wanted to say. My collaborator Jelle Bruineberg just published "Attention and The Relevance Problem" in PPR a couple of days ago, and I find myself agreeing with his critiques

These quotes demonstrate Jelle's interest in "unencapsulation": "agents can be drawn to parts of their environments that are neither relevant for their current activities, nor stand out in virtue of their physical properties, but that are nonetheless relevant for currently latent interests"

There is something really lovely about someone critically engaging with your work and finding a better version of what you wanted to say. My collaborator Jelle Bruineberg just published "Attention and The Relevance Problem" in PPR a couple of days ago, and I find myself agreeing with his critiques

"On my way to the bakery, my friend shows up as salient, as something that demands my attention. But to account for such cases, salience cannot be a purely bottom-up phenomenon. Salience somehow needs to be informed by currently latent interests and goals. The question is how this is possible."

UC faculty who are concerned about this can do something: sign this petition, which is about getting us back to the student/faculty ratio UCOP committed to in 2005, which is still way above similar public universities like UMich (names made public only if 1000 sign) members.cucfa.org/sign-the-pet...

A well reported article that shows the pressure facing UC faculty in recent years. Student body has grown considerably (almost 30% in last 15 years), while faculty growth has been stymied due to “funding shortages,” all while senior management has “more than doubled” www.sacbee.com/news/local/e...

A great listen as always. Dafoe has a number of surprising answers, including that the purpose of life is to “walk each other home,” he “gets a great pleasure” out of simple tasks like washing dishes & his favorite memory is “playing in half constructed houses” as a kid one.npr.org/i/nx-s1-5978...

Starting to read the preprint. I noted: “physical pain is least central to models’ pain representations.” One explanation for that is that physical pain isn’t captured in word associations. The model’s “pain” seems to be largely about model integrity, eg “uselessness,” which would be so captured.

And for those who think these discussions are a distraction: I get it, but consider, too, how the label of personhood influenced the political protection of corporations…these issues matter, and good to sort out the basics if we can, as well as the ethical/political ojs.stanford.edu/ojs/index.ph...

Starting to read the preprint. I noted: “physical pain is least central to models’ pain representations.” One explanation for that is that physical pain isn’t captured in word associations. The model’s “pain” seems to be largely about model integrity, eg “uselessness,” which would be so captured.

Why are people so confident that if the results of AI look like thinking that this means the thinking is being done by what’s in the box, rather than by what’s in the diagram as a whole? Are they just not considering this as a possibility? Don’t believe in the possibility of collective cognition?

I have found today productive for understanding the landscape of some of the views non-philosophers might have about AI. Thanks to those who helped me with that. I am finding more recent engagement somewhat less productive, so I am signing off on this one. Open to new threads/emails if want to chat.

Time to block. I really tried productive engagement. Not necessarily for him, but for others to see what could be going wrong (and for me to learn as well). But I won’t tolerate this kind of comment.