Topic · 8 articles
AI and Computing
From Shannon's bits and the perceptron to recommendation engines and large language models.
Why Does AI Make Things Up?
AI chatbots make things up because they are built to produce likely text, and training often rewards a confident guess over an honest "I don't know".
Cybernetics in the United States
Born in American wartime labs, funded by the military, eclipsed by AI, and kept alive by the counterculture. The American story of cybernetics.
How Does ChatGPT Decide What to Say?
ChatGPT writes one small piece of a word at a time, picking each from a list of likely next pieces. Here is how it decides, and how training shapes its choices.
What Is an AI Agent?
An AI agent is an AI system that works towards a goal by taking actions, checking the results and deciding what to do next. Here is how agents work and why they go wrong.
Paul Pangaro: Cybernetics as Conversation
A Pask student who found AI unsatisfying and cybernetics human. How Paul Pangaro presents the field today: purpose, conversation, and design.
Why We Need Cybernetics in the Age of AI
AI systems are feedback systems embedded in larger feedback systems. Five cybernetic questions that today's AI debate keeps circling without naming.
In 1936, an Anthropologist Described the AI Sycophancy Spiral
When a chatbot agrees with us a little more each time, the loop that forms was already studied in 1936. Gregory Bateson called it schismogenesis, and his work explains how AI sycophancy builds and what holds it in check.
The Recommendation Machine: A Cybernetic Reading of AI
The AI behind your feed is among the most consequential feedback machines ever built. What does cybernetics tell us about why it behaves the way it does?