Fog III: Confusion

Good morning. Today begins the third décade of Brumaire, Year CCXXXII. It's the month of fog. Our theme this time is confusion.

How do machines learn? We hear about machine learning all the time, and the very phrase suggests a metaphor that machines are "studying," examining information until it is "known" or "understood" in the same that humans brute force rote learning of, say, spelling or historical dates. I think – I hope – most of understand that machine learning doesn't imply generative thoughts such as synthesized conclusions, although many people are being unduly dazzled by simulacrums of this thanks to ChatGPT's magic trick monkey typewriter.