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harry law

@harrylaw.bsky.social

Thinking about thinking machines | University of Cambridge and Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence | Previously Google DeepMind

1,367 Followers  |  119 Following  |  23 Posts  |  Joined: 02.05.2023
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Posts by harry law (@harrylaw.bsky.social)

Next week, backprop before Werbos or Hinton!

30.05.2025 13:01 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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Please ignore the man behind the curtain AI Histories #5: The Mechanical Turk

Every week I write a short history of AI: a trend, person, or technology from AI or the fields that influenced it

This week deals with the Mechanical Turk. I look at its tricks, second life, and games with Ben Franklin, Edgar Allan Poe, and Napoleon

www.learningfromexamples.com/p/the-man-be...

30.05.2025 12:58 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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The Coming Race Bovril Among the Machines

A bit on AI in the Victorian imagination by way of the AI researcher’s favourite classic book, Erewhon, and what came before it

www.learningfromexamples.com/p/the-coming...

18.03.2025 11:39 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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A Verhoevenian Moment It’s a feature, not a bug

www.learningfromexamples.com/p/a-verhoeve...

04.03.2025 14:12 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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Definitional questions about AI can be tedious, but their staying power is curious. I argue that's because AI is the quintessentially Verhoevenian technology: an especially supple cypher for politics, values, beliefs, and biases

Link below

04.03.2025 14:11 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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Ghosts of Greenland Myths, missiles, and memory

www.learningfromexamples.com/p/ghosts-of-...

18.02.2025 08:55 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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I wrote about the territory of the moment. Link below for a history of science essay about Greenland, by way of pulp sci-fi outposts, lost colonies, and Sherlock Holmes 🧊

18.02.2025 08:55 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

Thanks very much!

05.02.2025 17:31 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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The Economy of Magic On alchemy, imagination, and machine learning

New blog on something I've been wanting to write about for a while: historical parallels between AI and alchemy, where they hold & where they break

www.learningfromexamples.com/p/the-econom...

04.02.2025 09:21 β€” πŸ‘ 4    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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extremely zoomable, super high resolution picture of de heem’s β€˜flowers in a glass vase’ from 1660: tahpaul.github.io/deheem/

14.12.2024 18:42 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Thanks very much!

30.11.2024 12:49 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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Conversation Galante [TWIE] The Week In Examples #61 | 30 November 2024

A Turing test for poetry, copyright, and finetuning - three things I enjoyed writing about in this week’s newsletter. Check it out if you’re into that sort of thing

www.learningfromexamples.com/p/conversati...

30.11.2024 12:45 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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in 1971 you could look like this and play a 29 year old

29.11.2024 20:25 β€” πŸ‘ 4    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

west point academy has identified civ vi as a promising training platform for the next generation of military strategists

29.11.2024 19:43 β€” πŸ‘ 4    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

guy who is sceptical of AI but supports export controls on GPUs

29.11.2024 19:11 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 0
https://www.aipolicyperspectives.com/p/a-new-golden-age-of-discovery

t.co/QPBuD9jopp

26.11.2024 10:40 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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Colleagues at Google DeepMind wrote a new essay aiming to provide an overview of the AI for science opportunity, a nuanced take on the risks, insights on the ingredients needed to succeed, and an ambitious policy agenda. Read it below on our policy blog 🫑

26.11.2024 10:40 β€” πŸ‘ 7    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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it’s friday night

22.11.2024 20:46 β€” πŸ‘ 4    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

it’s good despite the bait title

21.11.2024 14:51 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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fr

21.11.2024 09:46 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 0
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let me tell you about instrumental convergence, anon

18.11.2024 08:44 β€” πŸ‘ 6    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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Check it out if you’re interested in that sort of thing

17.11.2024 20:15 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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My way or the highway [TWIE] The Week In Examples #59 | 16 November 2024

Every week I publish a newsletter about AI and society. This week I looked at:

πŸ›£οΈ Calls for β€˜AI highways’

🌍 Safety implications of world models

✍️The first draft of the EU’s Code of Practice for AI

https://www.learningfromexamples.com/p/my-way-or-the-highway-twie?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

17.11.2024 20:14 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0