Technology, simulation, and the machine
Reading paths · 8 stations · 6,063 words · 27 min contemplative traversal
- 01Technology and its Discontents
- 02Existential Anxiety around the Advancements in Large Language Models
- 032025-01-04 · On machines that lie
- 04on the compulsion to search for novel ideas
- 05on passionate online reactions
- 06on twitter drama_no.1
- 07we breathe critique and we're so bad at it
- 08on Companion (2025)
Hop 01 Technology and its Discontents
How should we give a definition of the belief in the modern age? When all the magic, sense of awe, and mysticism has been overtaken by streams of data in the air? When we have started to believe in what we see at face value because of how much science and technology has demystified long-distance communication, Wi-Fi, microwaves, and text-to-image data models? Nowadays, imagination is slowly becoming a precursor to…
Tangent this note links to 2025-01-29, a station on Language and the unsayable.
Tangent this note links to 2025-01-22 · When a work of art speaks to you, a station on Film as philosophy.
Hop 02 Existential Anxiety around the Advancements in Large Language Models
I just watched this YouTube video from user AI Search where he talks about a research paper studying the capabilities of LLMs to "scheme" or do specific actions that it is not told to do based on a prompt. According to the study, scheming may happen if:
Hop 03 2025-01-04 · On machines that lie
This is the second day that I'm trying to wrap my head around what I learned yesterday. Something about the concept of being deceitful have been used by science fiction as a human trait allows us to gauge the level of a machine's humanity.
Hop 04 on the compulsion to search for novel ideas
In this age where passive media consumption has become part of our unconscious behavior, there is indeed a compulsion to consuming "new" ideas. In this sense, we can think of "ideas" as the very atomic part of our digital environment. The online algorithm has relentlessly conditioned our brains to scroll through our For You page, replacing intentionality with false sense of serendipity. This passiveness, the…
Hop 05 on passionate online reactions
Social media itself has become this unfiltered collection of human reactions that became a lucrative pool of data that has been used against us. Since platforms use reach and engagement as the measurement of clout, these are used to determine where money should flow. Influencing has become the major tool to achieve virality to collect views, reactions, clicks, and comments. These raw, terribly human reactions became…
Hop 06 on twitter drama_no.1
Twitter is always busy as usual, especially with the recent celebrity cheating incidents, CEO shooting, and now, some debacle between two local microcelebrities/influencers. I have always detested this type of online conflict and how people just crowd over it with a type of enthusiasm that can most likely take down a dictatorship.
Tangent this note links to 2025-01-29, a station on Language and the unsayable.
Tangent this note links to Christmas Eve Movie, a station on Film as philosophy.
Hop 07 we breathe critique and we're so bad at it
Meta-criticism is the way to go in ensuring that your critical thinking skills in this age of AI does not lose its luster. We have this truly astounding amount of data available in our grasp, in our phones, and they begin to look like we are naturally feeding off this similar trash that the algorithm forces down our throats. We like it and we yearn for it. We crave information regardless of its value. Just…
Hop 08 on Companion (2025)
It is the perfect time to release this movie. I guess I might have a different perception about it because apart from the unsolicited and intrusive screenshots I saw on Twitter about this movie, nothing prepared me for the twist. I see some who felt robbed of the experience because apparently, the core plot was already revealed during the trailer. Well, you know me. I don't watch trailers of films I know I'll watch.
Tangent this note links to 2025-01-22 · When a work of art speaks to you, a station on Film as philosophy.