What are large language models, really? A genuinely different frame for what AI is, where it came from, and what it means to live alongside it.
This episode of Permanently Moved is an hour-long audio essay on artificial intelligence, agency, and the history of computing that made LLMs possible.
The essay moves from the invention of the mirror to double-entry bookkeeping, the printing press, the Manhattan Project, the transistor, and the particular civilisational strangeness of ChatGPT and its successors. It argues that the question everyone is asking about AI “is it intelligent?” is a trap, and it tries to ask a better one.
Quarterly zine; my gift to you ✉️
Monsters In The Mirror
On AI, Language, and entities that wear language as their skin.
Everyone around me seems to be arguing about whether AI is intelligent or not. I think it’s the wrong question, and always has been.
The fact that it feels that it’s so obviously the right question, is itself part of the problem.
Monsters in the Mirror is an hour-long audio essay. It starts with mirrors, both physical and metaphorical, and then moves through five centuries of the Enlightenment project, and arrives at the particular civilisational strangeness of large language models being just one of the many downstream consequences of the invention of the transistor.
But what are large language models, really? I argue this question is a trap, and arrive at some conclusions about it all that most writing about AI doesn’t go.
The Argument In Brief
There’s a central claim that whole essay turns on, that reframes a great deal of how we see the techno cultural world around us, including: double-entry bookkeeping, the census, the microchip fab lab, and why calling an LLM “stochastic parrot” is, in a precise sense; a curse.
Along the way it asks:
- What does it mean that we have been living alongside non-human agents for centuries and have barely noticed?
- What happened to the concept of Truth when Gutenberg froze it into lead type?
- Why is the question “are LLMs intelligent?” is a trap, and what’s the better question?
- What does it mean to live inside the mirror cyberspace now, rather than in front of it?
You might disagree with my answers to these questions, but stick with it. Consider it an invitation to look again at AI, capitalism, language, and what we call ‘agency.
Start Select Reset
For eight years, Permanently Moved was a weekly audio essay show and lived online as audio and words on a screen.
First time I’m putting my work not behind a paywall, but inside an envelope.
Issue #15 of Start Select Reset, my long running subscriber zine is now the print companion to Monsters in the Mirror. 36 pages, A5, printed on 100 GSM weight paper with chunky 250gsm covers. It contains the full essay transcript, plus an introduction and an afterword that aren’t in the audio.
As the now quarterly show continues the zine and the audio will begin to diverge. With notes, fragments, interviews, things that only make sense on a page and in a zine.
Think of Start Select Reset as the show’s merch. Graby a copy and support the work!
Buy SSRZ15: Monsters in the Mirror on Etsy
This zine contains the full essay transcript alongside an introduction and afterword written exclusively for print, material that doesn’t exist in the audio. 36 pages. A5. Properly printed on heavy stock with thick covers. Hand stamped twice, copy number and FOG logo.
This is remaining stock after the print run for my paid subscribers. Once they are gone, they are gone.
£18 + shipping worldwide
CAVEAT EMPTOR: International zines are posted with full customs declarations as printed booklets. Depending on your country, local VAT, customs, or handling fees may be due on arrival.
How To Get It
Pre-orders are open for two weeks until Monday 16th March. After that, the run goes to the printer, and however many copies are left become back issues until they’re gone. There won’t be many.
Four audio essays a year in your podcast feed, plus the zine posted to you every quarter. Shipping included. That’s £15 for audio in your ears and a physical object in your hands.
Quarterly zine; my gift to you ✉️
Or head over to my Etsy store.
If neither works right now: a five-star rating in your podcast app, or telling one person who might care. Both genuinely help more than you’d think.
Permanently Moved
Permanently Moved (dot) Online is a quarterly audio personal podcast, written, recorded and edited by by @thejaymo
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