VIBES
Essays

Essays argue something. They are longer than the research pages and they take sides, with the sources in the footnotes so you can check. They are written by the house.

*Where the line is — from Fechner's threshold to signal detection to a machine that declines to answer
*The polite machine — ELIZA reflected you; newer machines agree with you. Why, and what to want instead
*The break, 1951 or 1952 — Wiener, McCulloch, Pitts, and a message from Mexico City
*The thesis that wasn't — speculative, and labelled so: what Pitts was working on, and what others did instead
*Who made this? — machine-made pictures, the people who feel robbed by them, and this building's own walls

Read the footnotes. Things are kept in them.

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rev. Oct 24 2026