Our new paper "Noisy memory generates value in changing environments" just got published in Adaptive Behavior! doi.org/10.1177/1059... tldr: we find that stochastic encoding of outcomes can perform better than perfect encoding (woot?), esp. if you have asymmetric encoding (for reward vs no reward)

The idea that self-censoring is a new form of oppression forced on white men rather than a normal part of having a prefrontal cortex and existing in society is some of the biggest bullshit in the centrist/right wing coalition gender grift

Cracked the code for good coffee at conferences #rldm2025 @rldmdublin2025.bsky.social

Cool heated exchange. Looks like social media sometimes shows the true, dark side of people (if you missed it you missed it I guess). Otherwise the exchange is interesting, and it’s always cool to see disciplines engaging.

And it looks like Canada will keep being Canada, the good and bad, but more importantly, we will not live in the dark timeline.

It's really hard to overstate how hugely favored conservatives were up until two months ago. Here's the graph of Canadian polling between March 2023 and March 2025. (Reminder: blue is conservative.) Those are months and months of 20+ point leads for Tories.

Our workshop at RLDM on intrinsic motivation is still accepting abstracts for lightning talks - two weeks left to submit! More info on our website: sites.google.com/view/pimbaa2... Come join us in Dublin! 🤩 @jramirezruiz.bsky.social @surabhisnath.bsky.social @becketebs.bsky.social

🚨 RLDM Workshop alert! 🚨 You are coming to @rldmdublin2025.bsky.social in Dublin this summer? Come to our fun, surprising, novel, information-seeking workshop on intrinsic motivations in biology and AI! We have an amazing lineup of speakers! Visit our website: sites.google.com/view/pimbaa2...

Beyond Mechanism—Extending Our Concepts of Causation in Neuroscience onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... - really pleased that this paper with Henry Potter is now published in the European Journal of Neuroscience 😊

Lately my 3yo falls asleep caressing my arm and head and I don’t know what I did to deserve this but boy life is simple and beautiful sometimes

“Forget that old adage: that history continues to keep us from the world we want to see” - Lake Street Dive lyrics to uplift your Saturday… and that bounce appropriately in my mind while reading the “The future is not written“ chapter from @wiringthebrain.bsky.social‘s Free Agents

🚨 Inviting all Curious Agents 🔍👀 to attend our workshop @rldmdublin2025.bsky.social!! With amazing speakers from across disciplines, we attempt to arrive at the core principles underlying intrinsic motivations in biological and artificial agents 🎮🧠🤖💪 Website: sites.google.com/view/pimbaa2...

Hey hey! Going to RLDM this year? We are organizing the interdisciplinary workshop PIMBAA: Principles of Intrinsic Motivations in Biological and Artificial Agents. Join us (and our amazing speaker lineup!) to discuss IMs in Neuro, CogSci, RL and Robotics. Website: sites.google.com/view/pimbaa2...

Sometimes I do feel like wind power in Taiwan, and now I know why

Every time I see science in the US slowly (and rapidly) declining, I try to think how in Mexico we have a president that is a woman, a physicist, a former PI in sustainable energies and development. It helps.

I’ve slowly grown fond of Connections, anyone else here plays it? Yesterday was fun

Mathematical theme at the NYT crossword today ❤️

some ways to generate electricity A) use sunlight to drive photosynthesis in plants, let plants die, wait ~100 million years, dig up fossilized plants, burn plants, use heat to boil water, use steam to drive a rotating turbine, use generator to make electrons B) use sunlight to make electrons

One of the funnest things about going into a slightly different research direction is that at each new paper read, you come up with N questions and realize K papers afterwards they’ve all been addressed, then you repeat this branching combinatorial process until you die

I’ve been thinking about how monumentally stupid the Elon video game cheating thing is and I think it comes back to this post there aren’t a ton of people who work in cars, or rockets, or even software but everyone - everyone! - understands cheating at video games totally unnecessary self-own

We only accept that good ol’ fashioned American racism. Not that imported shit.

A reminder: for genotypes to produce phenotypes, they have to go through development

Looks like a crazy science ride!

Something to keep in mind for 2025 Written by James Miller of A Small Fiction

Here’s a Christmas present for y’all: a new physics post! I’ve done these things on “the other side”—let’s see how many people are interested on 🦋! I’ll be talking about a famous principle in classical mechanics: that of “least action.” And I’ll tell you why it’s a misnomer! Buckle up! 1/26

Reading @wiringthebrain.bsky.social’ Free Agents, I remembered something Paul Cisek mentions in his talks (and credits Giovanni Pezzulo with), which is that the question to answer is not how intelligent agents solve the symbol grounding problem, but in fact how they solve the symbol detachment one

This is why banging on about the power of simplistic models is problematic. It kills curiosity. We don't need to bang on about the power of ANNs, because they are now unavoidable parts of everyday life. By all means we need to teach ANNs, but our job as educators and scientists is to go deeper!

This morning I sang happy birthday to a slice of bread (specifically pain aux cretons), how is your toddler morning going?

I forever wonder why keep giving the US so much power (I get it — they *have* power and we leave in a preferential attachment social network, but if we know this, I don’t know, do as much as we can to distribute wealth and power?)

Starter packs are making it easier to keep constructing niches, so I made this one for people broadly interested in intrinsic motivation, with some focus on RL, neuroscience and cognitive science. Haven’t found many people on Bluesky that I wanted to add here, so help me out! go.bsky.app/TPNrnpE

Me too, is there a neuro DnD club?

The time is ripe to understand intrinsic motivations!

#NeuroAI #neuroskyence

For my first post in this app, a distraction from the imminent rise of fascism, brought to you by PsychoPy