Basically in the model a change in regime on one country causes a wake up call in another country which becomes more sensitive to a regime change as a result. Your tyrant post made me think of it since he used to present it by giving the Arab Spring as an example of a wake up call event in his model.
That exchange between Gopnik and Cowan struck me as a good example of what happens when AI as cultural technology gets a hearing in the broader AI discourse.
Ben Recht has an essay on Arg Min that revisits Neil Postman's 1988 essay “Social Science as Moral Theology.” This Postman line gets at the problem.
“There is a measure of cultural self-delusion in the prevalent belief that psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, and other moral theologians are doing something different from storytelling.”
The problem exists in reverse, too. How many qualitative methodists dismiss counting and measuring as just a bunch of counting and measuring? It seems to me the divide between storytellers and counters needs to be overcome in order to get a useful theory of large language models.
Henry: keep up the great work! I have found your posts—and you do highlight here five of my particular favorites—the best guides to AI (which I am struggling to understand) and to the difficulties of democracy today available anywhere. Or at least anywhere I have managed to find. So just a note to express gratitude and appreciation.
All great posts that helped me as, an economist, understand AI and power better.
On the global games aspect an interesting reference is this paper by a friend ( http://www.toniahnert.com/WakeUpCall.pdf ).
Basically in the model a change in regime on one country causes a wake up call in another country which becomes more sensitive to a regime change as a result. Your tyrant post made me think of it since he used to present it by giving the Arab Spring as an example of a wake up call event in his model.
That exchange between Gopnik and Cowan struck me as a good example of what happens when AI as cultural technology gets a hearing in the broader AI discourse.
Ben Recht has an essay on Arg Min that revisits Neil Postman's 1988 essay “Social Science as Moral Theology.” This Postman line gets at the problem.
“There is a measure of cultural self-delusion in the prevalent belief that psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, and other moral theologians are doing something different from storytelling.”
The problem exists in reverse, too. How many qualitative methodists dismiss counting and measuring as just a bunch of counting and measuring? It seems to me the divide between storytellers and counters needs to be overcome in order to get a useful theory of large language models.
These are all the articles I enjoyed the most as well! I hope to read more on these topics in 2026.
Henry: keep up the great work! I have found your posts—and you do highlight here five of my particular favorites—the best guides to AI (which I am struggling to understand) and to the difficulties of democracy today available anywhere. Or at least anywhere I have managed to find. So just a note to express gratitude and appreciation.
I can't help but think that culture and society adhere to the laws of fluid dynamics.