Finished reading: The End of Eddy by Édouard Louis 📚
Harrowing story of Édouard Louis’ childhood in dank, grey and poor northern France.
Finished reading: Native Nations by Kathleen DuVal 📚
Brilliant new history of native North America that reveals the resilience, vibrancy, and ongoing self-determination of indigenous North Americans in the face of colonialism.
Finished reading: A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians by H. G. Parry 📚
Excellent alternative fantasy history of the French and Haitian Revolutions. Magic, vampires, slavery, liberty and radicalism make for a tense and dark story, that moves along at a cracking pace. Read it in a couple of days.
"The Illusion of Thinking" - LLMs face "complete accuracy collapse" beyond certain complexities....
Apple’s Machine Learning Research group has published another damning piece of analysis of the capabilities of Large Reasoning Models (LRMs) and Large Language Models (LLMs). This important piece of work further exposes the limitations of LRMs and LLMs - both types of model experience “complete collapse” when dealigning with high-complexity tasks.
The paper is available here: https://machinelearning.apple.com/research/illusion-of-thinking
The key takeaway from this is that Generative and/or General AI are far far away from being safe and useful. More limited Machine Learning algorithms designed to analyse specific types of data are clearly useful. But we should be very wary of extrapolating from this to more “general” AI models.
AI, the Brogliarchs, and the Surveillance State
Excellent Daily Show discussion with Carole Cadwalladr about the dangers for AI, the Brogliarchs and the ‘techno-authoritarian surveillance state’….
You can read more of her work here:
Edmund White
Vale Edmund White (1940-2025), prolific, highly talented and sex-positive gay author. His “A Boy’s Own Story” was seminal for many of us in the 1980s. His most recent memoir “The Loves of My Life”, published only this year, is a perfect capstone for a man who loved men, and wrote about them so well.
Generative AI and LLM (large language models) are in serious trouble
There is growing and very tangible evidence that Generative AI and the Large Language Models (LLMs) that underpin them are in serious trouble. We are talking here about OpenAI’s ChatGPT and its underpinning models, Google’s Gemini, and other similar LLM tools.
Not only are they built on the theft of the underlying intellectual property on which they have been trained, but it is increasingly clear that they are generating vast numbers of errors, ‘hallucinations’ and frankly, bullshit.
Now the evidence is clear that the latest, more ‘advanced’ Generative AI models are increasingly prone to errors and bullshit. The newest OpenAI model has an error rate of 40-60% - a huge jump from the 14% in the first version of the model. No one - least of all their designers - actually understands why - but a leading theory is that the model’s ‘reasoning’ is leading to a recursive number of made up errors and moving towards ‘model collapse’.
Its definitely time for anyone interested in the truth, actual work and delivering value, to hit the hard pause on any use of Generative AI and LLMs until it becomes clear what is going on here.
To be clear, this isn’t to suggest that all forms of machine learning are prone to these kinds of errors. It seems that small, less generic and targeted models can be useful tools. But it does seem that the rush to create ‘general’ models is heading for a train wreck using current approaches and tools.
References and links:
Academic Article - ChatGPT is Bullshit (July 2024) https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10676-024-09775-5
AI Hallucinations are getting worse - NewScientist (May 2025) https://www.newscientist.com/article/2479545-ai-hallucinations-are-getting-worse-and-theyre-here-to-stay/
AI Hallucinations worse than ever - Forbes (May 2025) Why AI ‘Hallucinations’ Are Worse Than Ever https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2025/05/06/why-ai-hallucinations-are-worse-than-ever/
AI is getting ‘more powerful’ but its hallucinations are getting worse - NYT (May 2025) A.I. Is Getting More Powerful, but Its Hallucinations Are Getting Worse A new wave of “reasoning” systems from companies like OpenAI is producing incorrect information more often. Even the companies don’t know why. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/05/technology/ai-hallucinations-chatgpt-google.html
AI model collapse - The Register (May 2025) Some signs of AI model collapse begin to reveal themselves Prediction: General-purpose AI could start getting worse https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/27/opinion_column_ai_model_collapse/
AI model collapse - BGR (May 2025) AI model collapse might make current hallucinations seem like a walk in the park bgr.com/tech/ai-m…
What is Model Collapse (Jan 2025) In this episode of the Charlotte Content Marketing Podcast, Andrew Rusnak discusses how AI model collapse threatens the integrity of data on the Internet. Learn how AI data is feeding upon itself and how you can take steps to protect your brand from harm through authentic content. www.charlottecontentmarketing.com/knowledge…
Finished reading: The Devils by Joe Abercrombie 📚
A fabulous and hugely enjoyable fantasy romp through an alternative medieval Europe with a female pope, an Empress of Troy, and ravaging hordes of human eating elves. Plus a vampire, werewolf, necromancer and a crusader who can’t die - amongst other treasures.
Double Mesopotamian Read
Currently reading two related books about Mesopotamia - one about the deciphering of cuneiform by divers colonial chaps; in the other historian Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid reveals what these ancient people chose to record about their lives using cuneiform.
First book: The Mesopotamian Riddle by Joshua Hammer 📚
Second book: Between Two Rivers by Moudhy Al-Rashid 📚
Finished reading: The Far Edges of the Known World by Owen Rees 📚
An innovative look at the boundaries and intersections of the ancient world and lesser known but equally vital and fascinating regions ‘beyond’.
Morning walk / Homemade breakfast (ingredients from Shelly Bay Bakery on Leeds St)
Supra Restaurant dinner with Bill
Glorious meal of snapper carpaccio (with persimmon); chickpea fritter (with enoki mushrooms & olive); zucchini (with crushed pea & pumpkin seed sauce); and pumpkin gnocchi (with sage butter, black vinegar, and hazelnuts).
#billhastings #dinner #delicious
Finished reading: Proto by Laura Spinney 📚
Extremely well written overview of the development and evolution of Indo-European languages - connecting linguistics, archaeology, history and geography.