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Les Carr

@lescarr.bsky.social

60 year old nerdy guy with a job researching AI and the science of online life at the University of Southampton, and a side hustle in standup comedy.

68 Posts426 Follower424 Folgt
Les Carr@lescarr.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I’ve just read There Is No Antimimetics Division, and while it was a wild ride exploring some great ideas at points I felt like I was reading The Laundry Files or even Hitchhikers Guide. Ultimately I thought that the brilliant setup left the story stranded with a cheap wish fulfilment ending. 6/10.

Les Carr@lescarr.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Just catching up on a paper about an AI system doing autonomous research. This quote from the "Limitations" section tells you everything about the AI field's current attitude to rigour - the fact that a technology isn't particularly good now is proof that it's going to be brilliant in a few years!

"That said, often in machine learning, once something begins to work (even with clear flaws), in a few short years with scale (for example, of compute and data), better core models and better techniques, the capabilities of a system become surprising and can exceed human performance levels. In assessing the impact of a technology, it is, thus, important to keep in mind its probable future trajectory."
Les Carr@lescarr.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Calling all university researchers! I’m looking for qualitative research that uses chatbots to support the research, but where AI isn’t the focus of research. I’ve trawled through hundreds of papers in Scopus and I’m tempted to conclude that AI is only ever used to write papers about AI!

Les Carr@lescarr.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Today I went to see Project Hail Mary, a film of a book that every science fiction fan seems to love. Although the plot is something about microbes eating the sun, its main focus is the hardest science question of all - can nerds have friends?

Les Carr@lescarr.bsky.social · 8mo ago

There simply isn’t enough Banjo Beale content in the world, even with the new Ulva hotel restoration series on BBC. Can I subscribe to a dedicated Grampa-the-dog cam feed? Take my money you impetuous, ambitious, visionary pair of adopted Scots!

Les Carr@lescarr.bsky.social · 8mo ago

One of my favourite holiday filmed is “Spirited” with Will Ferrell. His big song, and the question the whole movie turns on, is “Am I Forever Unredeemable”. Of course, it should have been “Am I Forever Irredeemable”, which is ironically something they can never put right.

Les Carr@lescarr.bsky.social · 8mo ago

I'm reading around on vibe coding to develop some teaching materials for my undergrads. The first book starts with a canonical example of writing an app to estimate the time to read a podcast script, based on its word count. GENUINELY who would *write an app* to solve this problem? This is insane!