No longer content with pillaging intellectual work and dismembering our environment (already critically weakened), AI companies are now hellbent on destroying books galore including rare editions. Shut down these nefarious enterprises already.

AI labs buy, scan, shred millions of rare books

If you have retreated to physical books because the internet is too full of AI slop, bad news — now they’re shredding the books to feed their AI slop machines.

news.com.au

Hey #sociologists and #sts scholars! We've been teaching Merton's norms of science wrong for decades!! They're not lofty misstaken descriptions, but a prescription for state funded science to avoid Nazism! More relevant than ever today. My latest with @nataliebaviles.bsky.social #academicsky

Dan Hirschman@asociologist.bsky.social · 3w ago

"Reading Merton’s writing on norms in science as a prescriptive text, not a descriptive one, makes visible his desire to counter the active dismantlement of prestigious and powerful scientific institutions in Nazi Germany." @nataliebaviles.bsky.social & @cyberlyra.bsky.social

More works coming out about the relation between brain energy efficiency and AI. @meganakpeters.bsky.social is also a contributor to quite a nice commentary for @phaueis.eurosky.social and my BBS target article on "Metabolic considerations for cognitive modeling".

megan peters 🧠@meganakpeters.bsky.social · 2w ago

I am *thrilled* to share this review in @currentbiology.bsky.social out today, by yours truly, @myoo.bsky.social, @michalk.bsky.social, Taro Toyoizumi, @tyrellturing.bsky.social, @taylorwwebb.bsky.social, & @hakwan.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... 🧵👇

Writing a series of long blog posts about brain rhythms, fields, and related topics. To work through some ideas & difficult papers, correct some things I said earlier, note disagreements, and so on. Two posts so far. 1. metazoan.net/132-rhythms-1/ 2. metazoan.net/133-rhythms-2/

The elephants see right through this, and look offended we think they're so stupid as not to

Digital Brain@yourdigitalbrain.bsky.social · 3w ago

BBC engineers built robo-cameras disguised as dung heaps to film wildlife at distances no human crew could ever get close enough to reach.

New preprint (well, very updated). 🤖🧠🧪 We find that an abstract model of neuromodulation lets spiking neural networks perform much better, particularly in challenging noisy environments, using less energy. Relevant to #neuroscience and #neuromorphic computing. 🧵👇 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Neuromodulation enhances the capability and efficiency of spiking neural networks

Spiking neurons underlie the brain’s extreme energy efficiency, and therefore have great potential in neuromorphic computing, although realising this efficiency in practice has proven challenging. We ...

biorxiv.org

Hi all We are starting to post the videos of the "Beyond Computationalism" event on Youtube. You can find them here www.youtube.com/@faridzahnoun1 #philmind #philsci #philsky #philpsy #neurosky #neuroskyence

Marco Facchin@marcofacchin.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Still two weeks to submit your abstract for our Beyond Neurocomputationalism workshop (Antwerp 4-5 June). Keynote Speakers include Kate Nave, Romain Brette, Vicente Raja, Matteo Mossio, Mazviita Chirimuuta & Alicia Juarrero! Info below! #philmind #philsci #philsky #philpsy #neurosky #neuroskyence

How to write a philosophy of neuroscience paper: 1. choose a narrow neuroscience definition 2. argue why the concept is much more complex 3. profit #neuroscience #neuroskyence #consci #philsci 🧪

It was a great honor and pleasure to host Nancy Cartwright in Bielefeld. In her lecture at the Institute for Studies of Science „In Defense of Ambiguity“ - that we need polysemous terms to study things we care about, like „poverty“, which has different meanings/measures in different contexts (1/2)

Learning makes the brain more efficient: "post-learning fuel cost per task was significantly lower than pre-learning levels... [due to] a reduction in intracellular glucose consumption" www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... I mean, this isn't surprising, but nice to confirm it!

Learning Shapes the Energy Cost of Neural Tasks

The stark difference in energy use between AI systems and biological brains highlights both the remarkable efficiency of the brain and our limited understanding of the energetics underlying neural com...

biorxiv.org

Did you know octopuses are technically colorblind? 🌈 One photoreceptor, no color vision, should only see in grayscale. So how are they perfect color matching camouflage artists? 🐙 A thread 🧵 (with sources at the end, of course 😋) 🦑🐡

Science coverage of this open letter with quotes from @bayesianboy.bsky.social @cailinmeister.bsky.social Craig Callender, Matthew Liao @naomioreskes.bsky.social and me. Journals, the ball is in your court now.

Philosophers call for their journals to require conflict of interest disclosures

A new petition urges greater transparency amid growing ties to AI and other companies

science.org

Anna Alexandrova@annaalexandrova.bsky.social · last mo.

Signed as soon as I read it. True, some philosophers will cheerlead for free (due to their tech optimism or with the expectation of funding later) and such behaviour is not covered by the proposed policy. But it would still be useful to be able to detect some cheerleading worth discounting.

Finishing an exciting workshop on concepts and normativity today @iphilluh.bsky.social with a commentary response format: seen here are my comments on Bryce Huebner‘s work on dynamic views of concepts and minds, discussing great work by @smellosopher.bsky.social amongst many others! #cogsci #philsky

The Philosophy department at Exeter is exceptional. It has both a concentration of world leading researchers in the philosophy of the biological and cognitive sciences, and a unique departmental profile in the UK. It would be a catastrophic loss to the UK philosophy scene.

Ben Phillips@benphillips1989.bsky.social · last mo.

A statement from Exeter UCU branch @ucu.org.uk - please share far and wide.

Millions of copyrighted songs were fed to AI music generators - now there's proof Suno and rivals are being sued for $150k per song. A sum that would bankrupt these companies and set an important precedent.

Millions of Copyrighted Songs Were Fed to AI Music Generators – Now There's Proof

Millions of copyrighted songs trained AI music generators, and new searchable databases from The Atlantic now confirm which tracks were used.

gadgetreview.com

Has anyone tested the hypothesis that the brain has a 'code'?

Scott Horton@robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 3mo ago

The human brain continues to defy the expectations of researchers. “It absolutely defied all of our expectations. This was so surprising that my whole project changed.” This phenomenon could have far-reaching implications, and is leaving neuroscientists baffled. go.nature.com/3RPAhhc

I am organizing a symposium accepted for #PSA26 titled: A "metabolic turn" in studying cognition and computation With: @khoudary.bsky.social @jtheriault.bsky.social Mazviita Chirimuuta Myself (presenting work with @phaueis.bsky.social) #philsci, #cogsci, #philsky See yinz in San Diego

Tomorrow, I give a talk on "Metabolism and the Medium of Cognition" at this event: This is work with @phaueis.bsky.social #philsci, #cogsci, #neuroskyence, #philsky www.uantwerpen.be/en/research-...

Conference tour next episode: today I presented joint work with @davidcolaco.bsky.social on metabolism and cognition, and what is means for notions of medium (in)dependence of computation. Conclusion: we need better definitions of these views, to know whether metabolism influences computation! (1/2)

We have a great interdisciplinary MA program at TU Berlin! Check it out and spread the word! #philosophie #geschichte #literatur #studieren #Berlin Theory and History of Science and Technology (MA-TGWT) www.tu.berlin/en/hpstl/stu...

Study Theory and History of Science and Technology at TU Berlin!

Science and Technology through the lens of Philosophy, History and Literature

tu.berlin

Big day today: I completed the final step to get the Habilitation, the highest academic title in German academia. Besides a version of my book as the written portion, I talked about mathematical models of metabolism and cognition (in German). I’m officially a „Privatdozent“ now 🤓🧠 #philsky #philsci

ja fragt euch mal

heck yeah i am excited for this workshoptoknowsciencethought

Institute of Philosophy LUH@iphilluh.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Reminder: In June, #ForumWissenschaftsreflexion will open its doors. We are excited to move into our new research building dedicated to the #ScienceOfScience, and want to celebrate with you! For this purpose, we are hosting our Inaugural Conference from June 17-19. #PhilSci #HPS #SocSky #STS

The price of mass surveillance: "Data centers are so hot their ‘heat island’ effect is raising temperatures up to 6 miles away and impacting 343 million people worldwide". #ClimateSky fortune.com/2026/04/01/a...

Data centers are so hot their ‘heat island’ effect is raising temperatures up to 6 miles away | Fortune

Researchers warn these “heat islands” could have a “remarkable influence on communities and regional welfare,” and affect more than 340 million people.

fortune.com

The goose in the machine.

False Knees@falseknees.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Continuing my presentation tour, I talked about work from my book project “The Conceptual Fabric of Science” @lmu-mcmp.bsky.social. I combine cognitive linguistics and my own patchwork approach to scientific concepts to argue that polysemy in science has communicative and epistemic value (1/2)

I had a great time presenting my work on comparing biological and artificial cognitive systems at the PAIR (Philosophy and AI Research) at FAU Erlangen Nürnberg today! Based on the joint BBS target article with @davidcolaco.bsky.social, I ask (1/2)

New peer-reviewed paper w/ @mheilbron.bsky.social, @predictivebrain.bsky.social & Jakub Szewczyk! Pre-onset brain encoding has been taken as evidence that brains–like LLMs–predict upcoming words. We show that the same signatures arise in systems that cannot predict. (elifesciences.org) (1/8)

I always assumed that brain function had to line up with cytoarchitectonics. It turns out I was wrong. Human cortex, especially PFC, is tiled by chains of functional patches that subdivide and interlink architectonic areas into parallel processing streams. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...