Dan Levenstein
@dlevenstein.bsky.social
Neuroscientist, in theory. Studying sleep and navigation in 🧠s and 💻s.
Assistant Professor at Yale Neuroscience, Wu Tsai Institute.
An emergent property of a few billion neurons, their interactions with each other and the world over ~1 century.
Assistant Professor at Yale Neuroscience, Wu Tsai Institute.
An emergent property of a few billion neurons, their interactions with each other and the world over ~1 century.
Reposted by Dan Levenstein
It’s possible to see social media, and now AI, as the new radio — the new information technology which will ruin democracies around the globe if we don’t find a way to prise off billionaires’ control of those new info channels.
November 9, 2025 at 2:56 PM
It’s possible to see social media, and now AI, as the new radio — the new information technology which will ruin democracies around the globe if we don’t find a way to prise off billionaires’ control of those new info channels.
Also wouldn’t be surprised if many functions are mediated by different mechanisms in different individuals…
Lots of ways to skin a cat 😿
Lots of ways to skin a cat 😿
November 9, 2025 at 2:09 PM
Also wouldn’t be surprised if many functions are mediated by different mechanisms in different individuals…
Lots of ways to skin a cat 😿
Lots of ways to skin a cat 😿
this is the hidden curriculum 😂
November 9, 2025 at 2:02 PM
this is the hidden curriculum 😂
Same way the rest of us do, by writing 20 grants and hoping one sticks 🥲
November 8, 2025 at 12:07 AM
Same way the rest of us do, by writing 20 grants and hoping one sticks 🥲
Reposted by Dan Levenstein
I'm not saying we don't have "systems that rival human intelligence in key tasks" (though "key" is doing some heavy lifting). I'm saying that if you're going to make this your definition of AGI, you've been taking the piss all along.
November 6, 2025 at 9:16 PM
I'm not saying we don't have "systems that rival human intelligence in key tasks" (though "key" is doing some heavy lifting). I'm saying that if you're going to make this your definition of AGI, you've been taking the piss all along.
Reposted by Dan Levenstein
[2/9] We argue that instead of getting stuck on metaphysical debates (is AI conscious?), we should treat personhood as a flexible bundle of obligations (rights & responsibilities) that societies confer.
October 31, 2025 at 12:33 PM
[2/9] We argue that instead of getting stuck on metaphysical debates (is AI conscious?), we should treat personhood as a flexible bundle of obligations (rights & responsibilities) that societies confer.
If only there was an easy way we could all contribute just a little bit to this effort, maybe proportional to our means just to make it fair and not too much of a burden on anyone.
November 1, 2025 at 7:10 PM
If only there was an easy way we could all contribute just a little bit to this effort, maybe proportional to our means just to make it fair and not too much of a burden on anyone.
TBF it is the psychism that’s everywhere…
November 1, 2025 at 6:05 PM
TBF it is the psychism that’s everywhere…
Yeah __candy__ is cool, but have you ever tried __participating_in_democracy__?
October 31, 2025 at 11:36 PM
Yeah __candy__ is cool, but have you ever tried __participating_in_democracy__?
Curious what you mean by computational here ;)
October 29, 2025 at 5:14 PM
Curious what you mean by computational here ;)
Putting aside (for now) the question of what a computer is, and what it would mean for the brain to be one, computationalism is a useful simplification strategy - it lets us isolate the "functional" aspects of neuronal biology from the aspects that are "merely", irrelevant, background support.
October 29, 2025 at 3:55 PM
Putting aside (for now) the question of what a computer is, and what it would mean for the brain to be one, computationalism is a useful simplification strategy - it lets us isolate the "functional" aspects of neuronal biology from the aspects that are "merely", irrelevant, background support.
…and to manifolds! …and on manifolds 🤔
So it may still be manifolds all the way down but the time is ripe for a year of bifurcations at cosyne.
So it may still be manifolds all the way down but the time is ripe for a year of bifurcations at cosyne.
October 29, 2025 at 12:22 PM
…and to manifolds! …and on manifolds 🤔
So it may still be manifolds all the way down but the time is ripe for a year of bifurcations at cosyne.
So it may still be manifolds all the way down but the time is ripe for a year of bifurcations at cosyne.
mathworld.wolfram.com/ButterflyCat...
See Fig 3e for an example in neuroscience 🧠😴🦋:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
See Fig 3e for an example in neuroscience 🧠😴🦋:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Butterfly Catastrophe -- from Wolfram MathWorld
A catastrophe which can occur for four control factors and one behavior axis. The butterfly catastrophe is the universal unfolding of the singularity f(x)=x^6 of codimension 4, i.e., with four unfoldi...
mathworld.wolfram.com
October 29, 2025 at 1:30 AM
mathworld.wolfram.com/ButterflyCat...
See Fig 3e for an example in neuroscience 🧠😴🦋:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
See Fig 3e for an example in neuroscience 🧠😴🦋:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
We had a fun one during my PhD turned out it’s called a “butterfly catastrophe” and that’s how you know they had way more fun naming things in the 70s.
Bifurcations—an underexplored concept in neuroscience—can help explain how small differences in neural circuits give rise to entirely novel functions, writes Xiao-Jing Wang.
#neuroskyence
www.thetransmitter.org/neural-dynam...
#neuroskyence
www.thetransmitter.org/neural-dynam...
The missing half of the neurodynamical systems theory
Bifurcations—an underexplored concept in neuroscience—can help explain how small differences in neural circuits give rise to entirely novel functions.
www.thetransmitter.org
October 29, 2025 at 1:25 AM
We had a fun one during my PhD turned out it’s called a “butterfly catastrophe” and that’s how you know they had way more fun naming things in the 70s.