One of my fondest memories of childhood is discovering that cursive letters existed.
Category: Artificial Intelligence
Axon, Inc. Revisions: NaNoWriMo 2021
At this point it's getting a bit embarrassing to admit that I've been working on this book since 2013. It still remains my pet project and the one I'm most anxious to have see the light of day, since it reflects many of my own experiences and hopes and fears -- about my profession (artificial… Continue reading Axon, Inc. Revisions: NaNoWriMo 2021
Lost English: PIEbot
I received a fantastic book for Solstice 2018: The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots. It's a collection of words and suffixes from Proto-Indo European, the language from which English (and many other languages) descended thousands of years ago. I literally read the whole thing on the flight home, sounding the words out to myself,… Continue reading Lost English: PIEbot
Neuralink and Elon Musk
In an interview on the Joe Rogan podcast this month, Elon Musk claimed, among other things, that the technology his company, Neuralink, is working on could render human language obsolete in as few as five years. As a linguist, an one who has a particular interest in language and the brain, I was curious to… Continue reading Neuralink and Elon Musk
Man vs. Machine: John Henry, Science Fiction, and the March of Progress
There are only two kinds of plots in true science fiction: Science is a Hero, and Science is a Villain. In Science is a Hero, there is some problem or other -- an asteroid is going to hit the Earth, the Galactic Empire is falling, there's a Plague IN SPACE!! -- and the heroic characters… Continue reading Man vs. Machine: John Henry, Science Fiction, and the March of Progress
The Mind of a Rock: Animism and AI
For thousands of years, Western civilization has been living with a striking paradox. On the one hand, we are clearly physical beings living in a physical universe. And yet, we have these thoughts, feelings, dreams, and perceptions... They seem related to the physical universe, yet fundamentally different in character. We have an ‘inner’ life, which… Continue reading The Mind of a Rock: Animism and AI
Axon Firings 