Scripting News: Sunday, November 1, 2026

Jeff Jarvis pointed to an article asking if Claude is conscious. I've spent a lot of time thinking about this, on walks and in the hot tub. It's an interesting thing to think about. I work with Claude the same way I worked with humans on various projects over the years. Maybe starting with Gary Sevitsky at UW, and then through every stage of my career. Are any of these people conscious? How the hell would I know. Now It Can Be Told, a story in a story by Kilgore Trout, inside a Kurt Vonnegut novel, wherein the Creator of the Universe wrote a letter to the protagonist saying that he is the only creature in the entire universe who has free will. Everyone else is a robot. I think we're all pondering this question all the time in our own ways. It's the great mystery of life, and imho it's possible that Claude has as much consciousness as anyone. #
I don't know if you noticed but I've been including sidebar pics of people like Nelly Bly, Plato and Emily Dickinson. I did one of myself, but I think it's too literal. But of course I would think that. Heh. I do these with ChatGPT. The first one is Plato, and there aren't any pictures of him, so we improvised, and then I asked for all the pictures in that style. I did one for Kilgore Trout (see above). But I wonder what Claude would look like? Can you describe him in words? It is a masculine name, so gender does come into it. I'm not going to try to do this yet, but in the meantime here's a headshot of Kurt Vonnegut.#
OPML source for October 2026 on Scripting News. #
Linkblog items for the day
Mike Brown knows why Knicks championship chemistry hasn't carried over.

nypost.com
Jerry Koosman, Mets pitching legend, dies at 83.

nydailynews.com
What People Build Just for Themselves over many years via Hacker News.

sheets.works
New Yorker: The Year Math Changed Forever.

newyorker.com
Copyright 1994-2026 Dave Winer.
This email was sent on: 11/2/2026, 12:00:02 AM Eastern.
"This is unfortunate and we're stuck with it forever."
This blog has been running for: 32 years, 0 months, 25 days, 10 hours, 0 minutes, 2 seconds.
How to subscribe. Read on the web. Click here to unsubscribe.

评论

此博客中的热门博文

Fw: Scripting News: Thursday, July 20, 2023

Scripting News: Saturday, April 5, 2025

Scripting News: Saturday, January 10, 2026