Stephen Turner
@stephenturner.us
Field guide. Quartermaster. Associate Professor and Research Dean at UVA School of Data Science. Views my own. Web: https://datascience.virginia.edu/people/stephen-turner Newsletter: https://blog.stephenturner.us
Jon Haidt's been saying this for years. Evidence keeps rolling in. Funny how the only people who loudly object (1) don't have kids, or (2) don't teach kids, or both. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Phones impede learning: Evidence from a massive phone-free classroom experiment
Lower-performing students benefited the most, but even higher-performing students expressed support for the policy
science.org
📝 AI in the workplace vs. AI in education ✍️ Paired Ends (Stephen Turner's blog)
AI in the workplace vs. AI in education
Article de Paired Ends (Stephen Turner's blog)
blog.stephenturner.us
'In the workplace, the product is the thing. But in education, the product is seldom the point. Teachers have them do these tasks because they provide practice in cognitive abilities that we think matter' #AI #teaching
Stephen Turner@stephenturner.us · yesterdayWeekend essay and a recommendation: AI in the workplace vs. AI in education blog.stephenturner.us/p/ai-workpla...
This is more or less where I'm coming down on this whole thing—"Students should only use AI for things that they already know how to do well."
Stephen Turner@stephenturner.us · yesterdayWeekend essay and a recommendation: AI in the workplace vs. AI in education blog.stephenturner.us/p/ai-workpla...
Anyone have a PDF of this article you can share with me? The invisible risks of AI-generated health information www.nature.com/articles/s44... My email address is easy to find, lastname at institution dot edu, or find it at datascience.virginia.edu/people/steph... Thanks in advance 🙏
The invisible risks of AI-generated health information - Nature Health
This Perspective describes the pathways in which users access health information via AI-based chatbots and highlights the related risks, advocating for making these interactions observable and account...
nature.com
Weekend essay and a recommendation: AI in the workplace vs. AI in education blog.stephenturner.us/p/ai-workpla...
AI in the workplace vs. AI in education
Quoting Dan Willingham: Students should only use AI for things that they already know how to do well.
blog.stephenturner.us
Yesterday I told my wife who’s in therapy services in the hospital here that if you say “AI” now you’re an enemy of the state, and now we say “SI” to which she responds “yeah that’s Suicidal Ideation”
Stephen Turner@stephenturner.us · 3mo agoA couple of years ago I was pitching a major poultry industry company on AI enabled precision genome editing. Two hours into the meeting I learned that “AI” to them obviously referred to Avian Influenza. Know your audience.
I’m an atheist now, but as a child I was raised in an extremist religious cult (don’t ask, won’t tell). I found it interesting to ask Chat/Claude/Grok how they respond when people ask about their faith, mythical stories and creatures, and their personal relationship with a supernatural being.
Mixed thoughts. On one hand, if an AI can discover and validate some important bio/med/health/natsec-relevant finding a year before I would have, great! (great for science, for patients, for policy, etc). 1/ www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Will AI scoop your science? Some researchers see a gloomy future
Scientists worry that increasingly capable large language models will beat them to discoveries.
nature.com
"I had to go to Johns Hopkins to get a PhD in bioengineering, only to find out later that the students 3-D printed a fake ID for the clone and dropped him off at Big Y supermarket to buy them beer and Zyn." www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/i-h...
I Hereby Resign as This Year’s Faculty Advisor for Our School’s Human Cloning Club
“The club members had no intention of cloning a human being or even working on a years-long cloning project to eventually publish papers in major scientific ...
mcsweeneys.net
We're holding UVA's signature data science conference here at the School of Data Science next month, Friday November 13. This year's theme: The Future of Work, Powered by Data and People. Registration is free! Hope to see you here! blog.stephenturner.us/p/datapalooz...
Datapalooza 2026: The Future of Work, Powered by Data and People
UVA’s flagship data science conference will be held at the School of Data Science Friday November 13. This year’s theme: The Future of Work, Powered by Data and People. Registration is free.
blog.stephenturner.us
Landed my first major grant within my first year back here at the University of Virginia School of Data Science! datascience.virginia.edu/news/hewlett...
Hewlett Foundation Awards $3.4M to Study AI and Biosecurity Risks — School of Data Science
Stephen Turner and colleagues received a $3.4M Hewlett Foundation grant to examine how AI benchmark scores track real-world bio lab capabilities.
datascience.virginia.edu
if your printer drivers broke on MacOS 27 (like mine did for my old trusty brother hl-l2300d), get rosetta 2. From terminal: softwareupdate --install-rosetta Remove and re-add printer.
Genesis Mission Graduate Fellowship simpler.grants.gov/opportunity/... "Submitting … machine-generated Project Narratives, may constitute academic dishonesty or research misconduct."
Opportunity Listing - Genesis Mission Graduate Fellowship Pilot
Read detailed information about this funding opportunity.
simpler.grants.gov
I'm neither a mathematician nor an AI engineer, so maybe it's best if I don't loudly join the discussion and interject my uninformed opinions about OpenAI's 700-something new math papers.
We just released Polars 2.0. It removed many of our legacy decisions makes the streaming engine our default and promotes SQL to a first class citizen within Polars. pola.rs/posts/releas...
Release of Polars 2.0
DataFrames for the new era
pola.rs
Yes,maybe it does mean that this piece wouldn’t have been published, but maybe that itself is an indicator. If you don’t care enough to put your human time into the writing, why do you care enough to say it at all?
Got near ringside seats at Lucha Libre last night in Mexico City. Impromptu decision. Hands down the most fun "sports" event I've ever been to.
Reproducibility in biomedical research www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🔓 rdcu.be/65xyNmVgEmTa
Reproducibility in biomedical research - Nature Medicine
Reproducibility is a foundational principle of trustworthy science, but reproducible research practices are not consistently implemented. This Review summarizes the current landscape including efforts...
nature.com
Academic life & discourse, biosecurity, AIxBio, creativity, peer review, Thomas Jefferson blog.stephenturner.us/p/september-...
September 2026 links
Thomas Jefferson, biosecurity, AI, creativity, peer review, academic life & discourse
blog.stephenturner.us
The human genome is part virus. And here's a virus that's part human, having picked up a human gene about 100,000 years ago. My story here: nyti.ms/4hRKNPC
This Virus Stole a Human Gene and Won’t Let Go of It (Gift Article)
Scientists have found a human gene lurking in a virus that causes skin infections. It may be using our own DNA to infect us.
nyti.ms
First time using ChatGPT/Claude + Chrome to control a browser. Filling out an incredibly annoying form using answers I compiled in a separate word doc. And doing so flawlessly. Old news I suppose, but seems like game over for the integrity of online training platforms, LMS/Canvas-based testing, etc.
Personal essay, weekend edition. My relationship with AI is changing. 1.8k words, 8 min reading time. doi.org/10.59350/bh7...
My relationship with AI is changing
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
doi.org
