Several cool people doing important stuff.

I.e., because LLMs are correctly described as doing one thing (imitating conversations from the training set, predicting the next word) they can't correctly be described as doing anything else (understanding). compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Placing strict limits on what instructors can teach, what topics students are allowed to write on, and what research is allowed, sure doesn’t sound like free speech to me, but what do I know?

Much to say here, but let’s start with the fact that the jobs most impacted by AI currently are in finance, computer science, and business. This is classic divide and conquer style propaganda, and the Alex Karp’s of the world are using wedge-issue misogyny to normalize shrinking the middle class.

Frankenstein citations are now a structural risk. 2.6% of major CS conferences papers in 2025 were found to have at least one fake reference. Publishers are now wrestling with whether these "inexistent bolts" require a simple correction or a full retraction. #AcademicSky

Aspired to post more on bluesky to meet other cool academics, but slowly realizing all I do is read and bake in my spare time. Anyways, getting started on the reading for fun part of my night with some Proust.

Guys I made another one (this time, raspberry blackberry and ginger)

Some lighter reading for today.

Red States: We're going to cut all the programs that don't support our theology Blue States: We're going to cut the same programs, but because they don't support the business school

I have a tendency to stress-bake. This week’s fixation is galettes. Particularly, creating a recipe that can use unthawed, frozen fruit. This one wasn’t pretty, *but* it tasted good, and the filling actually firmed up (it didn’t become blueberry soup!)

A broad question: How do you reliably “check” students work for AI generated writing if human and AI speech patterns are rapidly converging?

Anyways, on to the next one (Swann's Way by Proust). Wish me luck because I’ve read the first two sentences several times over the years and given up. It’s the second one that always gets me (Ha ha).

My spring break *treat* was finishing Dostoyevsky’s Notes From the Underground. It was utterly bleak. But also very funny. Example:

Are female economists treated differently than males in academic seminars? These authors wanted to know whether gender shapes how scholars are treated when presenting research. So they built a massive dataset of 2,000+ economics seminars, job talks, and conference presentations from 2019–2023...

I do want to shout-out my fellow sociologists, who have collectively created a discipline so woke that not a single one of our introductory textbooks can make it past Florida's censors. Great work everyone.

Been thinking about the Wittgenstein's lectures on the foundations of mathematics recently (I’m woefully under informed). A shot in the dark, but does anyone here have special opinions on the idea of surveyability of proofs (particularly as it comes up in Hilbert, Turing, and Wittgenstein...)?

Amazing talk by Sally Haslanger @shaslang.bsky.social on "Social systems & their micro, meso, & macro interactions'' @ucisocsci.bsky.social & dinner afterwards with Ari Koslow, Tori Cotton @wittgencism.bsky.social, Cailin O’Connor @cailinmeister.bsky.social & Kate Ritchie @kateritch.bsky.social !!!

“At the forefront of AI thought thought leadership leadership,” lol.

Anyways, 🫳🎤

If we accept that certain topics can be erased entirely, it won’t stop with this one issue. it will spread to whatever happens to be unpopular next.

Universities are meant to be spaces for dialogue and exploration, where you meet and learn from people with all kinds of different ideas than you, not places where ideas are policed.

Higher education is supposed to challenge students to think critically and to grapple with ideas they might disagree with. If we start banning every topic that someone finds uncomfortable, we will be left with nothing but a hollow shell of what was once an education.

Let’s go a step further. Even if you personally disagree with gender studies, consider: even if a professor chooses to teach gender theory to adult college students, that is precisely what academic freedom is for!

Regardless of your personal beliefs, the idea that a professor could lose their job simply for discussing a topic should be deeply concerning. When we start erasing entire subjects because they don’t fit a current political narrative, we risk losing valuable knowledge and forgetting our own history.

First, there are times when a teacher simply covers certain topics because they are part of the subject matter. Teaching about gender identity doesn’t necessarily mean endorsing any particular position. It’s about presenting information. You know, teaching?

A Texas A&M processor was fired for teaching about gender identity in the classroom. I’d like, for a moment, to talk about why this should be alarming to anyone—regardles of where you stand personally or politically. 🧵🪡

Putting artificial intelligence on overcooked steak is our future

In less than one week, many Americans will no longer be able to apply for Social Security benefits over the phone, setting the stage for disruptions and upheaval. Nearly 6 million seniors live more than 46.6 miles, roundtrip, from a field office, per a new analysis. trib.al/5XSPqyL

Are you a woman who changed your name when you got married? Congress is considering a bill that could make it much harder for you to vote. Call your rep—this is not a drill. indivisible.org/resource/cal...

I feel like my relationship to bluesky is that we seem to log in, go “wow I wish everybody was on this app” and then forget to log on for a month. But we’re basically all on here? Just… logging on at different times of the month?

So which part of America are we trying to 'make great' again? Say you ignore all of the public benefits of federally funded scientific R&D (because screw the common good, amirite?), can you really afford to willfully ignore the economic gain in being a global leader in research?