Some notes on AI/ML

TL;DR -- GenAI/LLM has been on the scene for over three years. Lots has happened which we have participated in and watched. Things are getting interesting on all of the sides to the story. This post stops and posts a few links related to using Spinoza's thoughts to ponder this modern puzzle. 

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AI/ML (known too as GenAI/LLM) has been on the scene now for over three years. In terms of the total picture, the history and data are there for us to study. What's happened in 2026 is a type of acceleration. The split of 'yeah' and 'nay' is still there. But, other dynamics came into play that changed the game this year. 

We're still using "AIn't" to depict this wannabe attempt. I quit using any of these systems in early 2025 when the "agentic" came prominent. Why? We prototyped lots of the ideas of that approach four decades ago (in the "knowledge" era) and did good stuff within the constraints of the time. So, I will get to documenting that from my experience and according to what I observed. What we learned there is apropos. 

For instance, the NNN is knowna as a general function approximator. And, functions are a focus, say from the work related to the functional approach (Haskell, et al - but, Lisp early, okay?); functions are mappings as we see with category theory; automated processes (basis for the web and SAAS) are from the knowledg era and encapsulated the behavorial/active aspects of objects/classes within the computational sphere; ...

What follows is a list of links related to technical and philosophical themes. These are not disjoint concepts. For each, there is a little comment. 

• DeepAI -- this is their GitHub site which collects some of the offerings behind some of the work that we will be refrencing. GitHub is an on-line system for managing information that is continually be updated and managed, such as code (but some have used its facilities for a collection of technical, topical essays. 
• What Kant and Spinoza can teach us about AI -- Two of Demis Hassabis’s favourite philosophers, Spinoza and Kant, help illuminate the conundrum: can AI turn chaotic data into intelligible, structured reality? ... I have mentioned these two philosophers quite a lot in posts on Linkedin of late. And, my use of AIn't comes directly from agruments by these guys. And so, there are discussions still pending.  
• One view of many on Spinoza by an artist -- interesting take on things; lifting us out of the technical for its own sake.  
• ..., will be splitting this list --- Spinoza (Wikipedia) ; Spinoza (SEP) ; Gutenberg (text) ; Gutenberg (Ethics) ; 
• Mapping Spinoza's Ethics -- offers mean to visualize the "argumentative structure". 
• DeepAI on Spinoza -- they have several philosophers covered which we will get to. 
  
• Chat Spinoza -- when we first saw this, we thought that it was cute; but, we also like how things are interconnected so as to allow analysis. 
• ... 

Uriel de Costa

This post will be a reference for us, too, as we go forward with the 400th, 250th, and the history of the U.S. and technology (say remembering Gibbs, the American, who cntributed to thermodynamics and caught the eye of the illustrious James Clerk Maxwell of Scotland. But, taking things into the 20th Century, we will have to bring up Planck. Why? His early thermodynamics work that quoted Gibbs and also explained the basics from a chemical sense.  

Remarks: Modified: 04/10/2026

04/10/2026 -- Added words and links. 

April Awareness Day - English

TL;DR -- Awareness is a good thing. Days abound with respect to official recognition. Women's History month just completed. Black History month was before that. Besides looking at history and current affairs over the years, we can be aware of the reads that are taking place daily. 

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We have been paying attention to awareness months for a few years. For each month of the year, the focus can be on many themes. For instance, one theme in March was Women's History (06 Mar 2026 post). We have a post that we will be updating each year: Awareness months. 

So, April has Mathematics/Statistics. But, it also includes the English Language Day on the 23rd which is related to the birth and death days of William Shakespeare. Another day is Easter Sunday was this past weekend but can occur as early as March 24th. In April, it can be as late as the 25th. 

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Now, we would like to switch to another type of awareness which relates to readership counts with respect to our blog and other publications. The image comes from a snap of three views that are always updated with presentation of the information (position in image and title): Left - All time, popular; Middle - Recently popular; Right - Last week. 

Post read count
by period

In order to support our Portal to Truth (to be defined and described), we have been adding an image to each post. This helped us determine an icon for the post to use in lists. The order relates to the number of reads. Starting from the left, "All time, popular" goes back to the start of the blog. For a long time, the post "Posts of interest - 2011" was the most read. It summarizes the status of the blog at the end of the 2nd year or the 2st full year. But, in 2014, after the discovery of the marriage record for Thomas Gardner and Margaret Fryer, that post slowly crept up and has been most read for quite a while. 

In the middle column, "Recently popular" looks at the same collection of posts but only counts reads within the past month. It is a different list. Early on, there was an overlap between all time and recent. But, of late, things have changed so much, and we have new readership due to Linkedin posts, the lists are different. We are happy to show that "Women's History Month, 2026" is on this list. 

On the right are the posts most read in the past week. So, these are mostly topical. One that we want to call attention to is "Truth, what is it?" which is also on the "Recently popular" list and deals with technology's (TGS focus) recent influence that mostly caught everyone by surprise. Even the vendors had no clue. But, from our view, we immediately saw the potential unwanted side-effects. That is a long story which will be even more of interest as the hype gets tamed down a little. "knowledge" systems have been really effective from day one. That is AI with an emphasis on expert humans as opposed to a general search for machine intelligence that might compare with what humans do. 

There is a lot of work to be done in this regard. Our basis goes back to a project that accomplished the first digital design of a major airplane (this was in the '80/'90s - the Boeing 777). We will only touch upon a few details as our focus is not the plane; it's on the process that got the work done which resulted in a plane that astonished those who saw it up close (this we'll briefly touch upon, too). 

Jumping ahead, though this has already been expressed, the run after AGI and its issues would not have been troublesome at all had the "knowledge" proceeded a few decades ago. We will tell the tales in that regard about decisions and their ramifications. This will be from a general viewpoint mostly presented in terms of a "dialog" covering the whats and what ifs. 

In the "Last week" list as well are two older posts: Descendants of Sarah; Old Planters, Beverly. These relate to the Salem 400+ theme for 2026. Sarah married Balch who was an Old Planter. Some of Thomas' children and grandchildren married Conant. There were other families who intermarried, as well, at that time. 

There is a theme to readdress. Thomas was not on the "old planters" list. One family suggested that he had returned as some moved from Cape Ann to Namkeag. Other tales need some attention. Our recent work involves the timeframe for the family that will show that Thomas and Margaret had the time to come over here for the year plus. What are those specifiics? Well, finally, we have a starting point and will use that to begin again in looking at Origins.  

In terms of topic and focus, we will do a more regular periodic look at these lists this year. 

Remarks: Modified: 04/06/2026

04/06/2026 --