iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 9h

I thought this video was quite well done for an AI. youtu.be/Cq8qO-NjYIg?...

youtu.be

AI is a normal technology?

YouTube video by leo

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Ethan Mollick @emollick.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

This is a VERY big one. (And yes, the fights over academic credit and what happened in the race for the proof needs to be resolved, but it is still appears that this is a big one, if true.) openai.com/index/navier...

openai.com

On the Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize Problem

We’re sharing an AI-generated solution to the Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize Problem, including a writeup and a formal proof in Lean.

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Robert Sapolsky argues against the free will suggestion that it’s not about the hand you’re dealt with but how you play it.

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Is AI stalling? It did writing, then pictures & music, then short form videos. It still can’t do playable games or workable programs apart from a front screen. Not seen users creating longer form videos. Definite tweaks from 2024 to 2026. But 2022 to 2024 saw massive changes.

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Brilliant explanation from Damasio on the difference between feelings & emotions. Feelings are primal: they are felt indicators of how the body is doing and vary in pleasantness & intensity. Emotions are movements (motions) which embody feelings (facial expressions/actions).

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

The mind is not wet tissue like the brain. So what is it?

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Do the simulated people in a simulated rainstorm get wet?

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

I don’t think current LLMs are conscious. However, if bird flies & a plane behaves as if it flies (it does fly). Then - if a mind is conscious & an AI behaves as if it is conscious, what is the difference?

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Is the “critic’s distortion pedal” a thing? In music a “difficult or abrasive surface texture is often mistaken for compositional depth. A conventional song buried under noise can seem more radical than it actually is.” Can you think of any examples?

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

My poster at #AGI2026 in San Francisco. Affective Control under Uncertainty. “I feel, therefore I am conscious. I am uncertain, therefore I become a self.” #AGI26

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Pleased to be published in Artificial General Intelligence. AGI 2026. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 16855. Springer. Page 57 - Affective Control Under Uncertainty.

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Pleased to be part of AGI-26 today. I’ve got an article in the book (between @macrinephd.bsky.social & @bengoertzel.bsky.social /Anna Mikeda). There is also a livestream at 00:35 UK time.

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

This cartoon is a super-simplification, but what are the issues with it in terms of the free-will debate? @wiringthebrain.bsky.social @greggdcaruso.bsky.social

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Dario Amodei said he’s open to the idea that an LLM could be conscious. But conscious of what?

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

AI disproves the Jacobian conjecture after 87 years. Levent Alpöge (with Fable) showed an example of non-reversibility in a single post during the World Cup!

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

What about this for a movie idea? “In a world where everyone can vanish, one man refuses to disappear.” ‘Tiger, Tiger’: adaptation of ‘The Stars My Destination’ by Alfred Bester (itself a sci-fi adaptation of ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’) with Austin Butler & Anya Taylor-Joy.

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Lot of hype for Kimi K3 AI from Moonshot. I’ve had a little try. Maybe it’s my prompts, but it doesn’t seem as world shattering as some are saying. Topically, I thought I’d ask for a realistic football game. On the left: what I thought I’d get. On the right: what I got.

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

There’s a lot of hype around Kimi K3 from Moonshot. For me, most of the time it is unavailable and when it is the graphics are very 1970s - blocky.

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

I saw ‘The Odyssey’. Wasn’t as bad as some of the online build-up suggested. Was that part of the marketing? Under promise and over deliver? Interesting framing of the horse: from clever tactic to breaking the laws of civilisation.

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François Kammerer @lovingautomaton.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

My book on consciousness at Oxford University Press is now available! It is titled House of Mirrors: The Illusion of Phenomenal Consciousness. The (open access) pdf can be downloaded for free on Oxford Academic: academic.oup.com/book/62981 Printed copies should be available at the end of July.

academic.oup.com

House of Mirrors: The Illusion of Phenomenal Consciousness

Abstract. This book provides a defense and an exploration of illusionism regarding phenomenal consciousness. Phenomenal consciousness supposedly encompasse

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Earl K. Miller @earlkmiller.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Cognition is rhythmic. Competing items in working memory take turns guiding attention in rhythms coordinated by brain oscillations. Visual working memory guides attention rhythmically in humans doi.org/10.7554/eLif... #neuroscience

doi.org

Visual working memory guides attention rhythmically in humans

Working memory alternates between remembered items in a rhythmic theta cycle.

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Keith Frankish @keithfrankish.com · 14/07/2026

This song was released at a point in time closer to the Spanish Civil War than to today.

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

If work can be extracted while a prepared nonequilibrium state relaxes towards equilibrium, can we one day create an ‘Entropy Drive’? Is anyone working on this?

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

I quite like PJ Harvey’s new song ‘Voyager’. What do you think? youtu.be/XzCjzFsGl_c?...

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

I watched the feature-length Black Mirror episode “Beyond the Sea” where Aaron Paul & Josh Hartnett’s consciousnesses alternately inhabit a robot body. They only do this one at a time, but what if two consciousnesses inhabited one body? Is that feasible? Has it ever happened?

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Stanislas Dehaene @standehaene.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Lionel Naccache and I wrote a commentary on this work from a neuroscience perspective. You can read it here : unicog.org/a-global-wor...

unicog.org

A global workspace in language models – Unicog_2025

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Stanislas Dehaene @standehaene.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

The global neuronal workspace (GNW) is currently the best documented neuroscience mechanism by which conscious processing arises in the human brain — and now Anthropic researchers have discovered a similar workspace inside their large language model ! www.anthropic.com/research/glo...

anthropic.com

A global workspace in language models

Interpretability research on Claude's internal thoughts.

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Ethan Mollick @emollick.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Some really interesting research from Anthropic that AI models have spontaneously developed a workspace that "appears to support the functions associated with conscious access" Demo of how this works: www.neuronpedia.org/qwen3.6-27b/... Research: www.anthropic.com/research/glo...

neuronpedia.org

Jacobian Lens – Qwen3.6-27B

Revealing a Global Workspace in Language Models

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

“A Fire Upon the Deep” by Vernor Vinge. How about a movie version with Domhnall Gleeson and Zendaya?

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

If an AI was embodied, had a first person perspective and psychological continuity, maybe it could have a self, says @masudhusain.bsky.social in this fascinating discussion with @davideagleman.bsky.social.

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David Eagleman @davideagleman.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

Can you lose the ability to link words to concepts? And why does this normally happen invisibly to you? Join me with Masud Husain (masudhusain.bsky.social) to see when brain damage leads to personality changes. eagleman.com/podcast/159

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Peter Kok @peterkok.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

I am recruiting a postdoctoral researcher and a PhD student, funded by a new ERC grant. The grant focuses on the role of the hippocampus in visual perception, using 7T fMRI (hippocampal subfields, cortical layers) and MEG+iEEG. The intended start dates for both positions are in early 2027. 🧠🟦 1/3

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

Really interesting. AI tends not to include real brands or people as much as human writers. So, if you read something that mentions Madonna or McDonald’s (or Madonna going to McDonald’s), it’s more likely to have a human author.

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Steve Fleming @smfleming.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

On cheap artificial consciousness: important message from @matthiasmichel.bsky.social articulating common misreadings of functionalism, and why the problem of artificial C requires tackling broader questions in philosophy of mind, not just theories of C philpapers.org/rec/MICOCA-3

philpapers.org

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Earl K. Miller @earlkmiller.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

The brain continuously optimizing its predictions. Local "leaky" circuits correct errors, while hierarchies link these computations using nonlinearities shaped by prior expectations. Predictive Coding with Bayesian Priors via Proximal Gradients arxiv.org/abs/2606.08374 #neuroscience

arxiv.org

Predictive Coding with Bayesian Priors via Proximal Gradients

We recast predictive coding as continuous-time proximal gradient descent applied to a regularized maximum-a-posteriori (MAP) objective. We study first a single-level problem and then a multi-level hie...

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Lenore Blum @lenoreblum.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

Here is a link to my talk on "World Models and the Emergence of a 'First-Person' Perspective in an AI" at the Simons Institute for the #TheoryofComputing workshop on #WorldModels and Social Reasoning: www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nQS... It has a slightly different emphasis than my other talks.

youtube.com

World Models and the Emergence of a “First-Person” Perspective in an AI

YouTube video by Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

“Intelligence is not what you know, it’s what you do when you don’t know.” Piaget (possibly)

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

Yann LeCun is betting on World Models. David Silver is betting on Reinforcement Learning. Sam Altman still thinks LLMs are the way forward. Which do you think is most likely to make the next AI breakthrough and why?

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

“Action requires the veil of illusion.” Nietzsche To what extent would you agree?

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

We learn by pushing the world around. Will AIs do this? Do we want them to?

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Why has no one ever done a drama on Henri Bergson? I give you “The Time War”

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

‘Just as the constant increase of entropy is the basic law of the universe, so it is the basic law of life to be ever more highly structured and to struggle against entropy. Life rebels against all uniformity and leveling; its aim is not sameness, but variety.’ Vaclav Havel

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

What about this… The World’s Greatest Problem P v NP “The proof is out there”

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Werner Herzog as Hegel? What do you think?

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

And apparently LLMs from Google solved another 9 open Erdos problems with assistance from the Lean Theorem Prover software to check each step. Mind boggling. arxiv.org/pdf/2605.227...

arxiv.org

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

The idea that ChatGPT recently disproved the 80year old Erdos conjecture that grids were the best way of connecting points is amazing. It subdivided the grid and found more ways for the same-length stick to fit between points.

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Scott McFarnell @scottmcf.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

Chris Summerfield: ‘“The information contained in a signal is related to how surprising that signal is. You only know if the signal is surprising if there's a mismatch between what you predict & what you get. So, information is surprise; prediction is the currency of learning.”

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