acg

yeah I agree. I see what you're saying about a language/meaning distinction not being the cause of this issue, but I do think a language/meaning distinction could be a solution!

agree at the LLM level. disagree at the human decision-maker level.

the LLM would be pretty good at what, exactly? interpreting meaning like a person? making a decision/suggestion that someone wants?

I understand you better now. I agree with what you're saying about reliability and some of the issues with Bender's framing.

It's already proven true somewhat, like in Perceptrons by Minksy and Papert, they razz all the guys who thought that computers would just be able to interpret the meaning of images without any sort of "meaning" coded separately from the images

I do think treating language and meaning as collapsible gives LLMs unearned legitimacy/agency in some cases (maybe we agree on that?). I also think systems designed with language/ meaning as separate will end up being more useful in the long run (but that's mostly me betting on myself).

We agree that we can get systems that more or less do what we want with arbitrarily large arrangements of words. I don't think it matters where anyone falls on where "meaning" lies in a "what is meaning really" sort of way.

True, the article conflates "AI" with an LLM and not a bad search function. But the belief that language and meaning are interchangeable is what gives both those systems legitimacy (and in this case, it wasn't good to do). If we don't use them interchangeably, we could better avoid bad outcomes

That's not to say we couldn't have systems that differentiate language in ways that we want, because we obviously can. But starting from a place where we treat language and meaning as the same will hinder that goal in many cases.

At its most basic, I see her work as trying to get people to realize or admit "officer" doesn't always mean "police training." When we collapse language and meaning, it makes it a lot harder for people to anticipate this sort of outcome.

ICE error meant some recruits were sent into field offices without proper training, sources say An AI tool used to help ICE identify potential new recruits with law enforcement experience wrongly categorized some potential new officers, sources say.

Sure. I separate language and meaning in my work (for different reasons than Bender; I don't really care a lot about cognition). I understand Bender as taking her stance so things like this don't happen: www.nbcnews.com/politics/imm...

Do you not like the idea of language and meaning as separate, or you don't like their reasoning for why? Or both?

We are hiring!

Interested? Apply here: go.mbl.edu/AS1887

Nature suggests you use their "Manuscript Adviser" bot to get advice before submitting

I uploaded the classic Watson & Crick paper about DNA structure, and the Adviser had this to say about one of the greatest paper endings of the century:

You might especially like "The Status of Style" (1975)

I study this for image data! I think all the best writing on the topic comes from art history. Their work is not quantitative, but analytical in other ways. Whenever I start to feel like I've lost the plot, I go back to Nelson Goodman's work on style: plato.stanford.edu/entries/good...

do itttttt

process being magic of course

also just say you think writing is the same as thought and go home?

hahahaha I hate it here

3-year Postdoc in philosophy of biology w/ @lucielaplane.bsky.social in Paris on cell lineages; interdisciplinary project w/ mathematicians & biologists. Conceptually-minded historians & social scientists also welcome to apply. Project start in early 2026. Application opens soon #HPS #hpbio #STS

On the flip side, I think we're going to find out what kind and how many things individuals really need to "know." And my guess rn is those things will be far fewer and different than we assume.

so what you're saying is I can avoid penalty by never publishing got it

you're a natural

this is why I invite you to "bird gazing" club, where we don't worry about names only vibes

if a scrub jay got you you're toast

say it with me words are not the world

Always doubt.