Cameron Buckner

A Philosophical Introduction to Language Models -- Part I: Continuity With Classic Debates Large language models like GPT-4 have achieved remarkable proficiency in a broad spectrum of language-based tasks, some of which are traditionally associated with hallmarks of human intelligence. This...

We have called this the "redescription fallacy" arxiv.org/abs/2401.03910

Yes, updated versions coming soon.

Google DeepMind wants to know if chatbots are just virtue signaling We need to better understand how LLMs address moral questions if we're to trust them with more important tasks.

Julia Haas in Nature:

www.technologyreview.com/2026/02/18/1...

New greatest bird photo of all time just dropped

Royal Penguin
📷 JJ Harrison, eBird ebird.org/checklist/S2...

Bueller?

So, we don't know proprietary architectures etc., but is it probably right that the only causal influence CoT/reasoning trace tokens can have on final answer given by an LRM is through being processed as part of the context through self-attention, like other parts of the prompt?

The usual stellar science reporting here

Letterboxd screenshot Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) Watched by Branson Reese 28 Apr 2022 Abrams isn't a man so much as he's an avatar of cultural entropy. If you make something popular enough eventually you will die or sell it off and and a person in thick rimmed glasses whose main artistic vision is that he loves to have meetings will take it and sandblast it until it's nothing. I hate to see this happen here but maybe it's good that this happened. Maybe every franchise should collapse into a version of itself that makes shareholders nod and shake each others' hands. We should learn to speak in a language that rich people who don't dream can't comprehend.

i often think about this review

Google to pay $68 million over allegations its voice assistant eavesdropped on users Class-action lawsuit alleged that Google's voice assistant illegally recorded and shared private conversations with advertisers.

Do you remember when people were saying "I think my phone is listening to me, i'm getting ads for stuff I spoke about" and people said "They arent listening to you, they're just this good at predicting your interests"?

Well, it happens they were doing exactly that.
www.cbsnews.com/news/google-...

I will keep saying it: It turns out that inventing a tool that counterfeits the experience of being human can have, or rather is having, adverse consequences. Shirky concludes with the same point I’ve been making, that we cannot wait decades to get ahead of this. We are warping a generation.

It's worth having a look at our website, if you haven't, or haven't lately. There are a lot of remarkable things going on at UF philosophy these days.

phil.ufl.edu

• Petra Schumacher on real-time meaning adaptation
• Emma Borg questioning reasons & action
• @noranewcombe.bsky.social on cognitive maps
• @cameronbuckner.bsky.social on LLMs as models of human reasoning.
Videos were subtitled.
All links here: espp2025.ifispan.edu.pl/keynotes 2/2

Is this about the RAM shortage

Sign reads: Free Nobel Peace prize with an order of shrimp tacos.

#peaceprize
#tacos

Yes. This is another reason why public funding is what we want - why the government should support science with democratic mechanisms of oversight.

Public support means not having to beg toxic billionaires for money.

the professors in the emails being all chummy with epstein is pathetic and enraging.

You should quit social media for good Platforms optimized for engagement warp our politics, erode attention, and harm our wellbeing. Here’s how I minimize time on the (anti‑)social web.

Today is one of those days when I should have taken my own advice. Flooded with rage tweets on the other platform. Garbage way to communicate that only brings out the worst in people. All dunks, no conversation. Complete waste of time trying to engage there www.gelliottmorris.com/p/you-should...

Empathy is a moral virtue. The fact that so many people (on the left, no less) are trying to tell Liam that it's morally good to not empathize with "them" makes me sad.

Spanberger asks U-Va. to pause presidential search until she takes office Virginia Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger called on the University of Virginia’s governing board to pause its presidential search until she can appoint new members, saying actions by the current board ha...

Virginia Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger asked the University of Virginia’s board to pause its search for a president until she takes office, signaling she’ll make reshaping the state’s higher education intuitions an early priority.

Tracks. BTW you ended up at Durham! If you see this eminently recognizable gentleman walking around, say hi for me.
www.durham.ac.uk/staff/robert...

The world is on the cusp of climate tipping points – the stakes could not be higher for COP30 - EUROPP Global warming is pushing the Earth past climate tipping points, causing irreversible damage to natural systems. The stakes could not be higher for COP30.

#COP30 is underway in Belém, & as the climate crisis worsens, pressure is on states to make progress in negotiations.

Below, read a thread of research-led commentary on what's at stake🧵🌏👇

First, Manjana Milkoreit @sthlmresilience.bsky.social on climate tipping points for @lseeuroppblog.bsky.social

AI and the Nature of Science Bringing together cutting-edge perspectives and helping set an agenda for future research and application

Excited to welcome @lmesseri.bsky.social, @cameronbuckner.bsky.social and @carlbergstrom.com to campus a week from today for the “AI and the Nature of Science: Concepts and Controversies” event. 14.11.25, 1400 - 1800.

Rolling Stone excerpt about Montana’s ballot initiative to combat Citizens United

This is the best political news I’ve seen in a very long time — so please pass it on👇

Each state can limit Citizens United in their own state & they don’t have to wait for other states to do it.

Our new @rollingstone.com piece based on our new book MASTER PLAN. Get the book at LeverNews.com/book

To model human linguistic prediction, make LLMs less superhuman When people listen to or read a sentence, they actively make predictions about upcoming words: words that are less predictable are generally read more slowly than predictable ones. The success of larg...

Another banger from @tallinzen.bsky.social .

Also fits with some of the criticisms of Centaur and my faculty-based approach generally; if you want LLMs to model human cognition, give them more architecture akin to human faculty psychology like long and short-term memory.

arxiv.org/abs/2510.05141

Damnit, Garden of Life is my favorite. No wonder I've been walking around like a lead-addled maniac.

I hate whey protein supplements. :(

I don't know about "for laypeople". It's a pretty technical topic for laypeople.

bactra.org/weblog/520.h...

bactra.org/weblog/523.h...

web-archive.southampton.ac.uk/cogprints.or...

Far fewer Americans support political violence than recent polls suggest Well-known flaws in conventional polling methods may be creating the incorrect perception that many Americans think political violence is justified.

theconversation.com/far-fewer-am...