got to talk literacy (and orality) and go deep on my book on @ttsgpod.bsky.social with Jay Kang and co-guest Celine Nguyen - book stuff in the second half of an awesome conversation open.spotify.com/episode/3P8l...

Rule 35

Digital Theory, out today! @leifw.bsky.social @mbfazi.bsky.social

Find out about Digital Theory

this is why you write books — Pete with a super deep, fair read of Language Machines, with several disagreements but i think an overall orientation to the same diagnosis/set of problems

I’ll be discussing Language Machines with Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social and Mike Lipkin @mlipkin.bsky.social at the Sem Coop on Dec 12 www.semcoop.com/event/leif-w...

“Structuralism is back baby, it’s good again!” This interview with Leif Weatherby on LLMs is one of the best theoretically-informed discussions I’ve heard on the topic. Well worth your time if you’re a literary theorist or linguist. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/d...

Categorical imperative for the 21st century: act in such a way that you can start class without discussion of a public statement of regret you had to issue

my interview for the Digital Theory Lab with Karen Hao @karenhao.bsky.social at the Remarque Institute www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZpH...

if you're in NYC, come see Stephen and Hannes talk about their LLM novels as.nyu.edu/research-cen...

Large language models are language machines, and we need to think about what they do with language as more than just "mathy math." Language Machines as Antimeme www.ailog.blog/p/language-m...

Let him who has not parroted stochastically cast the first stone

Recruiter: holy shit, this applicant is Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

This market is “stuff that will happen before GTA VI”

Some are saying it’s a match made in heaven

If you’re local stop by!

Ben continues to derive actionable insights from unstructured data

SUNY Binghamton just substantially increased stipends for grad students and we have several fully-funded PhD spots in art history. Pretty sure our endowment is smaller more our placement record is great www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

SOTA

Thursday Night Football starring Ralph Fiennes as Lord Voldemort

The first in a (jam-packed) series of events on cultural AI this year from DTL. More incoming!

The Digital Theory Lab at NYU will host Karen Hao for a book talk on Empire of AI on Monday, October 13, RSVP required here: as.nyu.edu/research-cen...

Man if only cognitive maps were still functioning

Greg Olsen is so committed to the decision-theory bit: "Just because the outcome is good, doesn't mean the decision was correct." Anyway, Carson Wentz.

Extremely good stuff from Leif here

i was on Disintegrator podcast, a really awesome conversation podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/3...

the political economy of bad thinking, a really great piece about the *hostile synergy* between B and X from Henry

The humanities long since in its Cringe Era

I'm going to write on this, but the subtext is that the Nate Silver crowd have shifted hard away from political science, and hard towards the Silicon Valley mindset as a foundational source for purportedly better grounded knowledge. This by @beenwrekt.bsky.social and @leifw.bsky.social

extremely imporant one-two from Dan here: "First, the communication of the polling results to policymakers is likely to be at least as difficult a problem as the election forecast presentation, probably much more so. Second, the technical problems with polling are going to be worse."

UChicago alumni: we are drafting a letter targeting a few of the more persuadable-seeming trustees urging them to change course on humanities funding. Please sign: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... Explanation to follow ...

"automated language results from Goedel and Jackobson systems interacting together, without cognition. The incomplete and greedy combine to show us what language is in the absence of cognition and present a strong attractor for meaning." —Leif Weatherby, Language Machines

loving @leifw.bsky.social’s Language Machines so far. in particular: “It seems that mental illness, or at a minimum neurosis, should be a criterion for passing the Turing test, but it is equally unlikely that this view will ever be adopted by engineers or journalists.”

Language Machines is in The Observer!

Finally got these two in the mail, been looking forward to reading both.

An almost universally acknowledged point that mysteriously disappears whenever conversation turns to AI

Superb survey of different approaches to the key theoretical question of the moment: What does it mean to call language models “cultural technologies”? At any rate I’m going to three (3) conferences and symposia this year connected to it! +

Going back to 1969 to tell Foucault that in the future, everyone will know he was 100% right that "discourse” can produce itself without “a thinking … subject.” But also in the future we will care less about that principle than the practical consequence that students can cheat on homework.

It's very telling that the far left refuses to support huge pieces of shit who everyone hates

Mountain Kids

STEM and humanities gotta stick together, admin and professional schools need to follow us - there won’t be a university otherwise

a nice treatment and cool extension of Language Machines here robhorning.substack.com/p/eliza-pill...

Language Machines gets some fair play here

For anyone curious, @leifw.bsky.social has written a very good book about this. amzn.to/4ml7P12

some of you don't know how to engage in phenomenological reduction to escape the natural attitude and it shows

this is exactly the positions, which is sometimes explicitly phrased as "words aren't language" - it's hard to know what to do with that, tbh

The One-Hot Man

This Marcuse sequel is just not hitting as hard as the original