Kyle
@darsnack.bsky.social
NeuroAI Scholar @ CSHL https://www.darsnack.info Previously maintaining FluxML to procrastinate Previously EE PhD at UW-Madison, comp. eng. / math at Rose-Hulman
So much academic writing is bland and uninspiring. And LLMs will make it worse. What your favorite examples of *good* writing?
How do you build a brain from a genome? We know a lot about the mechanisms and molecules Here we revisit the algorithmic problem: What kinds of programs can specify a brain within the genome’s information budget and the finite time available for development? stankerstjens.github.io/could-a-comp...
Could a computer scientist build a brain?
How does a brain wire itself, starting from a single cell, using only the information encoded in a genome? We pose this as an engineering problem.
stankerstjens.github.io
TIL that everyone's favorite algorithmic feed is a "classic" network-based algorithm. 🤔
spacecowboy@spacecowboy17.bsky.social · last wk.Trying out another idea to make For You more balanced with respect to your past likes.
Thinking fast ("wtf?"), then thinking slow ("oh")
Let's talk about AOC as a young scientist & her award winning research on antioxidants & C. elegans, a standard roundworm model. She grew up in the Bronx. Ethnically Puerto Rican, her dad Sergio, an architect, died when she was 19. Her mother cleaned houses, drove a school bus. Working class.
Alex Merz 🇺🇸🇨🇦🇺🇦@merz.bsky.social · 2w agoPeople just don't realize how smart AOC is. She came in second at the national Intel Science and Engineering Fair. An *incredibly* competitive field. That's roughly equivalent to being the second best forward in high school basketball in the United States.
The first few AI proving theorems announcements were exciting, maybe disconcerting and anxiety-inducing for some. But now…it's just depressing. Some dude who never thought about the problem before just types "believe in yourself" to a box until it makes progress on the Riemann hypothesis?
I’m in my mum’s office and there are old people here and they discuss about the new digital age, one of them saying “Look what we’ve come too. They forced us having an email” 😂😂😂
I'm burnt out of discussing "AI". I don't care for the press releases from big companies. I hate having to comment immediately. I dislike "hot takes". I'm worried we, as scientists, are losing touch with scientific values. We've become customers, salivating at ads marketed to investors. 1/15
Some initial thoughts, and a complicated mix of feelings. Wow. I mean, Erdos problems are cool (I genuinely mean that), I didn't know about the Jacobian conjecture before it got disproved. But this newest batch from OpenAI hits home in a way the previous announcements did not.
How do you "see" with electric eyes? How does collective behavior emerge from individual interactions? Nocturnal weakly electric fish evolved to do this, but studying naturalistic social behavior is very hard. Our solution? Virtual 'fish' 🤖🐟⚡ 📄 arxiv.org/abs/2511.08436
Great read! Also lines up with an evolutionary perspective: I imagine symbols (for lang) developed to externalize internal processes to others. Eventually this becomes a self-feedback loop but the origins are still external!
Andrew Lampinen@lampinen.bsky.social · 4w agoWhat should we make of recent language model advancements in mathematics? In my new post, I reflect on long-standing cognitive debates about symbols and neural networks in light of this progress. infinitefaculty.substack.com/p/symbols-ne...
As a US citizen and academic, I strongly believe that I have a duty to not self-censor in response to perceived political pressure. Paying the mafia and bowing to bullies is not how I choose to live my life, especially when the cost is "not receiving a grant," not "prison/torture/death."
A huge part of effective communication is having a good theory of mind for the people you are trying to communicate to. This seems like it will be one of the last skills to fall to the machines; we've got an enormous advantage by being people from the same community ourselves.
The Guardian Building (built 1929) in Detroit might just be the closest thing to a truly American cathedral.
They have an opportunity to reverse the outcome *at its core.* They will not aim to miss.
ElieNYC@elienyc.bsky.social · 2mo agoWith this ruling, the birthright issue is not going away. The right hasn't really begun *organizing* around getting rid of the citizenship clause. Like Roe, this will be their fight for a generation. And if the Democrats just say "we won" and ignore it, like Roe, the Republicans will eventually win.
At what point is rule of law more stable under the guidance of nine pennies than the supreme court
I’m mad about today. I’m mad that justices can’t do the bare minimum to uphold the Constitution. I’m mad that the law and our history, which I have dedicated so much of my life to, is an inconvenience than an inheritance to many. I’m mad that the academy, which I love, rewards and enables it.
This is *exactly* what happened after the reconstruction amendments were added to the constitution and then, basically, deleted by the Plessy court.
Every time there's a good court opinion, I get suspicious the timing was off and the conservative legal movement is planning some fresh hell for us 6 months from now. (unless it's about protecting markets)
God they’re having so much fun. I wanna be there!
