Computer scientist Yann LeCun: ‘Intelligence really is about learning’
The AI pioneer on stepping down from Meta, the limits of large language models — and the launch of his new start-up
A Political Atlas of the World
1st Experiments with WebMapperGPT. Steven Feldman reports on his experiments with mapping LLMs. The result is available here
Pic Detective – Reverse Image Search – Upload any photo to find its original source, discover who else is using it, or locate higher resolution versions.
Free, fast, and no account needed. Pic Detective is powered by advanced visual recognition technology that goes beyond simple pixel matching. When you upload an image, our system analyzes it using sophisticated lens-based recognition—the same type of technology that powers modern visual search across the web.
This approach means we can understand what’s actually in your image, not just compare it byte-by-byte against a database. The result? We find matches that simpler tools miss entirely. Here’s what our technology catches:
- Cropped versions – Someone crops your photo to dodge detection? We’ll likely still find it
- Color-adjusted copies – Filters, saturation tweaks, color grading—our algorithms see through them
- Watermarked or edited versions – Text overlays and minor edits get detected
- Different resolutions – Thumbnails to high-res, we index across the spectrum
- Flipped or rotated images – Mirror images and rotations match correctly
Eduardo Mendieta (1963-2025)
Eduardo Mendieta, professor of philosophy at Penn State University, has died.
- “Some objects and properties that make up a body are too specific or small—too deep—to properly count as parts of the body in a morally significant sense” — Christopher Register on the ontological “depth” of bodies, and why it is important
- “Why shouldn’t we think of men as characterized by the gentleness they seek, and women by the brutality they demand, rather than vice versa?” — Oliver Traldi goes meta-monster
- A collection of posts about the philosophy job market — at The Philosophers’ Cocoon
- What can psychoanalysis do “as political theory rather than praxis”? — says Amia Srinivasan, “it can help us better understand how the world… what wishes we might have for collective life, and which of these… reality… demands we set aside” (video) (text version here)
- What happened in physics, math, computer science, and biology this year? — check out Quanta’s annual roundups of recent scientific developments
- “I doubt even the beginning of real mutual learning can occur in an atmosphere of mistrust” — says Eric Schliesser, though the example of Socrates gives him some reason to doubt that, too
- “In each issue, we will share a curated overview of key research papers, organizational updates, funding calls, public debates, media coverage, and events related to digital minds” — a new newsletter from philosopher Bradford Saad and others; send them relevant material, and subscribe
