Suresh Venkatasubramanian
@geomblog.bsky.social
Director, Center for Tech Responsibility@Brown. FAccT OG. AI Bill of Rights coauthor. Former tech advisor to President Biden @WHOSTP. He/him/his. Posts my own.
They allowed a feedback loop of suicide-related content to build up, possibly leading to the suicide of one kid, to provide a control group so they could figure out whether or not safety measures dampened engagement. 10% of users were in the control.
Suresh Venkatasubramanian @geomblog.bsky.social · 2h agoThis is absolutely awful
This is absolutely awful
Alexandra Lahav@alahav.bsky.social · 3h agoNew @bloomberglaw.com article by Olivia Carville - TikTok experimented on users, putting 10% (about 15M people) in a "filter bubble" exposing them to repetitive content that the algorithm thought they wanted, but was toxic. If you want to know why these cases are going to be massive...
I’m old enough to remember when it was a year-long scandal that Facebook did this. james.grimmelmann.net/files/articl...
james.grimmelmann.net
Alexandra Lahav@alahav.bsky.social · 3h agoNew @bloomberglaw.com article by Olivia Carville - TikTok experimented on users, putting 10% (about 15M people) in a "filter bubble" exposing them to repetitive content that the algorithm thought they wanted, but was toxic. If you want to know why these cases are going to be massive...
"There shouldn't be any science or scientists in the first place, there should only be MAGA military-industrial R&D," this new form of Trumpistan Lysenkoism is already pretty obvious
I really want to work this example into an LLM demo with my students.
Green Owl@greenowl.bsky.social · yesterdayAs we know, "AI" doesn't do facts. It makes up patterns from random bits of data that were digitized & stolen for it, to be wrongity wrong most of the time, even on the same prompt. terribleminds.com/ramble/2025/...
These slides are worth perusing, regardless of your feelings about AI (and indeed Terry is careful to express his thoughts independent of your views on that)
Clément Canonne@ccanonne.github.io · 2d agoFWIW, here are Terence Tao’s slides at the ICM on maths and AI: teorth.github.io/tao-web/slid... @teorth.bsky.social (I am not endorsing nor criticizing the content, but this is a useful and thoughtful set of points and views in the discussion, from someone who has deeply engaged with the matter)
i think the party of sick freaks who want to inspect kid's private parts should be branded as such
Gillian Branstetter@gbbranstetter.bsky.social · 2d agoAn initiative on the ballot in Washington state in November would require all athletes seeking to play girl's sports from kindergarten to high school to undergo "genetic screening, a testosterone-levels test, or an examination of their reproductive anatomy" before they can play
Our academic leadership is no longer speaking for us.
Liam Knox@liamknox.bsky.social · 2d agoScoop: The Trump administration is sending a letter to college presidents asking them to pledge a series of policy changes by the end of the year. Unlike last year's Compact, this effort was devised with input from higher ed leaders. Free link to my exclusive: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
There are so many bad trends in tech, but maybe one of the worst is people who write (or used to write, pre-LLMs) code describing themselves "forward-deployed" when they mean that they work at a client site, based on wanting to emulate military jargon so it sounds like they're going to kill people.
Australia’s eSafety commissioner buried a report (released Friday afternoon) that shows the under 16 social media ban didn’t tangibly reduce teen social media use, and also resulted in parents tuning out of kids usage. We traded our privacy for no reason. theconversation.com/more-than-80...
More than 80% of kids still using social media despite ban, new eSafety report finds
The report provides more evidence Australia’s world-leading social media ban isn’t going to plan.
theconversation.com
I wrote up a short blog post giving my thoughts on the new Anthropic cryptanalysis results against HAWK and AES. blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2026/07/29/s...
Some notes about Anthropic’s new results
Yesterday Anthropic published two new cryptanalysis results, both outputs of Claude Mythos, their (still) unreleased advanced model. The first of these results attacks a signature scheme called HAW…
blog.cryptographyengineering.com
The application for the AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellowship, which places scientists & engineers into roles in Congress and in the Executive Branch, opened today. This program is essential for building technical policy capacity in the US. If interested, apply: fellowshipapp.aaas.org/app/main
STPF Application - AAAS
fellowshipapp.aaas.org
Mozilla CTO Raffi Krikorian says the real question for builders isn't which AI model they are using—it's whether they could leave for a different one. The door's still open to choose a different path—for now.
Is Open-Source AI Really the Dangerous Path?
The real question for builders right now isn’t which model you’re using. Rather, it's whether you could leave for a different one, writes Raffi Krikorian.
buff.ly
I recommend this article about AI reasoning, where the author lets us in on his struggles w/ AI cognitive dissonance. Plus some priceless quotes from @rao2z.bsky.social. (My recommendation has *nothing* to do with the fact that I'm quoted in it too 😇) www.quantamagazine.org/is-ai-reason...
Is AI Reasoning Right for the Wrong Reasons? | Quanta Magazine
The idea that artificial intelligence can “reason” is more intuitive than ever. But intuitions can be wrong, and the science is far from settled.
quantamagazine.org
I've been using Claude for two separate things (in different conversations). a) for things relating to my move to Providence, and b) for things relating to getting my emacs + auctex setup unb0rked. after a recent conversation involving b) it ends with "Good luck with the writing — and the move"
This is more than the NSF social sciences division - now on the chopping block - awarded in grants last year. Think about that: a single AI company has the money to fund more social science research than the US govt.
Hetan Shah@hetanshah.bsky.social · 5d agoAnthropic AI research fund offers $5m - $30m for social science research on themes of AI impact on workers; transition initiatives; income support; building worker stakes; and wider evidence on public investments. Total fund of $200m available www.anthropic.com/news/economi...
A jagged frontier is when the same tools that find a way to hack a sandbox and attack other sites also can't do basic geography.
The Internet Ethics program--Markkula Center for Applied Ethics@iethics.bsky.social · 6d ago"A Reuters analysis found the image of the map included in the presentation contained an [AI] watermark that signals it was made with OpenAI tools. The company said it was investigating the report": reuters.com/world/africa... #ethics #gov #tech #AI
Hopeful and inspirational event with the authors of “On Courage” @juliaangwin.com and @fieldsmeyer.com in San Francisco this evening along with some pretty awesome audience members.
next Greek epic for hollywood treatment needs to be Euclid's Elements. overdue
Hugging Face just published a highly detailed technical account of OpenAI's accidental cyberattack on their systems - it's wild how sophisticated this was: huggingface.co/blog/agent-i... Wrote up some of my own notes here: simonwillison.net/2026/Jul/28/...
Anatomy of a Frontier Lab Agent Intrusion: A Technical Timeline of the July 2026 Incident
We’re on a journey to advance and democratize artificial intelligence through open source and open science.
huggingface.co
This is a fantastic exposition. But really, can I just get Claude Code to download arxiv papers without needing hand holding? huggingface.co/blog/agent-i...
Anatomy of a Frontier Lab Agent Intrusion: A Technical Timeline of the July 2026 Incident
We’re on a journey to advance and democratize artificial intelligence through open source and open science.
huggingface.co
Thanks Anthropic for admitting that massive privacy fuck ups are the intent. 🫡
And here’s the clip!
newsnationnow on Instagram: "Tech companies are seeking permits for orbital data centers. Scientists are raising concerns about what these massive data centers …"
Tech companies are seeking permits for orbital data centers. Scientists are raising concerns about what these massive data centers could have on the atmosphere, including risking the ozone layer and changing wind patterns. @henadoba
instagram.com
Cole Donovan@colesci.bsky.social · last wk.Just got done talking about space data centers on @newsnation.bsky.social. TLDR: constellations this large are probably too difficult to build for any company, and the amount of material that they’d introduce to the stratosphere would be pretty bad for the planet. That’s assuming they burn up.
This sounds niche but around 2/3 of Americans live in this zone. It’s at least 200 million people. Tons of entire states and cities are inside it.
Courtney Milan@courtneymilan.com · last wk.The ACLU has put together a know your rights guide for people within 100 miles of a border. If you are in that swath of land, please take a look at this and learn your actual rights. www.aclu.org/know-your-ri...
genai ushering in an era of productivity and efficiency
Erin Fogg says Free Link@criminalerin.bsky.social · last wk.Me: What did I just do Spreadsheets: You bolded a row Me: Yes & what didn't I do in the next row Spreadsheets: Bold anything at all Me: Right ok so what did you do when I entered information into the row that I didn't bold Spreadsheets: 👀 Me: 👀 Spreadsheets: I bolded it Me: YOU BOLDED IT
If this sounds interesting to you or someone you know, check out cntr.brown.edu/summer-school and be on the lookout for applications for v3 of the AI policy summer school.
CNTR and Watson | Tech & Policy Summer School
cntr.brown.edu
At Brown, I'm privileged to organize an AI policy summer school where we bring grad students from across the nation together to learn about policymaking. We travel down to DC as a group and learn about policy implementation and careers, and the students conduct meetings with Congressional offices.
