Benjamin Riley
@benjaminjriley.bsky.social
Founder of Cognitive Resonance. Advocate for humans. Newsletter: https://buildcognitiveresonance.substack.com/ To support Cognitive Resonance: https://ko-fi.com/cognitiveresonance
Oh look, there’s Sir Nick Gibb, England’s former Minister of Schools, with Texas Commissioner Mike Morath and Alpha School advisor Carl Hendrick, hanging in DC. Wonder who they met with.
Benjamin Riley@benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 13h agoMy grandma had special phrase she used to say when shit was hitting the fan (pretty sure she never swore in her entire life): "My lands." My lands. www.propublica.org/article/alph...
My grandma had special phrase she used to say when shit was hitting the fan (pretty sure she never swore in her entire life): "My lands." My lands. www.propublica.org/article/alph...
Texas’ Education Board Raised Questions About an AI Learning Tool. The State Then Helped Pilot It in Public Schools.
Just three months after the Texas State Board of Education raised concerns about Alpha School’s AI learning platform, Education Commissioner Mike Morath was in talks about using the tool in public sch...
propublica.org
Tool of cognitive automation working exactly as intended.
Anne Lutz Fernandez@lutzfernandez.bsky.social · 21h agoThis is quite good.
The single most important person to my building a *evolving* mental model of generative AI is @colin-fraser.net. As these tools change so too should our understanding of how they work. Follow him and you will learn a great deal — he is an educator.
Colin@colin-fraser.net · yesterdayI really wasn’t trying to start a fight with Prof. Bender but now that she has created a long thread subtweeting me and her disciples are all yelling at me, let me just say that this is the crux right here. She seems to respond as though I am describing something a priori impossible.
I am left shaking by the dangerous power held by those who have so casually dismissed the need to consider the consequences of their actions, or rather inactions. The world is not safe because of their choices. It it time to take away their power.
Eryk Salvaggio@eryk.bsky.social · 2d agoOpenAI employees warned that models were insecure months in advance, according to the Times. Gift Link. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/t...
I've largely focused on student life at Alpha School, but there is a story (or stories rather) to be told regarding the complicated web of Joe Liemandt's business affairs. They share a common source for hiring, named appropriately: Crossover. And IQ testing is the name of the game.
Crossover
crossover.com
Vauhini Vara@vauhinivara.bsky.social · 3d agoI visited this school as part of my reporting last year for a Businessweek story, which also revealed that Alpha is actually a subsidiary of the tech company Trilogy. Here's what I found.
Every week @benjaminjriley.bsky.social publishes a new investigative report on Alpha School that's more alarming than the last
I want to underscore that there is an ***open and active police investigation*** related to Alpha School’s boot camp. The events in question took place more than a week ago. This is major news. Alpha can refuse to answer my questions. But they cannot refuse to answer the Sheriff’s Department.
Benjamin Riley@benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 3d agoFIFTH REPORT: CHILDREN HARMED AT ALPHA SCHOOL'S BOOT CAMP Just over a week ago, 73 Alpha School high school students were left almost entirely unsupervised for three days in the Texas wilderness. It was a Fyre Festival-like disaster. buildcognitiveresonance.substack.com/p/fifth-repo...
FIFTH REPORT: CHILDREN HARMED AT ALPHA SCHOOL'S BOOT CAMP Just over a week ago, 73 Alpha School high school students were left almost entirely unsupervised for three days in the Texas wilderness. It was a Fyre Festival-like disaster. buildcognitiveresonance.substack.com/p/fifth-repo...
FIFTH REPORT: CHILDREN HARMED AT ALPHA SCHOOL’S BOOT CAMP
Student hospitalized during Survival Challenge on wilderness ranch; police investigation is ongoing; other concerning incidents re student safety and privacy; one guide fired; also Little B. Diddies
buildcognitiveresonance.substack.com
Amazing. Everyone who continues to bind themselves to the sinking ship of Alpha School is going to feel very uncomfortable in just a few hours (if that). Stay. F'ing. Tuned.
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 3d agoLinda McMahon: "AI is definitely a tool used correctly. I've seen it in action. I have visited the Alpha School in Austin, Texas, where they use AI for the first two hours every single morning. The students have their headsets on, they are watching their computers ... it is incredibly effective"
Yes, but provisionally — we need a dramatic transformation of our understanding of the role that higher education should play in our society. We’ve created little communities of the cognitive elite, with poor institutional incentives disconnected to the broader world. This must change.
Kevin M. Kruse@kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 3d agoWhen they get back in power, Democrats need to go all-in on higher education. We need a campaign of reinvestment in public universities across the country that makes the Morrill Land-Grant Act look like nothing by comparison *and* a GI Bill of Rights-style program of tuition grants.
I am grateful to @mattseybold.bsky.social for writing an extraordinary and comprehensive essay that places Alpha School at the heart of a much larger question: whether the social compact that both provides and protects public schooling will endure. The battle has been joined. It's time to fight.
All Our Kids Will Go To Alpha School
On the plans to hyperscale Alpha School’s “AI” tutoring software to “a billion kids.”
theamericanvandal.com
Today is my father's birthday, my first without him. Not an hour passes without my thinking of the love and support he'd be providing me right now. And he relished a good conspiracy. If you missed the story about him, please read it today. He was such a decent, interesting man. I love you, Pop.
He Warned About the Dangers of A.I. If Only His Father Had Listened.
Ben Riley was already writing about the risks of chatbots when his dad started trusting A.I. over his doctor.
nytimes.com
I am married to a public school classroom teacher. She's been doing this for nearly 35 years. Yes, she is extraordinary.
Benjamin Riley@benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 5d agoThis is extraordinary, in the best sense of the word.
You would think it couldn’t get worse. And yet it continues to get so…much…worse.
There will have to be a reckoning with the role the press has played in amplifying Alpha School’s narrative. Many exceptions to this. But nonetheless, a reckoning is due.
Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 7d agoCannot believe this place is still getting softball coverage, or that people are paying 55k a year.
A helpful and comprehensive overview of Alpha School’s high school boot camp activities and the fallout from the student tweets. (One correction: students aren’t learning from an “AI tutor” when using the TimeBack/2 Hour Learning software.) www.the74million.org/article/insi...
Inside Alpha School’s ‘Bootcamp’: Heart Monitors, Unpaid Labor & Many, Many Tweets
Students at the AI-powered private school are chronicling grueling tests of composure, endurance and grit.
the74million.org
Appreciate the reporting of my reporting (sincerely, we need to get the word out far and wide).
Futurism@futurism.com · last wk.It's bordering on child abuse.
Great conversation between @benjaminjriley.bsky.social and C. Tennie bsky.app/profile/cten... about evolution and human thinking. Full conversation here: buildcognitiveresonance.substack.com/p/humans-fro...
Humans from A to B
My interview with Dr. Claudio Tennie on how humans and great apes culturally diverged
buildcognitiveresonance.substack.com
How did we humans become what we are? Why did we diverge from other primates and develop our culture? What role does copying (imitation) play in that process, and how do we compare to great apes today? My interview with @ctennie.bsky.social explores these questions and more. Please check it out!
Humans from A to B
My interview with Dr. Claudio Tennie on how humans and great apes culturally diverged
buildcognitiveresonance.substack.com
I think the good Dr. Cottom clocks Alpha School *exactly right* in this mini-thread of observations. It took me several days to release my existing mental model of private schooling to understand Alpha’s true aims. But I get it now. (Mostly.)
Tressie McMillan Cottom@tressiemcphd.bsky.social · last wk.It is breathtaking. Like many things these days it is hard, but necessary, to figure what is a continuity and what is a rupture. EdTech has always been a private sector parasite feeding off the public sector. The rupture is AI EdTech is experimenting on the rich instead of the poor.
It is breathtaking. Like many things these days it is hard, but necessary, to figure what is a continuity and what is a rupture. EdTech has always been a private sector parasite feeding off the public sector. The rupture is AI EdTech is experimenting on the rich instead of the poor.
Matt Seybold@mattseybold.bsky.social · last wk.It is not easy to shock me with the mendacity of EdTech entrepreneurs. But I had to take breaks from these testimonials to what is actually happening inside Alpha Schools.
No one will believe me, in fact I don’t believe it myself, but I wrote this overview of Alpha School *before* my investigative reporting on its activities commenced.
Larry Ferlazzo@larryferlazzo.bsky.social · last wk.Why I’m Not Betting on the Future of Alpha School www.edweek.org/technology/o... by @benjaminjriley.bsky.social is new @edweek.org post
Being on the Alpha beat has been a lot, but hearing these students describe what it means to them to be human is inspiring. Passion fuels everything. It’s certainly fueling my reporting.
Benjamin Riley@benjaminjriley.bsky.social · last wk.Far more joyously, however, I discovered some former students are pondering a big question: what makes us human? I asked them to tell me about their still-emerging perspectives. This was the single best part of reporting on Alpha School for me. The kids, the kids are alright. They are inspiring.
FOURTH REPORT: Former Alpha School students speak out I have just posted my latest report on what student life is *really* like at Alpha School, based on interviews with several student sources. They describe anti-patterns, rocket ships & pirate ships, and "getting nuked." Here's a short summary.
FOURTH REPORT: Former Alpha School students speak out
“A science experiment that’s been framed as a school” - “pretty much a concentration camp” - “cool the first few months and then it just becomes shit”
buildcognitiveresonance.substack.com
Worthy thread on the stupid “two brains” thing making the rounds.
John Timmer@jtimmer.bsky.social · last wk.Ok, this "there are two separate brains" thing appears to be making the rounds, and I want to be absolutely clear: this is a press office overhyping some perfectly reasonable science that won't come as a surprise to most developmental biologists.
