Generative artificial intelligence systems based on transformers, including both text-generators like GPT-4 and image generators like DALL-E 3, have recently entered the popular consciousness. These tools, while impressive, are liable to reproduce, exacerbate, and reinforce extant human social biases, such as gender and racial biases. In this paper, we systematically review the extent to which DALL-E Mini suffers from this problem. In line with the Model Card published alongside DALL-E Mini by its creators, we find that the images it produces (...) tend to represent dozens of different occupations as populated either solely by men (e.g., pilot, builder, plumber) or solely by women (e.g., hairdresser, receptionist, dietitian). In addition, the images DALL-E Mini produces tend to represent most occupations as populated primarily or solely by White people (e.g., farmer, painter, prison officer, software engineer) and very few by non-White people (e.g., pastor, rapper). These findings suggest that exciting new AI technologies should be critically scrutinized and perhaps regulated before they are unleashed on society. (shrink)

The application of deep learning methods to problems in natural language processing has generated significant progress across a wide range of natural language processing tasks. For some of these applications, deep learning models now approach or surpass human performance. While the success of this approach has transformed the engineering methods of machine learning in artificial intelligence, the significance of these achievements for the modelling of human learning and representation remains unclear. Deep Learning and Linguistic Representation looks at the application of (...) a variety of deep learning systems to several cognitively interesting NLP tasks. It also considers the extent to which this work illuminates our understanding of the way in which humans acquire and represent linguistic knowledge. Key Features: combines an introduction to deep learning in AI and NLP with current research on Deep Neural Networks in computational linguistics. is self-contained and suitable for teaching in computer science, AI, and cognitive science courses; it does not assume extensive technical training in these areas. provides a compact guide to work on state of the art systems that are producing a revolution across a range of difficult natural language tasks. (shrink)

Toldot adam 3 -- Bet ha-midot -- Sheʼelot u-teshuvot.

Was Maimonides a radical philosopher who subtly argued for a naturalist world and who saw the obligation to keep the Torah's commandments as a social and moral obligation - or was he a conservative Jewish believer who only tried to formulate philosophical arguments in favour of a revealed religion? This question has been central to the interpretation of Maimonides from the 12th century until modern times. In the four chapters of this book, Shalom Sadik argues for a radical philosophical (...) interpretation of Maimonides. (shrink)

This book explores what motivates net-generation community college students to complete their degrees. By emphasizing relationships, personal growth, and support systems, the author’s research will empower educational institutions to increase retention and foster success.

_ Source: _Volume 54, Issue 2-3, pp 125 - 145 Maimonides’s _Guide for the Perplexed_ had a significant influence on both Jewish and Christian philosophy, although the vast majority of Jewish and Christian readers in the Middle Ages could not read the original Judeo-Arabic text. Instead, they had access to the text through Hebrew and Latin translations. The article focuses on words derived from the root _sh-h-r_ in the original text of Maimonides, first on the understanding of Maimonides himself, where (...) they take on two meanings; the first sense of these words is an adjective that refers to things well-known to the larger public; the second sense is that in which the opinions held by the public are opposed to the intelligibles. Second, while one of Maimonides’ Hebrew translators, Ibn Tibbon, did understand the original meaning of the words in the _Guide_, the other, Alharizi did not; he missed the distinction between rational understanding and generally admitted opinions. This misunderstanding changed the meaning of three important passages of the _Guide_. Finally the mistranslation of Alharizi influenced the medieval philosophers that either read his translation, such as Rabbi Aaron ben Elijah of Nicomedia, or a Latin translation based upon it, such as Meister Eckhart. (shrink)

Although "Love your fellow as yourself" is, as Rabbi Akiva taught, the great underlying principle of the Torah, achieving the experience of this love is a profound challenge for most people. Human personality is instead often given to baseless hatred. The discourse Heichaltzu (lit., "Arm yourselves") by the fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe deals with the spiritual roots of such hatred, its practical consequences, and the remedies for it. Includes several related essays and letters, as well as extensive footnotes and references.

Raquel FERN ´ ANDEZ, Jonathan GINZBURG and Shalom LAPPIN Department of Computer Science King’s College London Strand, London WC2R 2LS, UK {raquel,ginzburg,lappin}@dcs.kcl.ac.uk..

Much previous work on generation has focused on the general problem of producing lexical strings from abstract semantic representations. We consider generation in the context of a particular task, creating full sentential paraphrases of fragments in dialogue. When the syntactic, semantic and phonological information provided by a dialogue fragment resolution system is made accessible to a generation component, much of the indeterminacy of lexical selection is eliminated.

The transformers that drive chatbots and other AI systems constitute large language models (LLMs). These are currently the focus of a lively discussion in both the scientific literature and the popular media. This discussion ranges from hyperbolic claims that attribute general intelligence and sentience to LLMs, to the skeptical view that these devices are no more than “stochastic parrots”. I present an overview of some of the weak arguments that have been presented against LLMs, and I consider several of the (...) more compelling criticisms of these devices. The former significantly underestimate the capacity of transformers to achieve subtle inductive inferences required for high levels of performance on complex, cognitively significant tasks. In some instances, these arguments misconstrue the nature of deep learning. The latter criticisms identify significant limitations in the way in which transformers learn and represent patterns in data. They also point out important differences between the procedures through which deep neural networks and humans acquire knowledge of natural language. It is necessary to look carefully at both sets of arguments in order to achieve a balanced assessment of the potential and the limitations of LLMs. (shrink)

The capacity to recognise and interpret sluices—bare wh-phrases that exhibit a sentential meaning—is essential to maintaining cohesive interaction between human users and a machine interlocutor in a dialogue system. In this paper we present a machine learning approach to sluice disambiguation in dialogue. Our experiments, based on solid theoretical considerations, show that applying machine learning techniques using a compact set of features that can be automatically identified from PoS markings in a corpus can be an efficient tool to disambiguate between (...) sluice interpretations. (shrink)

This discussion of Jewish philosophy, covers the complex issue of good and evil in the context of classical Jewish thought.

The human self model suggests that the construct of self involves functions such as agency, body-centered spatial perspectivity, and long-term unity. Vogeley, Kurthen, Falkai, and Maieret (1999) suggest that agency is subserved by the prefrontal cortex and other association areas of the cortex, spatial perspectivity by the prefrontal cortex and the parietal lobes, and long-term unity by the prefrontal cortex and the temporal lobes and that all of these functions are impaired in schizophrenia. Exploring the connections between the prefrontal cortex (...) and the construct of self, the present article extends the application of the self model to autism. It suggests that in contrast to schizophrenia, agency and spatial perspectivity are probably preserved in autism, but that, similarly to schizophrenia, long-term unity is probably impaired. This hypothesis is compatible with a model of neuropsychological dysfunction in autism in a neural network including parts of the prefrontal cortex, the temporal lobes, and the cerebellum. (shrink)

The language of standard propositional modal logic has one operator (? or ?), that can be thought of as being determined by the quantifiers ? or ?, respectively: for example, a formula of the form ?F is true at a point s just in case all the immediate successors of s verify F.This paper uses a propositional modal language with one operator determined by a generalized quantifier to discuss a simple connection between standard invariance conditions on modal formulas and generalized (...) quantifiers: the combined generalized quantifier conditions of conservativity and extension correspond to the modal condition of invariance under generated submodels, and the modal condition of invariance under bisimulations corresponds to the generalized quantifier being a Boolean combination of ? and ? (shrink)

Studies in Abraham Joshua Heschel's Oeuvre.

1. Formal semantics in linguistics -- 2. Generalized quantifier theory -- 3. The interface between syntax and semantics -- 4. Anaphora, discourse, and modality -- 5. Focus, presupposition, and negation -- 6. Tense -- 7. Questions -- 8. Plurals -- 9. Computational semantics -- 10. Lexical semantics -- 11. Semantics and related domains.