I find myself reading a novel just like I am studying a set of mathematical equations.

I love reading books while walking around in my room. I also love it when I go out for a run, or when I meet people, but reading books inside while walking around is something I deeply love.

Right now I am reading Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë for the first time since high school, for obvious reasons (the film, soon to be released in Japan!). Before that I read Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. This year I also read Truman Capote's In Cold Blood.

Reading a book, you are absorbed into an inner universe previously unknown. I find myself reading a novel just like I am studying a set of mathematical equations these days, perhaps an attitude fit in the age of large language models.

In a tiny corner of Yokoo's universe. Qualia Journal.

I visited artist Tadanori Yokoo's studio.

It was so wonderful to talk about art, life, death, Yukio Mishima, Andy Warhol, Takashi Murakami and much more, surrounded by Yokoo's works in progress.

At lunch time, we enjoyed Yokoo's favorite tonkatsu bento. The kanji character on the wrapping paper, tsubaki, was by Akira Kurosawa, Yokoo said.

Creativity is wonderful, and it was so inspiring for this humble comet to fly by in a tiny corner of Yokoo's universe.

I do not have any intentions to delegate my agency.

Qualia Journal

I don't use ChatGPT and other LLMs for having a psychological tête-à-tête about my life.

I predominantly use LLMs for interacting about science and technology. Recent favorite topics include quantum mechanics and information thermodynamics.

In general, I think LLMs are great at compressing and analyzing information. I don't appreciate their agency too much.

That's why I am not panicking about Moltbook. I rather might panic about people who panic about Moltbook. I am observing OpenClaw with interest, but do not have any intentions to delegate my agency.

LLMs might exhibit cognitive supremacy, but judgments and choices would remain human, for the time being. 

Even when you are consulting about your life, it would be great to use LLMs for information compression and analysis. Communications between humans would be central even in the era of LLMs.

We don't know natural language yet. Qualia Journal

Elon Musk predicts that we will not need natural language any more due to advancements in artificial intelligence and interfaces such as neuralink.

That may well come to pass, as anything predicted by the genius entrepreneur. However, for the time being, it appears that natural language has gained more power because of LLMs.

The general idea used to be that natural languages were inferior to mathematical languages, because they are soft and ambiguous. However, LLMs, based on next token prediction, have shown how powerful natural languages are in terms of establishing concepts and world models.

In a sense, natural languages might be superior to mathematical language.

Interestingly, we do not know exactly why this is the case.

We don't know natural language yet.

The radio was the window to the world.

Qualia Journal

 

When I was about 10 years old I started to listen to Radio Moscow and The Far East Network (FEN).

 

Radio Moscow was broadcast from the Soviet Union, delivered in Japanese, by people who were presumably living in Moscow. It was of course a propaganda machine. I understood that as a child. However, I did enjoy the broadcast from curiosity, feeling like I was getting a glimpse of a far and strange world. I was also fascinated by these Japanese people who ended up in Moscow at that time. I imagined how their lives are like.

 

The FEN was broadcast by the American Forces in Japan. It was mainly pop and rock, with occasional news bulletins. I was particularly fond of Paul Harvey's The Rest of The Story. I was overjoyed when I happened to come across an episode while listening to FEN. I enjoyed the story, and waited for the punchline now you know the rest of the story.

 

When I think about it, as I started to learn English at the age of 12, I must have taken several years to understand what The Rest of The Story was all about. Before understanding I simply listened to it as a sound of spoken music.

 

In those days, the radio was the window to the world.