Jack Aidley
@jackaidley.bsky.social
Programmer (sometimes games, currently mostly not) and former microbiologist. Brit in Germany. Likes cats, tabletop RPGs, and F1. Trans rights are human rights.
This strikes me as a category error. LLM-AIs don't have taste, judgement, or creativity. What they have is things that fulfill the same role as these capacities do in Humans. When the AI produces these analogies we mistakenly equate them but they aren't, and can't be, the same.
Ethan Mollick@emollick.bsky.social · 15h agoI find arguments that AI can't do judgement or creativity or taste to be especially obviously false in the time of agents. Any long task requires lots of taste, judgement & creativity. I am much more sympathetic to arguments about the quality or diversity of the AI's taste, judgement, or creativity
Had a few replies now insisting that it's just a question, not an accusation. But I can't help but wonder, is everyone who believes that's a valid argument mentioned in the Epstein files?
Dr Dean Burnett@drdeanburnett.bsky.social · 3d agoOnly just found out about this For the record, you don't get multiple genetic markers and one of the most effective medications known to science with 'social constructs' Channel 4, this is, in scientific parlance, an absolute fu*king disgrace that will genuinely endanger lives #c4 #ADHD
Italy confirms it has reintroduced border checks with Spain. The measure will affect flights and maritime transport, as Spain and Italy don’t have a land border. Reminder: Ceuta is subject to special rules under Schengen. None of the new arrivals has reached mainland Spain.
AI companies scanning and shredding old and rare books is bad, but you should be aware that shredding new, old, and used books is an established practice of selling and marketing books. In fact, hundreds of millions of books are shredded every year discretly, and legally, in Europe alone. #booksky
Two barn-air bacteria were linked to about two-thirds of the farm effect for asthma protection in children, tracing a path from cows' digestive tracts to receptors on airway cells. doi.org/hccxsf
Study identifies which bacteria trigger the 'farm effect' that makes children less prone to allergies
Children who grow up in a farm environment are less prone to allergies, asthma and hay fever than their classmates. This so-called farm effect has been identified in several observational studies worldwide.
medicalxpress.com
Issue Four is getting printed right now! Pre-sale copies will be posted out as soon as I can once I get them - early next week hopefully. If you’ve not already bought one, now would be a good time. Unchcrosswords.com As ever please do spread the word far & wide thanks xxx
Unch Crossword Magazine
Unch, the clued-up crossword magazine
unchcrosswords.com
Would assume everyone knows it by now, but just in case "First the traitors, then the invaders" is an explicit reference to The Turner Diaries, where a white supremacist revolution overruns "The System" and kills all their enemy during the evocatively named "Day of the Rope".
The Turner Diaries - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Sunder Katwala (sundersays)@sundersays.bsky.social · last mo.X owner Elon Musk indicates he would prioritise political violence (assassination of pro-migration politicians is the common sense meaning) over violence against "invaders" (refugees, asylum seekers, maybe ethnic minorities generally) while endorsing call for violence (killing) against both groups
I am Jack's lack of surprise.
Prof Sam Illingworth@samillingworth.com · 2w ago🧠 AI was meant to fix our bias We were promised AI would strip bias out of decisions. A new paper shows the opposite: language models absorb human cognitive distortions, then amplify them back at us. 🔗 arxiv.org/abs/2607.20695 #AI #Bias #CriticalAI 🧪
Silo season 1 & 2 were excellent. Season 3 is testing my patience. The in-Silo stuff remains good. The history lesson seems utterly misguided and mistold.
I've seen people argue LLM based AI isn't artificial intelligence. I think this is wrong. The "Artificial" in AI is performing like the "Artificial" in Artificial Christmas Tree, and in the same was as an Artificial Christmas Tree isn't a tree but looks and functions like a Christmas Tree...
On the one hand, this is genuinely jaw droppingly amazing. The difference between this and AI-generated videos even last year is astounding. On the other hand, it's so, so bad. It's the platonic ideal of the soulless generic shite that AI produces so easily.
Matt Novak@paleofuture.bsky.social · 2w agoThis is the video Musk is quote-tweeting when he says he'll deliver a feature length version of The Odyssey, just in case you were curious how dogshit it is
Like, I cannot stress this enough: in the Iliad, Achilles fights Scamander, the river god who is also the *river Scamander.* There is no historically accurate way of depicting a bronze age warrior fighting a RIVER which is also a god. "What were Bronze Age anti-river tactics?" Shush.
1. In an incredible new landmark review, the Health Council of the Netherlands has declared that gender-affirming care for trans youth works, reducing wait times is "morally urgent," and regret is rare. It is the latest of many Euro countries to advance care. Subscribe to support our journalism.
Landmark Official Dutch Review Recommends Trans Youth Care, Call For Expanding Treatment
The review finds that wait times must be shortened, that few people detransition, and that trans youth care has enormous benefits.
erininthemorning.com
Andy Burnham opts to keep Shabana Mahmood as Home Secretary. A big mistake
Another absolutely bonkers math result from a frontier LLM (announced in a tweet, no less): www.reddit.com/r/math/comme...
From the math community on Reddit: The Jacobian Conjecture is False Per Anthropic (Link in Description)
Posted by overthinker020 - 724 votes and 288 comments
reddit.com
The anatomy of an AI-supported academic article is becoming more apparent. I desk reviewed ~70 manuscripts this week for our journal. Reckon 20ish had significant AI assistance. On top of hundreds of others recently I'm starting to see patterns. Are other editors are seeing the same or similar? 1/
Starmer wasn't the worst Prime Minister of my lifetime -- I've lived through Thatcher, Cameron, Boris, Truss, and Rishi -- but he's certainly the most disappointing. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Been dancing The Morris at Chippenham Folk Festival today. Lovely time. The British folk scene is a great demonstration of how white Boomers can be easily steered away from dogshit TERFy politics simply by being around trans people who like the same things they do.
The shamelessness of a political party which is led by a man who just weeks ago called for "pure cold rage" on the streets, shortly before migrants were literally burnt out of their homes, now accusing their opponents of "stochastic terrorism" against them, is quite something
What a downright excellent human being she is.
‘No matter how bad, it is always fixable’: how Bea Elton cleans up the houses – and lives – of desperate people
She has built an unlikely career in mould, maggots and excrement, cleaning for those who most need it. It can take months building trust with a stranger, before she and her boyfriend go in and transfo...
theguardian.com
I did it I wrote the article wish me luck Lionel Messi is the GOAT, Ronaldo is not, why just about every statistical analyst agress www.expectinggoals.com/p/messi-rona...
Why Messi keeps thriving as Ronaldo fades: The GOAT's always been the best
I'm not proud, or tired
expectinggoals.com
The sub-par science of the social media ban - Part 2: What even is social media anyway? open.substack.com/pu... Part 2 of a series on the evidence behind the incoming UK social media ban asks how can you legislate about something if you won't even say what it is? #SocialMedia #Ban #politics
The sub-par science of the social media ban - Part 2: What even is social media anyway?
A series of posts that takes a deep dive into the published evidence that supposedly supports the UK government's ban on social media for under 16s, and finds it very worrying indeed
open.substack.com
Course since there's a by-election, Farage will now have to go to Clacton.
Think I'm gonna stick with my metric that the tolerable number of Nazi tattoos on a political candidate for office is zero.
Watch this. Even if you don't like football or England. Sound on.
Emily✨@emilyoram.bsky.social · last mo.I’m in absolute bits I’m so sorry if you went to bed and didn’t see this live