David Ing @daviding@qoto.org

Generative AI is more about language tricks than knowledge (as human beings knowing).

> ... instead what we should conclude is that tasks—like writing essays—that we humans could do, but we didn’t think computers could do, are actually in some sense computationally easier than we thought.

> In other words, the reason a neural net can be successful in writing an essay is because writing an essay turns out to be a “computationally shallower” problem than we thought. And in a sense this takes us closer to “having a theory” of how we humans manage to do things like writing essays, or in general deal with language.

"What Is ChatGPT Doing … and Why Does It Work?: It’s Just Adding One Word at a Time" | Stephen Wolfram | February 14, 2023 at https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2023/02/what-is-chatgpt-doing-and-why-does-it-work/

For those who thought I spoke too quickly at the ISSS 2022 plenary talk, the article on "Appreciating Systems Changes via Multiparadigm Inquiry" in the Proceedings of the 66th Annual Meeting has been formally released.

https://coevolving.com/blogs/index.php/archive/appreciating-systems-changes-isss-proceedings/

Rethinking #SystemsThinking

Ironically, our action learning team has been scheduling Skype meetings since 2019. It's free, records video with free 30-day retention, and has native apps for almost every platform. Sometimes, old tech is better than new tech, @costrike

For one on one voice, telephone works great, and reduces fatigue.

Many of the luminaries of the systems sciences spent a year at the #CASBS (e.g. Kenneth Boulding wrote _The Image_ in a burst of inspiration, with his participation). In the current day, the CASBS continues to encourage inquiries worth following.

> Capitalist democracy needs rethinking and renewal. Our current political economic framework is fixated on GDP, individual achievement, and short-term profit, all the while heightening barriers to widespread prosperity. Faced with mounting climate crises and systemic discrimination, we must reimagine ways to ensure ethical flourishing for all. In response, the Winter 2023 issue of Dædalus focuses on “Creating a New Moral Political Economy,” and addresses these long-standing problems and how to combat the resultant unequal footing across the polity, marketplace, and workplace. In eleven main essays and twenty-two responses, the authors raise questions about how to create supportive social movements that prioritize collective, equitable, and respectful responsibility for care of the earth and its people.

https://www.amacad.org/daedalus/creating-new-moral-political-economy

#SystemsThinking

Web video recording of relaxed conversation on Sensemaking and Theory-Building led by #GarySMetcalf for #SystemsThinking Ontario.

https://coevolving.com/blogs/index.php/archive/sensemaking-theory-building-gary-s-metcalf-st-on-2023-02-13/

In #SystemsThinking associated with scientific pluralism, the treatments of world theories as (i) analytic or synthetic have generally received more attention than (ii) dispersive or integrative.

https://coevolving.com/blogs/index.php/archive/world-theories-as-analytic-deductive-dispersive-integrative/

#SocioTechnical #SocioEcological #SystemsTheory

Systems groups can be organismic (incorporated as wholes), or contextualist (strands woven into textures), if we use the #SystemsThinking evolved from Stephen C. Pepper https://coevolving.com/blogs/index.php/archive/world-hypotheses-contextualism-systems-methods/

We've gotten to 106 monthly meeting https://wiki.st-on.org/2023-01-09 . That's negotiated order https://coevolving.com/commons/200710_negotiated_order_and_network_form_organizations

@antlerboy @psybertron

In Canada, cold is a relative concept, @AmberWavesofFlame .

It's around freezing temperature in Toronto, and I was out bicycling on bare streets yesterday. Twice.

That's not to say that my spouse isn't nearby for warmth.

Might we have an indicator that lives for Canadians are at a stress level lower than other countries? Either that, or spouses are just nicer to each other.

> Canadian marriages are oddly stable

> In 2020 – the most recent year for which data is available – Canada recorded fewer divorces than at any point since 1973. This is particularly impressive given that Canada has 16 million more people than we did in the early 1970s. The low divorce rate was driven in large part by COVID; couples forced into close proximity by public health lockdowns unexpectedly responded by learning to tolerate one another. But even before the pandemic, Canada was already boasting a crude divorce rate that was one of the lowest in the G7.

National Post: FIRST READING: Canada is a broken disaster (except in these areas).
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/first-reading-canada-is-a-broken-disaster-except-in-these-areas

The alignment following #JJGibson on #Affordances and #GregoryBateson on ecological epistemology by #TimIngold, I've found more productive than #BrunoLatour on ANT, @camerontw

There's a whimsical chapter on "When ANT meets SPIDER: Social Theory for Arthropods" in _Being Alive_ (2011)
https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203818336

Any country concerned about population decline could learn from Finland on policies encouraging infertile mothers, balancing personal and societal concerns.

> In Finland – where women first gained suffrage, where a woman is now Prime Minister – it is illegal to pay egg donors more than a basic €250 compensation for temporary discomfort (plus the basic daily allowance and kilometre allowance for transportation).

> Women in Finland donate for various reasons, but a scramble to pay bills is not one of them. Recipients do not pick their donor but are matched by doctors on basic biological criteria (donor height and her skin, eye and hair colour). At an average private clinic in Finland, one round of egg donation IVF treatment costs around €7,000, excluding medication.

> ... I became pregnant with a donor egg from a Finnish clinic. I have since left Finland to resume my university position in the United States

#HeidiMorrison | "I finally got pregnant in Finland - a country that hasn’t commodified infertility" | Dec. 12, 2022 | Globe & Mail (paywall) https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/first-person/article-i-finally-got-pregnant-in-finland-a-country-that-hasnt-commodified/

"An Extended Stay" | September 27, 2022 | UW Lacrosse at https://www.uwlax.edu/news/posts/an-extended-stay/