Yet again, machine learning — even gussied up via the transformer architecture — encodes and reinforces societal biases. This study reveals that LLM-based peer review relies heavily on author institution in its decisions. arxiv.org/abs/2509.15122

Meanwhile in Seattle....

For anyone interested, should Humpy the Salmon (0 W, 52 L) win the Salmon Run during the Mariners' final home stand, I'm willing and able to arrange a private meeting for $50,000 in unmarked US bills Just sayin'.

Our mistake when we wrote _Calling Bullshit_ was to assume that people would deliberately abuse the flexibility of quantitative metrics to mislead. We devoted inadequate attention to people making up complete and utter nonsense with no possible grounding in fact.

I'm probably late to the party here but has anyone else noticed that the US vaccine-finder website vaccines.gov is now broken?

All hype about the power of facilitating "human-AI collaboration" aside, we don't quickly implement extremely strong norms of disclosure around AI use, science is cooked. From arxiv.org/pdf/2509.12282, one of many many efforts in this direction.

I have to keep this deliberately vague, but this is a total disaster for academic research. And imposing it so suddenly is just cruel. I’ve got friends scrambling to get back to the US before midnight tonight. Do you know how hard that is to do on 36 hours of notice?

I cannot overstate how remarkable it is that under GOP rule, US federal health regulations have been captured by fringe crackpots who espouse views that the vast majority of the US public—and nearly 100% of health professionals—reject. Gift link:

ANALYSIS In shattering Rubén Tejada's leg and effectively ending his career with a slide that would have made Ty Cobb blush, Chase Utley may have crossed the boundaries of good sportsmanship.

I think the wifi might be messed up. Back to you, Mark.

I like this. Since under RFK Jr, Covid shots are now for people with underlying conditions that put them at risk, Michigan’s chief medical executive Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian states that not having the most recent Covid shot constitutes such an underlying condition. www.michigan.gov/mdhhs/inside...

OK, there’s nominative determinism—and then there’s what the ever-loving fuck is even going on?

Larrabee State Park, WA

Looks like I posted this a day too early.

Northwest Washington friends: I'm going to be giving a public talk tomorrow at the Bellingham Cruise Terminal at 6 PM, speaking about AI and large language models. Are they bullshit machines or modern-day oracles? Come out and join us. www.wnps.org/calendar/sal...

And it says, here That we can only stop the rot With a large dose of law and order And a touch of the short sharp shock If this does not reflect your view you should understand That those who own the papers also own this land

OK this title is absolutely wild, but half way in I've got say I'm kind of digging the paper. At the very least I need to go read Serres. philpapers.org/archive/OTTA...

Oh man, thank you CNN. It's been a heck of a day and I really needed the laugh.

Anyone remember David Blackwell‘s silent duel game?

1. What does a Cold War-era game theory problem known as the silent duel have to do with high-risk research strategies, publication in Cell/Nature/Science glamor journals, and the academic job market? Kevin Gross and I tackle these questions in our latest arXiv preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2509.06718

Best post of 2025 to date.

That's an AI image of Paris, you ketamine-addled assclown.

Share favorite covers for a timeline cleanse: Margo Timmins (Cowboy Junkies) covering Lucinda Williams. www.youtube.com/watch?v=wusD...

1. What does a Cold War-era game theory problem known as the silent duel have to do with high-risk research strategies, publication in Cell/Nature/Science glamor journals, and the academic job market? Kevin Gross and I tackle these questions in our latest arXiv preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2509.06718

OK, so I’m not like a shrinkage management professional, but it seems to me that locking up the most perishable, least resellable, least comfortable-to-stuff-down-your-pants thing in the store might not be optimal, Safeway.

Jevin @jevinwest.bsky.social I had a great time talking with the @twit.tv crew about our online course (thebullshitmachines.com) on how to live, learn, and thrive in an AI world. Our interview is the first 45 minutes. Thank you very much for having us, and delighted that y'all liked it.

These people make more in a day, an hour, even in a minute than I do in a year. But never in my 30+ year career have I had to do something a thousandth as degrading as what you see here.

Simpering cowards one and all. This is almost unbearable to watch.

Whether we like it or not, AI is here and not going anywhere. The excellent colleagues behind @callingbullshit.bsky.social (@jevinwest.bsky.social & @carlbergstrom.com) now have a great resource to help us understand AI and how to deal with it. Highly recommended! thebullshitmachines.com/index.html

Everyone knows he's crazy and no one takes anything he posts seriously but declaring war on Chicago is next level.

A favorite George W Bush joke: He's driving across town and Laura calls his cell. "George, honey, I just watched the news and there's a wrong way driver on the Beltway. Be careful!" "One wrong way driver? Every goddamn person on this highway is going the wrong direction." Anyway, Nate Silver:

A favorite George W Bush joke: He's driving across town and Laura calls his cell. "George, honey, I just watched the news and there's a wrong way driver on the Beltway. Be careful!" "One wrong way driver? Every goddamn person on this highway is going the wrong direction." Anyway, Nate Silver:

Will this article mark the moment that balding forty-something consultants in business class airport lounges notice how fucking ridiculous The Economist is?

WTF, ants?

@carlbergstrom.com and I have a piece on how to think the risks and benefits of LLMs for things like peer review. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

I have deleted a post about what I thought was excessive sane-washing of RFK Jr. at the New York Times. I still think it was excessive sane-washing, but torrent of venom directed at the reporter in my replies was akin to what we dealt with daily at Twitter during the start of the pandemic.

This looks amazing and I’ll be watching the videos myself.

Mordor.

Gift link.

"Alarm" to say the least. Fascist fucks.

Peak Rockies. I've seen kids throw fists harder than that in coach-pitch.

I'm so disappointed. A hundred birds and not a single ambiguous pair (flycatchers, dowitchers, scaups, etc). So much for scratching out the names and trolling my birding friends with paired cards. 🪶

Nine former CDC directors, from Bill Foege onward, speak out about the incalculable harm that RFK, Jr. is doing to public health in the US and around the world. Gift link.

Almost forty years ago – as long as ill-fated Sarah has lived without her dead gunslinger in the song — I first heard Norman and Nancy Blake performing Billy Gray. It's a near-perfect song, a song that is difficult to believe was written in the late 20th century rather than the late 19th.

Perhaps most stimulating paper I've read this year explores the economic consequences of attention being scarce, rivalrous, cognitive, and volitional. Reading it while listening to the Tony Rice Unit and drinking a lovely Jester King beer gets rather meta as my attention splits among them.

Perhaps most stimulating paper I've read this year explores the economic consequences of attention being scarce, rivalrous, cognitive, and volitional. Reading it while listening to the Tony Rice Unit and drinking a lovely Jester King beer gets rather meta as my attention splits among them.

He addressed this, and I tend to agree.

What’s particularly odd is that this is not Trump‘s cadence or writing style.

🪶