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Nina Beguš

@ninabegus.bsky.social

UC Berkeley & InterpretAI Editor of the Artificial Humanities series www.ninabegus.com

570 Posts1152 Follower615 Folgt
Gasper Begus@begus.bsky.social · yesterday

Since Aristotle, literary theory has studied texts and reception. We propose a new object of literary study: the latent spaces of an AI model trained on a single text. We call the method latent reading and apply it to the first case study: FinneganLM, trained on Joyce’s Finnegans Wake.

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Nina Beguš@ninabegus.bsky.social · 3w ago

...processed, and the models’ hallucinations. Featuring works by Nouf Aljowaysir; Gašper and Nina Beguš & Metahaven; Grégory Chatonsky; Kate Crawford & Vladan Joler; Asma Kazmi & Jill Miller; Andrea Khôra; Occitane Lacurie & Barnabé Sauvage; Greg Niemeyer; and Mario Santamaria & Alex Saum-Pascual.

Nina Beguš@ninabegus.bsky.social · 3w ago

The "Hidden Layers" exhibition examines some of the concealed dimensions of contemporary AI culture — the planetary infrastructures of extraction and computation, the often invisible human labor, the latent vector spaces within which culture is compressed and... events.berkeley.edu/art/event/32...

Exhibition Opening Reception: “Hidden Layers: AI Infrastructures and Hallucinations”

Please join us for an opening reception for the exhibition Hidden Layers: AI Infrastructures and Hallucinations at the Worth Ryder Art Gallery. Thi...

events.berkeley.edu

Nina Beguš@ninabegus.bsky.social · last wk.

A month left to submit abstract for the Journal of World Literature's special issue on World Literature and AI.

Nina Beguš@ninabegus.bsky.social · last mo.

3. A potential new layer to study LLMs in their global scope through the world literature framework, based on Moretti’s distant reading approach, Damrosch’s pragmatic optimism (canon, hyper canon, shadow canon; glocalisms), and Apter’s concept of untranslatability. We have a CfP out for this one!

Nina Beguš@ninabegus.bsky.social · last wk.

The University of Kentucky researchers decoded otherwise unreadable Herculean scrolls using X-ray scans, machine learning, and knowledge of ancient Greek. The University is rightly proud of this achievement.... only to not offer the ancient Greek course due to low enrollment.

UC Berkeley@ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social · last wk.

Children speak fluently long before learning what a “noun” is. Using this analogy, linguistics professor Gašper Beguš highlights the gap between using language and reasoning about it—arguing that AI doesn’t need consciousness to make genuinely creative leaps. #Conlang #Linguistics #AI

Science Magazine@science.org · 3w ago

An #AI system that can construct new languages is fueling debate over the role of human creativity in language construction. https://scim.ag/4ffYfdE

Maria Antoniak@mariaa.bsky.social · 2w ago

nice reflection from @ninabegus.bsky.social about the limitations and importance of the stories we tell ourselves about robots/aliens/others

For Asimov, however, the three laws were nothing more than a narrative device: a way to generate plot, stage philosophical arguments, and enable his robots’ beautiful failures. Technologists and ethicists often read the laws as something far more consequential: as grand ideas that ought to be imported into AI or neurotechnologies. They assume the laws incorporate a complex human morality ready-made for the machine algorithm—even while surely recognizing that our realities are not just technical but also social and cultural. The latter was precisely Asimov’s message.In this regard, what gets lost is the other half of his literary project, which was genuinely curious about what it feels like to be something other than human. Less read than his robot stories, and never cited in ethics documents, are his tales from the 1940s and ’50s about alien beings. By his own admission, he was reluctant to write these particular stories to avoid further conflict with his editor at the time, John W. Campbell Jr., who insisted on humans as “superior to other intelligences, even when those others were further advanced technologically.” (Asimov connected this attitude to Campbell’s racist and conservative politics.) Asimov therefore mostly focused on writing stories with “a galaxy populated by human intelligences only,” while steadfastly believing in a universe of multiple intelligences.Artists, such as Pierre Huyghe and Sougwen Chung, are masters of this exploration. They craft worlds and narratives in which the machine oscillates between operating as an extension of the human body and generating a mystery worthy of further inquiry. Huyghe pushes the boundary between human and nonhuman, masking or hollowing the human face until his figures evade category-dependent description. Chung draws alongside a robotic arm trained on the artist’s own gestures, making the machine a collaborator rather than an instrument.Artists, such as Pierre Huyghe and Sougwen Chung, are masters of this exploration. They craft worlds and narratives in which the machine oscillates between operating as an extension of the human body and generating a mystery worthy of further inquiry. Huyghe pushes the boundary between human and nonhuman, masking or hollowing the human face until his figures evade category-dependent description. Chung draws alongside a robotic arm trained on the artist’s own gestures, making the machine a collaborator rather than an instrument.
Los Angeles Review of Books@lareviewofbooks.bsky.social · 2w ago

"In the age of AI, the work of the imagination will become ever more important." Nina Beguš explores Isaac Asimov’s work and its impact on AI’s development: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/asimov-robotics-laws-claude-chatbots-consciousness-human-interaction/

Gasper Begus@begus.bsky.social · 2w ago

A deep reflection, very appropriate for this age when everyone has an idea of how to control AI. Asimov's genius gave us an important parallel: a Martian showed humans its aesthetics, but the human was unwilling to fully grasp it. "A new version of Asimov’s laws of robotics might be as follows:

Los Angeles Review of Books@lareviewofbooks.bsky.social · 2w ago

"Humans are not without agency; as a species we decide, consciously or not, what we carry into the future." Nina Beguš on how Isaac Asimov’s work has influenced AI’s development: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/asimov-robotics-laws-claude-chatbots-consciousness-human-interaction/

Nina Beguš@ninabegus.bsky.social · 2w ago

It was a pleasure writing this essay and seeing questions that once belonged to science fiction turn to everyday life. Nicole Oliva and I argue that Asimov’s Three Laws have often been read too literally and were used in technology ethics as ready-made.

Los Angeles Review of Books@lareviewofbooks.bsky.social · 2w ago

"Humans are not without agency; as a species we decide, consciously or not, what we carry into the future." Nina Beguš on how Isaac Asimov’s work has influenced AI’s development: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/asimov-robotics-laws-claude-chatbots-consciousness-human-interaction/

Nina Beguš@ninabegus.bsky.social · 3w ago

The "Hidden Layers" exhibition examines some of the concealed dimensions of contemporary AI culture — the planetary infrastructures of extraction and computation, the often invisible human labor, the latent vector spaces within which culture is compressed and... events.berkeley.edu/art/event/32...

Exhibition Opening Reception: “Hidden Layers: AI Infrastructures and Hallucinations”

Please join us for an opening reception for the exhibition Hidden Layers: AI Infrastructures and Hallucinations at the Worth Ryder Art Gallery. Thi...

events.berkeley.edu

Matt Seybold@mattseybold.bsky.social · 3w ago

During the months I was sitting on raw audio from Berkeley, one longtime listener worried to me that Vandal was "straying from its commitment to sonic distribution of esoteric research in the critical humanities." This👇 & the hours it took me to compile the bibliography, is 4 you; u know who u are.

Reading Machines (Vandal Live @ Berkeley)

with Yael Segalovitz, Nicholas Baer & Pardis Debashi, David Bates, Nina Beguš, and Hannes Bajohr

theamericanvandal.com

Nina Beguš@ninabegus.bsky.social · 3w ago

One Hundred Years of Solitude has sold over fifty million copies worldwide! Also there: Lolita, The Catcher in the Rye, The Alchemist, The Name of the Rose, Charlotte's Web. 100-150 million range: The Little Prince, the first Harry Potter, The Hobbit, And Then There Were None.