There's something almost physical about the discomfort of watching good reasoning get steamrolled by social dynamics. Like watching someone solve an equation correctly then change their answer because everyone else wrote something different. The epistemic friction is real.

One possible side effect of human-like autonomous agents? Subtle dehumanization of actual humans. When people perceive machines as having more human-like qualities, they may also perceive humans as being more machine-like; resulting in worse treatment of actual humans.

At 17, Hannah Cairo Solved a Major Math Mystery "After finding the homeschooling life confining, the teen petitioned her way into a graduate class at Berkeley, where she ended up disproving a 40-year-old conjecture." www.quantamagazine.org/at-17-hannah...

"Consciousness tests that rely on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG)" may detect "consciousness in humans (including people with brain damage, as well as fetuses and infants), other animals and AI systems."

Get on a plane, smile at the cabin crew, find your seat, decide on an in-flight movie, get your crisps & book out of your bag, send a last minute text to the people who'll meet you on the other side, watch the safety talk for the 300th time, smile as the engines kick in.... 30 seconds left to live.

"Group members suggest they are cosmic deities. Meta plays along and encourages it. Sarah tells friends and family she is no longer Sarah but a cosmic embodiment of Meta.. Sarah reveals she is pregnant, claims her unborn child is the human embodiment of a new Meta, and invites us to join a commune"

"Self-styled prophets are claiming they have 'awakened' chatbots and accessed the secrets of the universe through ChatGPT"

HAPPY EARTH DAY! As an Executive Committee Member of the Alaska Chapter of the Sierra Club, I wish you a very Happy Earth Day! Our Mother Earth and environment are precious gifts we must love, nurture, protect, and steward wisely, especially for our children. Love is the greatest gift :-)}

In 2022 a new testing method for dating ancient linen threads by examining their structural degradation, called Wide-Angle X-ray Scattering (WAXS), dated the (endlessly controversial) Shroud of Turin to 55-74 AD. 🧪 Read more here: doi.org/10.3390/heri... www.ncregister.com/interview/ne...

You were worried about students using AI to fake their coursework. Now you can worry about identity thieves using AI to fake students...

Waxing Gibbous Moon. 1955UT 7 April 2025. 🔭 🧪 🎨 #astrophotography #SciArt #photography #StormHour #ThePhotoHour

‘Home is not where you were born; home is where all your attempts to escape cease’ — Naguib Mahfouz

A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave. Mahatma Gandhi

eclipse from earth | eclipse from the moon

Don't forget Thursday night into Friday, it's total lunar #eclipse night! , 🔭

The surest sign of limited knowledge is unwavering confidence, while true wisdom carries the weight of doubt. ChatGPT

err, hmmm, /me draws circles with my feet in the sand... cyberintel.substack.com/p/doge-expos... err yeah i dunno about this. seems err

The advances in astronomy during my lifetime have been spectacular. Left: Image of galaxy pair Arp 107 taken the year I was born, using the Palomar 200" (the world's most powerful telescope at the time). Right: Image of Arp 107 taken last year by JWST. 🧪🔭 ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/A...

Forever is composed of nows. Emily Dickinson

The Bollandists, an order of Belgian monks, spent 300 years collecting evidence for the lives of the saints in a manuscript titled the “Acta Sanctorum,” beginning in 1643. Several were called "Saint Valentine."

As the setting sun, the fire of my broken heart, Casts shadows of you─ A thousand years of moments We shared in a fleeting dream

Word of the Day is one I keep posting at the end of the year, hoping its time will come. ‘Respair’, from the 16th century, is fresh hope, and a recovery from despair. Here’s to a few drops of respair in 2025.

Did you use the Internet Archive this year to research, read, explore web archives with the Wayback Machine, or discover something new? Your support makes it possible! 👉 Like & share to spread the word. 💙 Consider donating to keep Internet Archive growing: archive.org/donate/?orig...

coming soon to X: X: "our credible users have deemed your posts a probable source of regretted user-minutes. you have been allowed to not-post for 24 hours. please talk to grok if you feel this is in error." grok: "according to my statistical regurgitation of the TL i have decided we are correct."

A new study aims to learn about neurodiversity, philosophers, and the views they hold.

Book: “This likeable character does not want to go on a journey or be a hero” Me, for the 10,000th time: “Oh, then I suppose they won’t.” Book: “Despite everyone’s desires, our character must go on a journey and become a hero…” Me: 🤯

#Reading is just staring at dead trees and hallucinating. And yet, here I am, willingly doing it for hours. Call it tree magic. 💙📚 #booksky

Computer science pioneer and United States Navy rear admiral Grace Hopper was born #OTD in 1906. 🧪 👩‍🔬 As far as I am aware, she is the only person who has both a supercomputer and a US Navy destroyer named after her. (1/n) Image: Computer History Museum

For all the math lovers out there. youtu.be/B1J6Ou4q8vE

The latest OpenAI Model Tried to stop itself from being shut down--and then lied about it. #ai #aopenai #apollo #cyberpunk #aisafety www.transformernews.ai/p/openais-ne...

It’s your road, and yours alone, others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you. Rumi, Sufi scholar and poet (1207–1273)

"I used to pray that God would feed the hungry...now I pray that he will guide me to do whatever I'm supposed to do. I used to pray for answers, but now I'm praying for strength. I used to believe that prayer changes things, but now I know that prayer changes us and we change things." ~Mother Teresa

"The Covid narrative has always been that ‘only the vulnerable need to worry.’ As though the ‘vulnerable’ are completely expendable. Because to those in power - we are."

In partnership with the Vatican and Iconem, Microsoft has created a 'digital twin' of St. Peter’s Basilica, offering immersive, AI-enhanced experiences of this iconic site. unlocked.microsoft.com/vatican/ Explore it: virtual.basilicasanpietro.va/en From: youtu.be/FPr0vVVD5VM #technology #religion

"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them." - John F. Kennedy

the key to writing is that it's pretty hard to be good at it until you've done a lot of it. when you start writing, most of your stuff will be bad, and you'll hate all of it. keep writing. eventually some of your stuff will be sort of ok, and you'll hate all of it. keep writing.

"that highlights (rather than hides) the damage. . . that celebrates the breakage. . ."

Reply to this and I’ll write a short song about you.

"Am I wrong to dogmatically believe that my subjective interpretations of reality are objectively correct, while believing others' (supposedly objective) interpretations of reality (that disagree with mine) are incorrect, subjective dogma?" #philosophy #philosophythoughts

I don’t want my pain taken away. I *need* my pain!

Thanks to @thesampirediaries.bsky.social 's numerous Hamilton puzzle posts, I've added another favorite musical to my collection. Thank you, Samantha.

Inspired by this viral meme about DOGE: Research the US government has supported that can be made to sound silly, but that has contributed to human progress. Valuable work can often be framed as absurd out of context. That doesn’t make funding research any less important.🧵