@scritic

Lecturer at @UCBerkeley in ISF. Research on AI, algorithms, organizations, work, labor, and expertise. Writing at https://xitter.cf/t.co/HoZfMecSz6.

 Berkeley, CA
shreeharshkelkar.net
Joined May 2008
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Oct 15 would have been Michel Foucault’s 100th birthday. I thought I would re-up my post on him. While the post is critical of him to some extent, I hope it also conveys my belief that he gave the best answer to the question of “what is modernity?” computingandsociety.substack…
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I finally listened to the first season of “Sold A Story” and loved everything but the framing. computingandsociety.substack…. It is NOT a story about science but about the long-running conflict in American education about standardization and teacher autonomy. Cc: @bjfr @PhilOnEdTech
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Cc: @ehanford
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Shreeharsh Kelkar retweeted
Rogers Brubaker@wrbuclaOct 12
On Substack, I summarize my new book Gender Identity: The Career of a Category and reply to a mini-symposium on the book hosted by @dan_oppenheimer, with great contributions by @scritic and @BloggerGideon. substack.com/home/post/p-219…
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I wrote up my thoughts on the Fields Medalists' Open Letter to the AI companies. Link below.
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computingandsociety.substack…
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Cc: @binarybits @chi_t_williams
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Yes, we live in a mass society full of complex systems that require work to be "aligned" with each other because the world is full of people with different interests and goals. LLMs mean setting up more new complex systems. It's not work that ever stops. People need to chill out.
Charles Fain Lehman
@CharlesFLehmanSep 15
Don't really think alignment is "solvable" anymore so than the alignment of human beings—complex systems with hard-to-measure utility functions and an incentive to dissemble when studied—is "solvable." "With enough research and reprogramming we can simply make an intelligence behave perfectly ethically" is quite literally communist thinking. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_So…

New Soviet man - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org
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I reviewed Rogers Brubaker's Gender Identity: The Career of a Category for Eminent Americans. danieloppenheimer.substack.c…
Jesse Smith
@jessesmithsocSep 10
Good review of Rogers Brubaker’s “Gender Identity: The Career of a Category.” danieloppenheimer.substack.c…
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Shreeharsh Kelkar retweeted
Rogers Brubaker@wrbuclaSep 9
delighted by the very thoughtful review of my new book Gender Identity: The Career of a Category by Shreeharsh Kelkar @scritic danieloppenheimer.substack.c…
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On the Eminent Americans Substack, I wrote a rather long review of @wrbucla's excellent new book "Gender Identity: The Career of a Category," a concise and precise book that does a great job laying out the history of the category. danieloppenheimer.substack.c…
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New post: Anthropomorphism is built into the DNA of AI; it is literally about what AI people do. It's hard to eliminate it but it would be good to be careful about the terms themselves. Post draws on AI history and the work of Phil Agre. computingandsociety.substack…
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New post on the data center backlash. I agree with @AndyMasley that the data center backlash is about data centers but its cause seems to be progressives’ disenchantment about big tech in the 2010s for a variety of reasons. computingandsociety.substack…
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I also draw on @jasminewsun excellent reporting to highlight another factor that has made the backlash so real which is the decline of mass organizations and the rise of ideological issue entrepreneurs.
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Shreeharsh Kelkar retweeted
Shreeharsh Kelkar@scriticAug 26
Has the Turing Test been rendered obsolete? It depends on how you interpret the test: as a test of second-order social norms (no) or as a test of language performance (yes). More in my latest blogpost: computingandsociety.substack…
Robinson Meyer
@robinsonmeyerAug 11
I’m still surprised — and think it’s under-discussed — that the Turing test has not only been passed but rendered obsolete. That it was a historical parenthesis. *The* benchmark for machine intelligence, understood proleptically for much of my life/career, and it’s just over now.
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Shreeharsh Kelkar retweeted
Shreeharsh Kelkar@scriticAug 28
More on the Turing Test and the nature of computational machinery and intelligence: computingandsociety.substack… LLMs' success shows that programs driven by *industrial machinery* are capable of a lot!
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More on the Turing Test and the nature of computational machinery and intelligence: computingandsociety.substack… LLMs' success shows that programs driven by *industrial machinery* are capable of a lot!
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And language performance is possible without a body which vindicates Harry Collins over Hubert Dreyfus.
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Has the Turing Test been rendered obsolete? It depends on how you interpret the test: as a test of second-order social norms (no) or as a test of language performance (yes). More in my latest blogpost: computingandsociety.substack…
Robinson Meyer
@robinsonmeyerAug 11
I’m still surprised — and think it’s under-discussed — that the Turing test has not only been passed but rendered obsolete. That it was a historical parenthesis. *The* benchmark for machine intelligence, understood proleptically for much of my life/career, and it’s just over now.
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In which I argue that while there is clearly much to learn about academia from @Tyler_A_Harper's piece in @TheAtlantic, its causal argument did not really work for me. The woke discourse is not explainable as just a cover for surplus labor exploitation. computingandsociety.substack…
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It is a matter of sincere disagreement about the purpose of coursework and research between two factions of professors: one faction thinks it is a form of consciousness-raising, the other faction thinks it's about other things (e.g., inculcating expertise in students).
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