Cogitating, rehearsing ideas in the mind, is a highly advantageous byproduct of our ability to converse with one another. That is, the ability of human beings to think things through silently and privately has developed along with the human ability to communicate with one another in language. Some theorists even assert that conversation comes first;…More
Monthly Archives: April 2024
Can an AI only think “fast”?
In his popular book Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman identifies how any individual is capable of making snap judgements, and with obvious advantage. That kind of “fast” thinking is necessary and appropriate in many cases. Jumping out of the way of an oncoming car, reaching for the chicken at a finger buffet, or raising…More
How to co-create with your AI
People often remember better, or differently, when in the company of others. A reading of sociologist Maurice Halbwachs (1877-1945) and science writer Israel Rosenfield (1939-) supports the collaborative aspects of remembering, recalling, interpreting and, in terms often used in logic and language studies — generalising. Conversation provides the primary demonstration of this capacity to recall…More
Neural networks that recall
It looks as though LLM technology can enhance web search without conceptually overhauling the web search methodology. (See previous post: AI versus web search.) But is there a way that neural network retrieval methodologies can be used as a substitute for explicit indexing? After all, the human capacity to recall does not rely on indexing.…More
AI versus web search
Discussions of AI in web search are often overtaken by concerns over the risks associated with automated user profiling (see post Surveillance capitalism and its discontents). Setting aside that raft of concerns, it’s worth reviewing claims about how AI facilitates efficient and helpful web search. AI enabled search Gemini (https://gemini.google.com/) is the name of Google’s…More