We created software that could generate human-like text output quickly and easily. Now we’re dealing with the societal upheaval it’s caused. What are the risks and rewards, and what can we learn about language from these large language models? We’re having a chat with Dr Christopher Summerfield, author of These Strange New Minds: How AI Learned to Talk and What It Means.
Timestamps
00:00 Start
00:46 Intros: Generative A.I. concerns
04:15 Shout out to our patrons!
05:03 News: AP Style Guide defines “couple”
10:35 News: Men do vocal fry more
14:59 News: Uptalk from 1890
16:01 News: Is Singlish up?
22:22 Related or Not: Bonkers Mélange editon, theme from Ste
23:41 Related or Not: population, discombobulate, bobbin
29:09 Related or Not: goggle, goo-goo, agog
36:09 Related or Not: once, ounce, pounce, lynx
41:55 Interview with Christopher Summerfield: Do you like A.I.?
44:21 Consequences of AI: Will we know nothing, or know everything?
47:03 Are LLMs just spicy autocorrect?
48:44 Are LLMs simply regurgitating their training data?
49:51 LLMs are getting better fast
52:33 On consciousness and intentionality
55:58 Do LLMs (or humans) understand?
58:58 The Chinese Room
01:01:00 Should we avoid anthropomorphising language around LLM behaviour?
01:04:02 Why we dismiss LLMs
01:07:26 Accelerationists, anti-hypers, and X-risk: Which are you?
01:09:49 Safety, privacy, and security
01:14:29 The magic wand of policy
01:20:18 Fixing the hallucination problem
01:27:36 Goals of the book
01:31:18 Word of the Week: liminal
01:39:59 Word of the Week: pink slime journalism
01:44:44 Word of the Week: waste colonialism
01:48:13 Quick words: hot-washing, eppy, shoulder surgfing, news-jacking, bio-break
01:51:37 Word of the Week: wario
01:55:02 The Reads
02:01:06 Outtake: That time when a siren went off in Hedvig’s Parisian hotel, mid-recording
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This time, Daniel turned everyone’s name into a six digit number (ASCII values for first and last letter of name) and then hunted around in the digits of pi to find out where in the sequence each person’s six-digit number could be found.
The Pi-Search Page
https://www.angio.net/pi/piquery
Here’s the table:
| Name | Code | Position in pi (excluding 3) |
| Daniel | 068108 | 12,164 |
| Amanita | 065097 | 25,830 |
| Ayesha | 065097 | 25,830 |
| sæ̃m | 115109 | 26,997 |
| Ignacio | 073111 | 32,495 |
| Sonic Snejhog | 083103 | 34,627 |
| Steele | 083101 | 49,746 |
| Andy B | 065066 | 64,906 |
| Yevaud | 089100 | 66,238 |
| Amy | 065121 | 96,698 |
| Andy from Logophilius | 065115 | 103,378 |
| O Tim | 079109 | 110,212 |
| Joanna | 074097 | 122,998 |
| Rene | 082101 | 125,107 |
| Kathy | 075121 | 177,695 |
| PharaohKatt | 080116 | 186,185 |
| J0HNTR0Y | 074089 | 202,271 |
| Laura | 076097 | 202,962 |
| Lyssa | 076097 | 202,962 |
| Aldo | 065111 | 205,077 |
| Larry | 076121 | 216,973 |
| Lucy | 076121 | 216,973 |
| Nikoli | 078105 | 319,256 |
| unleashy | 117121 | 447,810 |
| Keith | 075104 | 448,993 |
| Rach | 082104 | 474,887 |
| Nigel | 078108 | 498,857 |
| Wolfdog | 087103 | 508,252 |
| Meredith | 077104 | 544,069 |
| Becky | 066121 | 544,454 |
| Lance | 076101 | 550,472 |
| Stan | 083110 | 552,322 |
| Canny Archer | 067114 | 585,299 |
| Tony | 084121 | 644,814 |
| gramaryen | 103110 | 649,965 |
| Linguistic C̷̛̤̰̳͉̺͕̋̚̚͠h̸͈̪̤͇̥͛͂a̶̡̢̛͕̰͈͗͋̐̚o̷̟̹͈̞̔̊͆͑͒̃s̵̍̒̊̈́̚̚ͅ | 076861 | 655,473 |
| Fiona | 070097 | 681,110 |
| Ben | 066110 | 699,810 |
| Mignon | 077110 | 709,895 |
| Kevin | 075110 | 855,005 |
| Elías | 069115 | 898,400 |
| Helen | 072110 | 983,781 |
| Faux Frenchie | 070101 | 1,051,223 |
| Nasrin | 078110 | 1,064,537 |
| Xekri | 088105 | 1,075,540 |
| LordMortis | 076115 | 1,099,126 |
| Luis | 076115 | 1,099,126 |
| Chris L | 067076 | 1,193,436 |
| Colleen | 067110 | 1,272,722 |
| Molly Dee | 077101 | 1,387,431 |
| Martha | 077097 | 1,516,458 |
| Sydney | 083121 | 1,620,548 |
| Rodger | 082114 | 2,118,313 |
| Amir | 065114 | 2,122,526 |
| Kristofer | 075114 | 2,238,472 |
| Rosemary | 082121 | 2,444,047 |
| John K | 074075 | 2,608,227 |
| Whitney | 087121 | 2,901,678 |
| Manú | 077250 | 2,911,752 |
| James | 074115 | 3,046,321 |
| Hedvig | 072103 | 3,263,234 |
| Diego | 068111 | 4,337,277 |
| Ariaflame | 065101 | 6,845,674 |
And our newest patrons:
- A new Supporter: unleashy (jumping up from Free to Supporter)
- At the Friend level: Sullivan and Lucy
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Become a Patron!Show notes
“Please can I have it back”: Sam Altman explains why users want ChatGPT’s ‘yes-man’ back
https://www.moneycontrol.com/technology/please-can-i-have-it-back-sam-altman-explains-why-users-want-chatgpt-s-yes-man-back-article-13431092.html
Words for Small Sets
https://xkcd.com/1070/
Men use “vocal fry” more than women, counter to stereotype
https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/05/men-use-vocal-fry-more-than-women-counter-to-stereotype/
Abstract for Brown’s presentation (search for “Jeanne Brown”)
4aSC8: Rethinking “young women’s creak”: Piecing together production, perception, and social evidence
https://eppro01.ativ.me/web/planner.php?id=ASASPRING2026
Challenging biases about vocal fry #ASA190
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1127254
Dialect notes (1890)
page 59, bottom right part of the page
https://archive.org/embed/dialectnotes01newhuoft
More Singapore residents identifying with English or Singlish, as mother tongue affinity falls: IPS survey
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/singlish-ips-survey-mother-tongue-6139176
How Singapore became an English-speaking country
https://blog.thepienews.com/2018/12/how-singapore-became-an-english-speaking-country
MECHANICAL Attractive Modern Sewing Machine Mechanisms Works #mechanicalengineering | Pinterest
https://au.pinterest.com/pin/mechanical-attractive-modern-sewing-machine-mechanisms-works-mechanicalengineering–608197124706218442/
Christopher Summerfield: These Strange New Minds: How A.I. Learned to Talk and What It Means | Penguin
https://www.penguin.com.au/books/these-strange-new-minds-9780241694664
When Dawkins met Claude: Could this AI be conscious?
https://unherd.com/2026/05/is-ai-the-next-phase-of-evolution/
Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity, or C2PA
https://c2pa.org
What is the Model Context Protocol (MCP)?
https://modelcontextprotocol.io/docs/getting-started/intro
liminal spaces | tumblr
https://liminalsorting.tumblr.com
Weird Fiction and fiction that happens to be weird
https://figcat.com/lists/weird-fiction-and-fiction-that-happens-to-be-weird/
What Is the Uncanny Valley? Creepy robots and the strange phenomenon of the uncanny valley: definition, history, examples, and how to avoid it
https://spectrum.ieee.org/what-is-the-uncanny-valley
What is ‘pink-slime’ journalism and has it infiltrated Australian media?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-22/pink-slime-journalism-regional-australia-ai/106639600
Fiji refuses to become a trash receptor for the West
https://theworld.org/segments/2026/06/05/fiji-refuses-to-become-a-trash-receptor-for-the-west
Waste Colonialism: A Brief History of Dumping Rich Countries’ Trash in the Global South
https://earth.org/waste-colonialism-a-brief-history-of-dumping-rich-countries-trash-in-the-global-south/
A lot of ‘recycled’ plastic is being burned overseas – and causing widespread pollution linked to health problems
https://theconversation.com/a-lot-of-recycled-plastic-is-being-burned-overseas-and-causing-widespread-pollution-linked-to-health-problems-275800
Waste exports | Australian Government Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water
https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/protection/waste/exports
Hollywood Needs to Stop Hot-Washing Literary Adaptations
https://lithub.com/hollywood-needs-to-stop-hot-washing-literary-adaptations/
“Smells a bit Eppy to me”
Transcript
Coming soon.