Sixty years ago, Jennie Lee's vision created The Open University 🎓 Welcoming all backgrounds, millions have started life-changing journeys. #OUfamily #TheOpenUniversity #OU60 💙
Stuart Watt
@morungos.bsky.social
Cognitive/social scientist and occasional coder. Umquhile Mancunian. Purveyor of Jurassic Park memes. Writes on modernization and technology. Consciously uncoupling from corporate shenanigans. Halifax, Nova Scotia https://morungos.com/
I know I wrote it, but I truly think this should be a massive story The Secretary of Defense told an AI company to remove its bot's moral guardrails so it can operate surveillance and lethal weapons autonomously When warned that could endanger our own troops, he didn't care
Dom Ervolina@dominicervolina.com · 7mo agoOn Tuesday, Hegseth summoned Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei to the Pentagon for what was described as a "make-or-break" meeting Anthropic has until the end of the week to lift its usage restrictions on mass surveillance and murder or face severe consequences prolib.substack.com/p/the-pentag...
I read this and I am glad I’m not an academic any more. It feels like the entire nature of academia, a community, curiosity, inquiry, all of that has been replaced by a drive for productivity, strength, impact. Quality is no longer usefulness, it is a constantly shifting set of metrics.
Jessica Hullman@jessicahullman.bsky.social · 7mo agoAI makes continuous reproducibility and robustness testing trivial. What happens to science under new levels of scrutiny and stress-testing by default? Some thoughts on how this could play out, informed by watching open science play out over the last decade.
This.👇👏 How can we have a sense of achievement, of fulfillment, without working for it? We cannot self-actualize for free.
Dr Savoy234Ever@savoy234ever.bsky.social · 7mo ago“Cognitive psychology has shown that students grow intellectually through doing the work of drafting, revising, failing, trying again, grappling with confusion, and revising weak arguments. This is the work of learning how to learn” phys.org/news/2026-02...
This looks like an *AMAZING* event! First, COGS and Sussex does outstanding cog sci work. Second, Andy Clark's ideas have blown my mind, positively, on many occasions. I rate his work extremely highly. Third, workshops are awesome to develop good research communities. (And I hate conferences).
Fluffy Cyborg, IInd of the name@avel.kairos-research.org · 7mo ago1/6 Excited to share the call for posters & registration for the 2nd XSCAPE Workshop: "Varieties of Externalism" ! 📅 Friday, April 10th, 2026 — Gallery Room, Bramber House, University of Sussex Registration is free but places are limited. 🧵
Maybe I am naive, but “AI-fueled growth” puzzles me. Generally automation doesn’t do growth — especially when you are already hyperscale. It may cut costs, usually by transferring them, e.g., to consumers. But… growth? Someone will have to explain that to me. It sounds all hopey-wishy.
Stacie Smith (She/Her) 🇨🇦 🏒 🧠 ⚾️@stacesmith94.bsky.social · 7mo agoAmazon surpasses Walmart in annual revenue for first time, as both chase AI-fueled growth
Dude who wrote about how "the left is missing out on AI" is on here. Do you see who they are funded by? The biggest EA funders, the longtermist institutes we've been writing about and documenting, including FLI where Muskrat is still an advisor.
Specifically on this point of next-token prediction, as someone who’s studied this with eye-tracking, people are *not* next-token readers. They skim text. Eyes saccade. Even 1970s AI folks knew this, and old reading systems like DeJong’s FRUMP explored much more plausible mechanisms of reading.
Dr Abeba Birhane@abeba.blacksky.app · 7mo agothis argument asks the reader to reframe human intelligence/cognition in machinic terms flipping the default/baseline from which intelligence is measured/understood to machines. basically reducing human cognition to mere neural connection, making erroneous comparisons & inflating llm capabilities 6/
Ooh, while I’m at it, though, I should also tell you all that @nimbuspub.bsky.social is publishing a 10th Anniversary Edition of 100 Things You Don’t Know About Nova Scotia in April! And just to show how long ago it’s really been since my very first book was published, here’s an old interview!
100 things you don’t know about Nova Scotia | Watch News Videos Online
Watch 100 things you don’t know about Nova Scotia Video Online, on GlobalNews.ca
globalnews.ca
In its more horrific method of retribution, the mob will sometimes dress victims as mimes, place them in glass boxes, and let them perish slowly in full view of the public.
The self-own here is staggeringly remarkable. You genuinely have to know nothing you are talking about to say something like this.
Part of me says, well, duh! Another part says even this is missing the point, which is that this is simply an intrinsic property of a language model. The maths talk is all “it’s not our fault”, when it definitely is their fault. They knew this all along. They just didn’t care.
Prof Mike Yearworth@mikeyearworth.bsky.social · 12mo ago"In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limits." www.computerworld.com/article/4059...
Obvious caveats apply for something off Reddit, but this is at least a plausible thing to happen. I have a feeling we’ll see more, better documented cases that executives want to keep quiet bubble out if the business press over the next year.
I wish I could be this optimistic. I am not. Big tech is now more or less imperialist, in the sense that it transitioned from enabling innovation to wholesale acquisition of other sectors of the economy. It is *entirely* monopolistic, and, simply, does not tolerate competition.
Anil Dash@anildash.com · 7mo agoI just wrote about this as a sort of “software factory” anildash.com/2026/02/11/c...
The list of things council is considering cutting in order to keep taxes “flat” is insane. (From Sam Austin’s website). Call your councillor and tell them you won’t support them if they support these cuts.
Preparations in hand for another batch of gluten free beer. It will be DARK. Brew day will be tomorrow.
Late-stage capitalism in an era of mass surveillance means a competing doorbell-camera company ALREADY has a parody ad up of that wretched Ring Super Bowl ad -- and, ngl, it's pretty good: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROFb... (h/t @melanie-ensign.bsky.social)
Definitely Only for Dogs: Ring's Superbowl Commercial (Parody)
YouTube video by Wyze
youtube.com
"The true genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction." ~ Samuel Johnson
Waffle 🧇@wafflecut.bsky.social · 7mo ago“I’ve reviewed over 50 sticky toffee puddings” is an incredibly powerful way to begin a video
"“Of course, people go, ‘Wow, a ticket for killing somebody.’ It’s like, ‘Yeah, but it’s not murder. So quit clutching your pearls.’ ” - a retired police officer. Wow. signalhfx.ca/halifax-pede...
Most Halifax drivers who kill pedestrians face no criminal charges
signalhfx.ca
This black-and-white warbler worked on swallowing this bug for quite a while. #BirdOfTheDay #Birds&Bugs #birds #birdphotography #nature #naturephotography
Air Canada I understand we’re approaching Valentine’s Day but I simply don’t think an airline should advertise its sales with “fares worth falling for”
For 150 years, Africville, sitting right next to Halifax, was a thriving Black Canadian community. Halifax refused to provide city services, and eventually forced residents to move as they bulldozed their homes. This is the story of that community. 🧵1/12
It might just be me, but this sounds suspiciously like the bros are about rediscover support vector machines.
bxbx4.bsky.social@bxbx4.bsky.social · 7mo agoI'm a huge fan of this idea of vectors www.wired.com/story/hyperd...
It wasn't the best sun halo yesterday, but good enough for a show.
