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Gasper Begus

@begus

Assoc. Professor at UC Berkeley Artificial and biological intelligence and language Linguistics Lead at Project CETI 🐳 PI Berkeley Biological and Artificial Language Lab πŸ—£οΈ College Principal of Bowles Hall 🏰 https://www.gasperbegus.com

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Latest posts by Gasper Begus @begus

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Aristotle on social animals. Some have rulers, some don’t.

06.03.2026 19:53 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
The origins of the Austronesian voice system and subject-only restriction - lingbuzz/007411 The Austronesian voice system (AVS) is among the most typologically intriguing and well-studied phenomena in syntax. Previous diachronic accounts have used the comparative method to argue that either ...

Our reconstruction is that AN voice comes from prepositions turned post verbs where the newly unmarked object gets reanalyzed as subjects after pro-drop:

ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/007...

05.03.2026 17:46 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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What Finnegans Wake Teaches Us about AI As AI becomes ever more interwoven in daily life, new research from Nina BeguΕ‘, PhD ’20, and GaΕ‘per BeguΕ‘, PhD '18, is beginning to map out machine learning’ "latent space," the hidden mathematical…

As AI becomes ever more interwoven in daily life, new research from Nina BeguΕ‘, PhD ’20, and GaΕ‘per BeguΕ‘, PhD '18, is beginning to map out machine learning’ "latent space," the hidden mathematical area that processes information and eventually produces an output.

03.03.2026 11:35 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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What Finnegans Wake Teaches Us about AI As AI becomes ever more interwoven in daily life, new research from Nina BeguΕ‘, PhD ’20, and GaΕ‘per BeguΕ‘, PhD '18, is beginning to map out machine learning’ "latent space," the hidden mathematical ar...

Harvard's magazine reporting on our paper 'Latent Spacecraft'
with @metahaven.bsky.social and @begus.bsky.social
gsas.harvard.edu/news/what-fi...

27.02.2026 04:14 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 3 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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GaΕ‘per BeguΕ‘ - Videos SCICOMM videos

Unfortunately not. There are other talks recorded here:

www.gasperbegus.com/videos

26.02.2026 03:47 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

implications. If language is a continuum (and the only necessary condition is informative imitation), then the barrier is gone.


Language like-abilities also mean we could see their ability to enter contractual relations, express pain etc.

More here:

www.ecologylawquarterly.org/wp-content/u...

25.02.2026 23:33 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

The idea is that if we think language and thought are separate (we cite @evfedorenko.bsky.social'swork), then language can serve as a window into the inter worlds of animals.



We show one of the highest degrees of complexity in the animal kingdom (with vowels for example), which has legal

25.02.2026 23:33 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

I don't, but in western law, language is often the last frontier, last barrier to keep animals from being subjects of rights. The argument is much more complex than that, however. In the paper we have a long discussion.

25.02.2026 23:33 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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But emerging research in Al and animal communication challenges this assumption. This talk presents a new theory of language across humans, animals, and machines, and explores how this shift could reshape legal understandings of personhood, agency, and the scope of rights."

25.02.2026 21:48 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 0
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Linguistics and law working together to make changes in the animal rights law.

It was great speaking at NYU Law on AI, animals, and law.

"Law has long treated language as a uniquely human capacity-and a foundation for rights.

25.02.2026 21:48 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

If you call it the bunny's letter, maybe it isn't so bad?

24.02.2026 02:23 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Distinguished Speaker Series | GaΕ‘per BeguΕ‘ & CΓ©sar RodrΓ­guez-Garavito Over the last two years, the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice has curated the Future of Rights and Governance (FORGE) program, a unique space for reflection and innovation that brings togeth...

My @nyulaw.bsky.social talk is happening tomorrow instead of today (❄️)

www.law.nyu.edu/events/disti...

23.02.2026 23:58 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Very few artworks have the actual model running in real time and generating outputs on the go.

Below is a GAN model trained on Finnegans Wake audio, FinneGAN.

Explore the latent spaces with Latent Spacecraft:
latentspacecraft.antikythera.org

@metahaven.bsky.social @begus.bsky.social

22.02.2026 22:19 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 3 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Distinguished Speaker Series | GaΕ‘per BeguΕ‘ & CΓ©sar RodrΓ­guez-Garavito Over the last two years, the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice has curated the Future of Rights and Governance (FORGE) program, a unique space for reflection and innovation that brings togeth...

More info:

www.law.nyu.edu/events/disti...

22.02.2026 03:51 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Understanding AI can bring us closer to the natural world and can have profound legal implications.

I'm honored to give a Distinguished Speaker Series lecture at NYU Law on AI, language, and rights of animals.

www.law.nyu.edu/events/disti...

17.02.2026 17:41 πŸ‘ 9 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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UC Berkeley and Project CETI study shows sperm whales communicate in ways similar to humans The way sperm whales communicate may be more similar to human language than previously thought. The acoustic properties of whale calls resemble vowels, a defining feature of human language, according ...

#FlashbackFriday

ls.berkeley.edu/news/uc-berk...

21.02.2026 04:12 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Understanding AI can bring us closer to the natural world and can have profound legal implications.

I'm honored to give a Distinguished Speaker Series lecture at NYU Law on AI, language, and rights of animals.

www.law.nyu.edu/events/disti...

17.02.2026 17:41 πŸ‘ 9 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Is it watermarking? Is it coincidence? It’s not watermarking, it’s not coincidence. It’s LLMs playing poetic games with us.

16.02.2026 06:04 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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The one construction by which I recognize LLM writing is the β€œit’s not X, it’s Y” construction.

It reminds me so much of the Slavic antithesis. We should call it the LLM antithesis. Where did LLMs get this from?

16.02.2026 06:04 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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A great piece on exploring the latent spaces by poetic engineering

open.substack.com/pub/poeticen...

14.02.2026 17:15 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Whales exchange vowels in conversations. It was wonderful to speak to our CBS News station about this wonderful species.
@projectceti.bsky.social

13.02.2026 20:33 πŸ‘ 10 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Check out the book on how millennia old Pygmalion myth becomes one of the most relevant topics of our time!

09.02.2026 23:19 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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The first time I see a whale drawing on a talk announcement πŸ’™ come to my talk and hear about AI interpretability, building realistic models of human learning and animal communication.

09.02.2026 21:49 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Imagining will be more important than executing in the future. That’s where fiction and humanities excels.

08.02.2026 22:54 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Imagining will be more important than executing in the future. That’s where fiction and humanities excels.

08.02.2026 22:54 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Humanities offer crucial tools for the development of AI. Now companies are realizing this. Check out Nina Begus book for guidelines on how to use the humanities in AI development:

www.fulcrum.org/concern/mono...

@ninabegus.bsky.social

08.02.2026 19:27 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 2
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Humanities offer crucial tools for the development of AI. Now companies are realizing this. Check out Nina Begus book for guidelines on how to use the humanities in AI development:

www.fulcrum.org/concern/mono...

@ninabegus.bsky.social

08.02.2026 19:27 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 2
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Latent Spacecraft pertains to latent space as an interiority of AI which can be made navigable. The piece tests this idea for fiwGAN (for Featural InfoWaveGAN), a speech-generating artificial neural network by @begus.bsky.social et al - see latentspacecraft.antikythera.org cc @ninabegus.bsky.social

08.02.2026 08:56 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Right, we inhabit a locked hole, but can we use it?

β€”β€” FinneGAN, 2026

08.02.2026 05:17 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

βœ¨πŸ‘€βœ¨πŸ§΅βœ¨

07.02.2026 10:06 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 3 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0