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A batch of the best highlights from what J's read, .
Now, that next best of times, is long, and rewrites everything.
The Overstory
Richard Powers
Sometimes in accounts of how “AI” works, it’s implied that larger data sets make a model “smarter,” as though it somehow unlocks a higher mode of cognition. But the mode of processing doesn’t change; it just traces the same positive associations with more and more thoroughness. What is being proposed by these models is that there is no such thing as higher cognition, that there is only pattern matching, only associations of greater or lesser complexity, and there is no point in trying to understand why the patterns are what they are. They are arbitrary, brute facts.
The Lowest Tide
Rob Horning
In Catholic doctrine, as far as my understanding goes, beauty, truth and goodness are properties of being which are one with God. God kind of literally ‘is’ beauty (and also truth, which maybe is what Keats meant, I’m not sure). Humankind strives to possess and understand these properties as a way of turning toward God and understanding his nature; therefore whatever is beautiful leads us toward contemplation of the divine.
Beautiful World, Where Are You
Sally Rooney
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