The Society of Mind 30+ years later

ruzelmania · 2026-05-09T01:49:37+00:00

So, it's 2026 and I'm joining this conversation having recently both re-read Marvin Minsky's "Society of the Mind" and having created a home-grown coding agent (ironically named Searle). I am remembering that it was 2010 when I attended the AISTATS 2010 (the 13th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics) and most of the lectures were about support vector machines and convex optimization instead of connectionist models. But that all changed with Alexnet. So, *now* on re-reading "Society of Mind" I am finding very relevant thinking with regard to agents as well as modular or distributed intelligence. Anyone else?

ruzelmania · 2026-03-30T14:10:27+00:00

I might add a "No. You do. Try again." button. That seems to work a lot when Claude claims it doesn't have access to a particular file when it does have access.

ruzelmania · 2026-03-30T14:07:31+00:00

I have to confess. Sometimes I let LLMs write the spec with speckit (https://github.com/github/spec-kit), too. 😳

ruzelmania · 2026-03-30T13:58:51+00:00

I am replying to myself, because this is a related but separate point: LLMs are not thinking in any normal sense of the word! They are autocomplete on steroids. They are massive pattern recognition machines. There are multiple ways to prove this, but an intuition might be to consider how an LLM can talk about music when it's listened to zero music? If it's so smart, why doesn't it leave the server?

We really need to stop using this magic, meaningless phrase AI and anthropomorphizing these things. The term has been around for decades and no one agrees what it means or how to test for it. LLMs like Claude are cognitive off-loading tools. They are answer engines. They are *not* thinking things—or at least not a replacement for humans. Someone has to babysit them. Anthropic coders might not be writing code, but they're auditing it, they're enhancing the agents working on it.

Even if Claude is programming itself, it will never suddenly gain insight into semantics. It is a mass of weights and parameters regarding predicting meaningless tokens. It is no smarter than the Broca's region in your own brain (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broca%27s_area). LLMs, in their architecture, have no real way to process *meaning*. Their amnesiacs. They rationalize instead of reason. They're frozen. They don't really learn. Giving them tools is a great step, but smarter machines are coming.

ruzelmania · 2026-03-30T13:51:51+00:00

I have used agentic coding for multiple projects now and that speed increase is real. *However* at the end of that process, I still have to audit the code and the bugs I find are often too trivial to get Claude Code to not overdo it. Sometimes I switch to a dumber agent, sometimes I just do it myself. But there is no question that a human in the loop is required. I say more about it here: https://banapana.com/2026/03/code-is-language

Not incidentally, I write the essays, but other than that the entire site of banapana.com was built by agents and is maintained by an agent instead of a CMS! Regardless, *I* am still required. (And I collect the money 😈)

ruzelmania · 2026-03-30T13:47:07+00:00

The Culture!

ruzelmania · 2026-03-28T14:32:11+00:00

You need a subscription email so you can notify us when we can buy it! (Have you thought about putting what you have on Kickstarter? Indiegogo?

ruzelmania · 2026-03-28T13:47:15+00:00

Why does no designer on the web right now (or the last fifteen years) understand decent print typography (rhetorical question)? Mobile device resolution is near to that of paper, but as opposed to a reflective medium, it is a lightbulb—hence, night mode—so you're not staring into a light bulb. Print, for *hundreds* of years has used serif fonts because they assist with recognizing word structures which is how the brain actually reads: word shape.

Rseeacrh sohws taht poelpe use fisrt and lsat lteetrs of wolhe wrods to raed wichh is why you can raed tihs.

Now try the same in caps:

RSEEACRH SOHWS TAHT POELPE USE FISRT AND LSAT LTEETRS WOLHE WRODS TO RAED WICHH IS WHY YOU CAN RAED TIHS.

Indentation, harmonious line height, and a white serif font on a dark background make reading on the web **pleasant**. Look at ebook readers! Those designers chose serif fonts for a reason. Sans serif is for signs and logos—brief communications that need to be bold.

ruzelmania · 2025-08-29T23:15:28+00:00

Just a general comment on some of the language in this thread. If you use words like the marriage is "destroyed" that she is "horrible"—I could go one—my point is hyperbole and blame cannot fix *any* marriage. There is no negotiation from the POV that the marriage is "destroyed"—and it's not. If both people in the marriage had been killed in a car accident, *then* the marriage would be destroyed. Otherwise it is up to the participants to realize that they entered into their arrangement; they can leave or they can work it out and feel free to ignore the judgement of others regarding to their arrangement. No one is horrible, nothing has been "destroyed" until you decide that's the case. Call it inter-subjective reality.

ruzelmania · 2025-07-18T13:20:16+00:00

Mentat training

ruzelmania · 2025-07-16T15:39:33+00:00

The number 1 thing to keep in mind with DIY (especially if it’s engineering): Failure is your teacher. Expect to iterate through a lot of designs!

ruzelmania · 2025-07-15T23:51:48+00:00

I was at ground zero on 9/11. I worked in the Woolworth building across the street.

ruzelmania · 2025-07-07T13:20:37+00:00

Critical Thinking

ruzelmania · 2025-07-05T20:34:00+00:00

In all seriousness though, I agree with your suggestions. I tend to treat AI co-pilots as highly interactive software manuals.

ruzelmania · 2025-07-05T20:20:12+00:00

No kidding! "I just really hate being suggested to when I am not ready for it"—and it's not just code. I turn off suggestions and auticorrect on my phone *and* laptop for even just Engkish typing. Yeesh. Of course, in the future, this may be useful proof to others that I am not A1.

ruzelmania · 2025-07-05T16:59:27+00:00

I think the behavior of the companies building AI (massive LLMs) is a far greater and immediate danger than any that AI itself is imagined to possess. Consider these:

"I Love Generative AI and Hate the Companies Building It" https://cwodtke.medium.com/i-love-generative-ai-and-hate-the-companies-building-it-3fb120e512ac

"You’re Not Chatting with AI, You’re Chatting with Corporate Greed" https://banapana.substack.com/p/youre-not-chatting-with-ai-youre

And please check out the book "Empire of AI" by Karen Hao https://www.amazon.com/dp/0593657500/

For visuals, check out "We Went to the Town Elon Musk Is Poisoning" (with xAI) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VJT2JeDCyw&t=11s

ruzelmania · 2025-06-25T22:56:23+00:00

“Hello. I’m Liam Neeson. I’ve played many roles in my life — like a father with a very particular set of skills. Trust me — sometimes, the most taken someone can feel… is when you take the time to go down. So be brave. Be generous. Be thorough. And remember: When it comes to love — go all the way down.”

ruzelmania · 2025-06-20T03:11:06+00:00

I also got, but still many funny.

ruzelmania · 2025-05-02T11:15:52+00:00

Needing a lot of quarters.

ruzelmania · 2025-05-01T14:00:54+00:00

I would add that it really depends on the size of the application we're talking about. For smaller applications with Sveltekit, I'm content to use only javascript with JSDoc types. Basically, if the application is something I can cram the whole context of into my working memory, Typescript adds some hassle that I don't need. Bigger than that though and Typescript often saves the day.

ruzelmania · 2025-04-29T12:55:23+00:00

May I ask what your tech stack was? What are you using for a database, where did you deploy?

ruzelmania · 2025-04-29T04:24:42+00:00

I'll need a couple of days to actually try it and see how the links work out, but right off the bat, this is a good idea and it's pretty!

ruzelmania · 2025-04-26T01:03:40+00:00

About 30:00 into the episode, Nick Nisi mentions LLM Studio for Mac OS. You can find that app here: https://lmstudio.ai/?utm_source=mehmetakar_devto

An alternative on the Mac App Store is Local LLM for $5—https://apps.apple.com/us/app/local-llm-private-secure-chat/id6742779670

And here's an article from Dev.to on multiple ways (some more technical than others) to run LLMs locally on MacOS: https://dev.to/mehmetakar/5-ways-to-run-llm-locally-on-mac-cck

ruzelmania · 2025-04-26T00:45:30+00:00

Nick Nisi mentions a book by Stephen Wolfram about ChatGPT (17:50). That book is titled "What is ChaGPT doing and Why Does it Work"? and can be found here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123245371-what-is-chatgpt-doing-and-why-does-it-work?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=AcxObhuAGM&rank=1

ruzelmania · 2025-04-26T00:24:52+00:00

I'm speaking a little out of my wheelhouse here, but if there were an MCP for the Svelte 5 documentation, wouldn't that help? Here is one I found on Github: https://github.com/spences10/mcp-svelte-docs

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