Not everyone is averse to the prospect of a global AI-induced apocalypse. Catastrophizing circumstances and events caries a certain appeal to some, in particular those who identify with the status of a powerless underclass. Let social, political and economic systems fall! Let AI take over! I think here of those who identify as dispossessed, who…More
Generalised AI as existential threat
Many specialised AI applications are acceptably proficient in identifying people, animals and other objects in pictures, in searching databases, winning at chess and in many other areas invisible to most users, such as controlling factory production lines, navigating aerial vehicles, surveillance, medical imaging, diagnosis, and aspects of smart city infrastructures. That’s “narrow” AI. But general artificial…More
Attention scores
One of the important techniques in the new wave of highly successful generative natural language (NLP) models is the use of attention scores in neural network (NN) training. Here I continue the investigation I started in previous posts into how NLP works. To recap: a word in NLP models is represented as a point in…More
AI Armagedon
Should AI research be shut down? A group called the Future of Life Institute warns against the recent developments in generative AI platforms, prompted especially by advances in natural language processing, e.g. chatGPT. The open letter follows their similar warning of 2015. Both letters have several high-profile signatories who are involved in AI development. The…More
Words in order
Neural network researchers invented several methods that store and make inferences about the order of words in a sentence. The main method I will present here provides one of the components that undergirds the recent impressive performance of natural language processing (NLP) models known as transformer models. The method also resonates with my prior investigations…More
AI eschatophobia
It seems that everyone is talking about (or with) ChatGPT. The platform’s convincing conversational acuity and ability to synthesise disparate conceptual threads provides a vivid demonstration of AI’s potential. I’ve now read several accounts online where scholars, programmers, writers, musicians and artists use ChatGPT or similar as a creative companion to explore ideas — comparable…More
Fine tune your AI
My first blog posting appeared 25 August 2010 titled “Tuning as …” It followed the publication of my book The Tuning of Place. In the short posting I proposed: “Tuning might well be the metaphor of our age. ” I was thinking of smartphones and their role in moderating our relationships with environments. The term “tuning,”…More
Architecture in multidimensional feature space
In a previous post (Predicting proximity), I reviewed the NLP (natural language processing) operation of calculating the relationships between words in a corpus of texts. So the word “architectural” is closer to the word “urban” than “architectural” is to “culinary.” Very close word proximity could mean that one word can be substituted for another in…More
The invention of language
Automated natural language processing (NLP) technology is impressive, though I need to remind myself of its limits. It is easy to elide thoughts about its linguistic capabilities with a sense that it is on the way to mastery of language, and therefore human intelligence. In what follows I will follow the line that NLP is…More
Imperfect patterns
Training a neural network (NN) involves automatically adjusting numerical weights and thresholds (biases) to account for all input and output pairs presented to the NN. After training on these input-output patterns the NN should reproduce the appropriate output pattern when presented with any one of the input patterns. Note that it is not patterns that…More
Just one neuron
I revisited our earlier (1990) article on neural networks “Spatial applications of neural networks in computer-aided design.” Neural networks were novel in architecture and CAD. What follows is an update of the part of that article in starting to explain how neural networks function. Neural network layers Neural network (NN) models store information as numbers…More
Mandala and metaphor
I’m on sabbatical as I write this, and taking the opportunity to research AI in the urban context as I travel. Here I am in Central Java, at Borobudur for the first time. This trip was prompted by my early work with Adrian Snodgrass, with whom I joint authored the book Interpretation in Architecture in…More
Automatic pattern completion
In 1990 Arthur Postmus and I published an article about “spatial applications” of artificial neural networks (ANNs). In a more recent article, Gabriele Mirra and Alberto Pugnale at the University of Melbourne developed up-to-date applications of AI in design. They generously cited our article (amongst articles by others). I concur with their assessment of the…More
Who’s listening?
In every mind there is a higher function watching or listening to the inflow of sense data and monitoring its own thought processes. In his seminal book on the philosophical challenge of consciousness, Daniel Dennett argues convincingly against this proposition. He directs his criticism against those who presuppose that somewhere, conveniently hidden in the obscure…More
The next word
“We are so in sync we finish each other’s … sandwiches.” That’s a variation on a joke from several sources: The Simpsons, Arrested Development, The Good Place, etc. In some social situations where I can’t think of anything appropriate to say, I just start a sentence anyway, not knowing what comes next or how it…More
Predicting proximity
Tokens NLP (natural language processing) systems don’t necessarily consider only words as the basic components of prediction. They may break words into smaller units roughly corresponding to syllables, punctuation marks and even single characters. The general term for these textual units is “tokens.” An NLP system will include in its algorithmic workflow the construction of…More
Nothing beyond text
In explaining the political philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s (1712-1778) autobiographical book Confessions, the continental philosopher Jacques Derrida observed that there is nothing to support Rousseau’s claims about his relationships with his family members, other than what the text discloses. Derrida generalises this observation to the controversial proposition that any attempts to ground spoken or written assertions…More
Attention is everything
Attention is a key element in cognition. At our most thoughtful we direct attention to features in our environment that are most important to us at that moment. Attention can wander, of course, we daydream, and we can pay attention to inexistent things, memories and objects of the imagination. A lecturer will come to the…More
Learning to transduce
Human beings at their most rational are able to generalise from examples. If you stand under the shower head before turning on the tap then it is likely you will be dowsed with cold water before it gets to a temperature you are happy with. That if-then rule is a generalisation borne of a few…More
My tutor is an AI
In constructing this post I’ve been cross checking some of my explanations about neural networks with OpenAI’s chatGPT-3, which is a highly responsive chatbot available at the OpenAI.com website (free at present). I’m most familiar with spreadsheets. So that’s where I’ll start. You can think of a neural network as a matrix or grid (a…More
Intentional systems
In his book Consciousness Explained, the philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett says that a study of hallucination, “will lead us to the beginnings of a theory — an empirical, scientifically respectable theory — of human consciousness” [4]. I’ve explored what some philosophers say about hallucination in previous posts and tried to relate that to…More
Chatting with an AI about urban inexistence
“Intentional inexistence” is a philosophical term adopted by the nineteenth century philosopher Franz Brentano (1838-1917) to indicate the commonplace human capacity to imagine things. We may suppose that inexistence refers to things that don’t exist (nonexistent things) or that are under demolition, but that presumes too much — or too little. As explained by Linda…More
Cryptographic City
The description of my next book is out with the cover design on the MIT Press website. The graphic designer says that the cover is in code, though I have yet to decipher it. Cryptography’s essential role in the functioning of the city, viewed against the backdrop of modern digital life. Cryptography is not new…More
Cryptographic index
To introduce cryptography as a theme in my Media and Culture class I provided each student with a customised string of code containing the name of an AI-themed film. The key to decode the secret message was the student’s unique 7 digit university identification number. If the encrypted string is uaroulojz and the student key…More
Of what do AIs dream?
Midjourney is an AI platform that deploys machine learning and processing techniques similar to Dall-e. The backend to the Midjourney platform drew (and continues to draw) on a vast repository of images and their associated texts. That’s as much as I dare surmise about its operations. I have yet to read the definitive academic articles…More
The phenomenological attitude
On moving to a new office I inherited a shelf of books from the room’s previous occupant. Amongst them were two books by the Austrian-German philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859-1938). I had come to the field of Phenomenology via the writings of Husserl’s student Martin Heidegger’s and Heidegger’s commentators and critics. That put Husserl in the…More
Learn to talk to your AI
I once attended a two week immersive course in Tours to learn French. One day a group of us who were native English speakers broke out of the immersive experience to organise a car rental — in English. Up until that point one of the Dutch members of our group confessed he thought I was…More
Dark sentience
Architecture and media theorist Mark Shepard offered a helpful definition of “sentience” in his appropriately titled 2011 book Sentient City. “What are the implications of calling a city ‘sentient’? The word sentience’ refers to the ability to feel or perceive subjectively, but does not necessarily include the faculty of self-awareness” (31). He states that self…More
Inattention and power
Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) provides one of the most enduring depictions of machine intelligence, a spaceship that exhibits sentience. HAL, the onboard computer provides an interface to the ship’s functions. In his chapter “Toward the sentient city,” Mark Shepard identifies the conversational aspect of HAL’s interface, “symbolized by his iconic and…More
Cringe and inattention
It’s lunchtime at Cheers bar and there are no customers. Diane is a waiter in the bar. She says, “I think if nobody minds I’ll have my lunch now. I got some lovely roast beef today for a sandwich.” She notices Carla, her co-worker, who is pregnant. “I’m sorry, Carla. If it bothers you I…More
Sitcoms in the city
I wish I could recall when my parents bought our first television set. That moment marked a clear decline in my capacity for sociability, outdoor pursuits, team sports, and homework. I recall rollerskating down our street, visiting friends, adventuring in our apple tree, improvising a bow and arrow set from strips of dowel, and hitting…More
Urban discourse
Dialogue typifies what it is to be intelligent. I’m thinking of two or more people engaged in conversation. Alan Turing proposed conversation as the test for AI. If participants or observers can’t tell the difference between a human conversing with a simulation and a human being conversing with another human then it’s fair to say…More
Intimately conscious
Sentience draws attention to feelings and sensations. Consciousness is more cognitive. It derives from Latin conscius, which is “sharing knowledge.” In my previous post I searched key texts for occurrences of “intimations of sentience” which yielded very little. A similar search on consciousness is more instructive. Intimations of consciousness “It takes a thief to catch a…More
Intimations of sentience
Something is sentient if “feels or is capable of feeling; having the power or function of sensation or of perception by the senses” (OED). Consider the following: “An AI platform that delivers conversational responses to my inputs is sentient.” That’s a very bold claim about AI. To intimate that an AI platform is sentient would…More
The imitation game
Alan Turing proposed : ‘Can machines think?’ should be replaced by ‘Are there imaginable digital computers which would do well in the imitation game?’ (442) The following is my unedited conversation with OpenAI about the Imitation Game and Alan Turing’s test of effective AI. I’ve highlighted some key terms. AI: I am an AI created…More
Dall-E and me
The image below is one of my photographs of Mãe d’Água das Amoreiras (Mother of the Water) Reservoir, Lisbon, taken in August this year. If I was conscientious I would label it with alt-text: “plan view of a large thin metal wheel tap in a horizontal position above a reflective underground cyan pool in a…More
Thicker narrative
Gossip is a vital element of community, according to historian Yuval Harari, necessary as an ingredient in social bonding. People who gossip also like to eavesdrop on other people’s conversations, then pass along what they hear. Dialogue in stories meets a similar need. Stories that include dialogue encourage engagement. Readers put themselves in the position…More
Text therapy redux
Text therapy is simply communication between clients and their counsellors, clinicians or therapists via text media, such as email (non-synchronous) or real-time (synchronous) chat. Text chat has grown in many consumer contexts, abetted by automation: archiving, analysis, templates and AI-assisted bot technology. Those who are sufficiently literate sometimes prefer the protections and security afforded by…More
Text therapy
I met with my text therapist last week. She advised me to incorporate more story-telling into my writing. “It will help you connect with your readers on a deeper level,” she said. “How do I do that?” There was a pause. This communication was online. She could have been sipping her coffee, or composing her…More
Lucky places
Imagine two worlds: one in which apparently random events have a positive outcome for most people most of the time — it only rains when you have an umbrella, you only run out of petrol while next to a petrol station, a knocked vase falls on a soft cushion, toast always lands jam side up.…More
Quantum VR
A widely cited article in IEEE states the goal of virtual reality (VR). “The overarching goal of VR is to generate a digital real-time experience that mimics the full resolution of human perception. This entails recreating every photon our eyes see, every small vibration our ears hear, and other cognitive aspects (touch, smell, etc.)” (111).…More
Work-life imbalance
Severance is a dark scifi comedy-drama about a high-tech company capable of splitting the memory life of its office workers in two. As soon as a worker comes into the office she/he loses all recollection of what happened on the outside. When she leaves the office she immediately forgets what happened at work as she…More
In here and out there
The theory of extended mind, elaborated by philosophers David Chalmers and Andy Clark, appeals to anyone involved in the built environment. The theory proposes that cognitive functioning (reasoning, perceiving, remembering) rely on various augmentations from the environment we are in. Hence, we have notepads, drawing tools, computers, smartphones, the Internet. These extensions are not just…More
Ultimate VR
In his book Reality+ philosopher David Chalmers restates a common view about the future of VR. My guess is that within a century we will have virtual realities that are indistinguishable from the nonvirtual world. Perhaps we’ll plug into machines through a brain-computer interface, bypassing our eyes and ears and other sense organs. The machines…More
Heidegger and panpsychism
Martin Heidegger’s teacher Edmund Husserl foregrounded consciousness, though Heidegger adopted a different vocabulary and different concepts. Nor does the term “panpsychism” or anything like it crop up in Heidegger’s writing, though no doubt it can be inferred. In his latest book Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy David Chalmers references Heidegger. The 20th-century…More
Reflections on Technology, Media & Culture 