25 entries
Argues that perception isn't a window onto reality but the substrate of reality itself. Sheffield draws on phenomenology, neuroscience, and animal cognition to introduce 'somatic deixis' (a two-step process of designation and adjudication) and 'execution states' as alternative frames for what minds are. Opening line: minds do not create experience, experience creates minds.
Why this site is called a garden, what plant growth means for ideas, and how the metaphor shapes every editorial decision.
A Wittgensteinian analysis showing LLMs lack the constancy and commitment required for genuine dialogue. The appearance of conversation is an illusion built on pattern completion, not communicative intent.
Reading notes on cognitive assemblages, anthropocentrism, and the case for extending cognition beyond human consciousness, from bacteria to AI.
On the importance of precise terminology and definition, and a brief exploration of dialectic thinking. It's humans that need to learn to reason, not LLMs
Coins new words for our emotional relationship with place and the natural world, from solastalgia to topophilia, arguing we need richer language for what we stand to lose
Argues that cognition extends beyond conscious human thought into technical systems and biological processes, challenging assumptions about where thinking actually happens
A collection of thoughts & ideas on alternative metaphors for human-GenAI-interaction.
Can a chatbot-style UI work without generative AI, using decision trees, hyperlinking, and serendipity instead?
Should a digital garden be searchable and useful, or is there beauty in letting people explore?
When did we stop caring about who actually wrote the words?
A mechanism that catches your train of thought. Something that responds in another space.
Argues that always-on connectivity has made us more isolated, as we substitute the managed interactions of social media and robots for the messiness of real relationships
Explores whether machines could be conscious using an associative neural model, proposing a hardware-based architecture for robot sentience
A philosophical analysis of male entitlement, examining how men are socially conditioned to expect attention, care, and deference from women as a matter of right
A collection of philosophical essays on machine ethics, exploring what it means for artificial systems to behave well and what moral responsibilities they might carry
Examines the philosophical problems of machine consciousness through questions about intelligence, zombies, and functionalism, offering a case that consciousness consists in performing functions
What design principles shaped this site, and why do they matter?
Before 2022, it was pretty clear whether you were talking to a bot or a human. With the arrival of ChatGPT, this changed – radically. With a user interface that combines the gift of the gab with information that's not necessarily accurate, designers are faced with a novel challenge. How do we design for interfaces that are so convincing that people instinctively drop their guards and trust them more than might be good for them? And do our traditional design paradigms still serve us here?
Designing for negative space
Episode 3 of the Maai & AI series, on how LLMs work and some of their risks.
Will we ever solve hallucinations in LLMs?
A critical analysis of Google Bard failing to adhere to conversational principles by withholding relevant information about Gemini model availability in the EU. Bard violates Grice's Cooperative Principle by failing to proactively communicate that Gemini is unavailable in the EU due to regulatory reviews. The issue is not a hallucination but a failure of the maxim of quality: Bard does not provide necessary information unless explicitly asked. Users must already know the answer to their question before asking it, creating a paradoxical and unhelpful interaction pattern. Bard in Europe still runs on the older Lambda/PaLM model, not the newer Gemini model available in other regions. This violation of conversational principles is arguably worse than generating false information because it presupposes user knowledge.
Surprisingly few people mention the fact that ChatGPT is, in the end, one big word-string-generator on steroids.
The original woman in voice. On international women's day, a tribute to the first named composer in history.