Curiosity is the primary engine of discovery.
Among other disciplines, science, math, logic, and technology uncover the axioms of who we are and shape the potential of the future. The convergence of these disciplines gave birth to this project.
I’m invested in the questions concerning machines and their alignment in society. The alignment of machines today goes beyond a single mathematical function. It cuts across many theoretical and practical explorations.
Philosophically, it asks what human values and moral reasoning are, and ultimately, who gets to define them.
But even before we can answer that, psychology reveals how riddled with biases our own decision-making is. And if our reasoning is that unreliable, what does that say about the foundation it rests on?
Neuroscience, as the study of learning itself, challenges our definition of intelligence and our relative position to machines. What we do know is that autoregressive language models (ChatGPT/Claude) and the brain share a strong emphasis on context-dependent prediction.
Linguistics takes this further: language is the medium through which prediction is expressed. Language shapes cognition dynamically, and it now modulates a distributed and interactive system that both humans and machines share.
And yet, when it comes to interpretability and causality, we know how to fine-tune machines to learn specific tasks, but the mechanisms by which they learn and generalize are still areas of active research.
Machines emerged as complex systems from seemingly separate disciplines, each working on problems that were abstractly different but foundationally the same. Over time, different pieces of information connected, each a part of a whole.
The gap between what we can build and what we can explain continues to widen. This space has inevitably created anxiety and uncertainty, but it has also renewed an appreciation for curiosity and creativity, both of which have eroded in recent times.
This is the space I want to explore.
Welcome to my first post!
My hope is my voice adds novelty to the existing discussions. There are so many voices and figures on the internet that have influenced my thinking, and I look forward to referencing and discussing them here. I officially transitioned into Data Science two years ago, but I was drawn to projects that align with my current work long before I had the language for it.
As it stands, I’ve curated this space to share my ideas and to channel my creativity. Eventually, I would like to dive into more technical conversations and engage with those interested in joining me.
I will have fun with the questions that I explore in this project. Some will be more rooted in academia, some might be broader than others, and some might just be rabbit holes I happen to find myself in :)
Among them:
- AI & Philosophy: Intelligence, consciousness, and interpretability (from ancient philosophy to modern machines)
- Evolution & Learning: Darwinism, cognitive science, and what it means to learn
- Tech Dystopia: The dead internet theory, technological singularity, and cognitive atrophy
- Cultural Theory: Media theory, capitalist realism, hauntology, and lost futures
- Systems & Politics: Game theory, political science, and 21st-century economics
- Ethics & Humanity: Ethics, anthropology, and the beginning of the end of human invention
- Personal & Psychology: Mental health, psychology, and what we owe ourselves through all of it
If you want to follow along, my next piece will be on “Natural Selection Favors AIs over Humans” by Dan Hendrycks (2023), a provocative paper that explores whether Darwinian evolutionary pressures could favor AI systems over humans and what that means for alignment. I’m finishing my degree soon, so posts may come slowly, but they will come.
I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious. Albert Einstein
I welcome ideas, challenges, and conversations from anyone thinking about these things too. Reach out, or just say hello.
Stay curious with me.