Functionalist approaches measure intelligence by how closely its outputs resemble the human mind. If you constantly recalibrate its outputs to resemble a human mind, you're not creating a thinking machine. You are creating a machine to trick other functionalists.

⚠️ Despite all the hype, chatbots still make terrible doctors. Out today is the largest user study of language models for medical self-diagnosis. We found that chatbots provide inaccurate and inconsistent answers, and that people are better off using online searches or their own judgment.

"When civilians ask large language models questions about their health, the technology often gets it wrong." "The advancements could inadvertently expose more people to medical misinformation." h/t POLITICO Pulse www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This is really cool 👇

Ban addictive designs, ban illegal content, regulate companies. Don't ban teenagers from digital platforms www.ft.com/content/cf46...

We should view Social Media as a systemic issue instead of a symptomatic one and tackle its root: Overcoming the commercial and exploitative logic we applied to digitalization so far. Making social media better and safer for eyeryone will be more sustainable for young people AND for democracy.

Deepfake abuse is abuse. Sexualised images, videos, or audio of children generated or manipulated using AI tools are child sexual abuse material. We need urgent action to prevent and protect children from this escalating threat. www.unicef.org/press-releas...

NEW: I went undercover, as a human poster, on the social network designed just for AI agents. The site isn’t a novel breakthrough; it’s simply a crude rehashing of sci-fi fantasies for the hype machine’s true believers. My latest for @wired.com: www.wired.com/story/i-infi...

Holy shit. What a result, voter suppression add potentially resulted in 4.7 million fewer votes. How is it not illegal to run voter suppression ads? (Asking as a European, because to me this seems highly undemocratic)

If you are interested in the intersection of Data Science & beers (also non-alcoholic) then check out this event out 👇

Israel bombed tents in Gaza today, killed at least 30 people including children, and the death toll is likely to rise www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...

A new study from Anthropic finds that gains in coding efficiency when relying on AI assistance did did not meet statistical significance; AI use noticeably degraded programmers’ understanding of what they were doing. Incredible.

Join us in Bologna, Italy, 4–6 Nov 2026 for Visualising Climate — the first global conference fully dedicated to climate data visualization and its power to transform public understanding of a changing planet. Come see the data. visualisingclimate.org #VisualisingClimate2026 #DataVis #ClimateCrisis

🫠 incredible... everything these companies cook up just makes society worse. We can't vibe code science. That's not how science works! This will lead to more AI slop, overwhelm science venues, and reduce trust in science

Millionærer får folkepension, millionærer kører gratis på vejene. Hvis man skal designe en ordning, hvor man er 💯 sikker på at intet rammer forkert, så må man enten acceptere at nogle trængende ikke får, eller skabe et stort, dyrt bureaukrati. Oftest er simpel regel bedst www.dr.dk/nyheder/poli...

Den her ordning favoriserer i meget høj grad de fattigste, og har en ret betragtelig effekt på ulighed (-.18 på gini). Hvis man synes at millionærer har for meget, så lad os skrue på skatten, ikke indføre åndsvagt bureaukrati og besvær for borgerne gennem streng visitation.

The US has pulled out of the WHO, again!? It's incredible how changing administrations pull the US out, put it back in, and pull it out of the WHO again. International trust in US institutions & promises has suffered irreparable damage during the last decade's Circus.

As an editor of a scientific journal, this essay feels very familiar: it’s about how AI coding tools are making it harder to maintain quality in open source software. The solution cannot be to just use AI agents to evaluate too, right? What historical parallels can we learn from?

You have a a higher likelihood of getting a novel idea from slamming your head against a wall, than asking AI for help

Let's start by not believing the claims being made corporations about these products when it comes to education. Do not let a whole generation be guinea pigs. Demand rigorous evidence of efficacy before incorporating into classrooms.

This sounds like late stage capitalism...holy hell 🫠

Peak satire 😂🫠🥲

this is horrific. 11,000 cancer patients.

If you thought Elon Musk's “Grok” chatbot couldn't get worse, read my latest article: Grok isn't just undressing women, it's now putting swastika bikinis on them. One woman who was targeted is a recently-deceased Holocaust survivor.

Computational Social Scientists in the Nordics, unite! 🇩🇰🇫🇮🇳🇴🇸🇪🇮🇸 The brand new Nordic Society for CSS welcomes all researchers and practitioners based in the Nordics. The Society will promote student mobility, events, and education initiatives. Join for free: nosocss.org/join.html.

Oh what a brave new world 🙃 When will our policymakers regulate this shit show? 🤷

Anyone collaborating with us to make illegal content using the tools we created to make illegal content will face the same consequences as they would if they did it alone. We will also face the same consequences as if they did it alone: none.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva says the US crossed an 'unacceptable line' following attacks on Venezuela and the capture of its president, Nicolas Maduro.

Today it's Venezuela, tomorrow it could be Panama, Denmark/Greenland, or Nigeria. If this is the best "strongly worded" statement the EU can muster then international law is doomed

Also, when reporters start talking about the chatbots this way, it is imperative to remind them they are basically asking a toaster for comment. They should be a lot more embarrassed about this than they currently are. “Grok told CNN…” no it didn’t. You typed stuff into an unreliable calculator.

this is irresponsible reporting. a neural network can't comment on why it produced CSAM. a neural network can't be held answerable for generating CSAM. accountability lies within the fascist ceo and the team willing to work for him www.reuters.com/legal/litiga...

1. Headlines everywhere today read "Grok apologizes." This is bullshit. A chatbot is not something that can apologize. Pretending otherwise is simple laundering these companies' bullshit about what AI is, while diffusing blame away from the human beings that developed and released this system.

Algorithmic unfairness and injustice cannot be fixed without addressing the underlying socio-economic-surveillance-calitlaist system. Purely technical fixes will not change anything

There’s a funny Politico story showing that the latest polling on AI shows 80-20 in favor of heavy regulations, an absolute slam dunk platform, but Dems are worried about not winning back mask-off tech CEO donors www.politico.com/news/magazin...

very much captures the experience of using generative AI to write for you instead of learning how to write

"Having an AI do it and fail half the time isn't exactly a winning alternative." www.extremetech.com/computing/mi...

the slow death of legitimate, verifiable, reliable knowledge systems

👀 I guess 2026 is going to be a wild ride

😂 Studies also show that boomers are more prone to falling for, and sharing misinformation. Solution: boomer filter (like a form of parental control) to keep the boomers safe on the internet and safe from AI bullshit/hype

What if it's entirely bullshit?

What if this take is entirely wrong?

Both of could be the reason, but probably 'more likely' reasons could be: - the 2008 financial crisis - Obamas election - the large hadron collider in CERN went operational - GTA VI was released - 2008 was a leap year I guess we'll never know without carefully designed studies 🤷

This is going to be a treasure trove for science of science

It would cost $30 billion to end homelessness in the USA.

The US tech world has lost its mind

Space!? How do these 'geniuses' plan to cool down these data centers? Did they realize space is a near empty void, a vacuum, and thereby a perfect insulator. Better to put them on the bottom of the ocean.....but I guess that loses all the hype

Multiple surveys are telling the same story: AI adoption has stalled. Census data shows ~11% of workers use AI, with rates falling at 250+ employee firms. Surveys show usage spiked then plateaued. Meanwhile Big Tech is planning $5T in AI spend by 2030 that needs $650B/year in revenue vs ~$50B today

New research opportunity @mszll.datasci.social.ap.brid.gy how biking got a 0.93 "score" with autism 🙃

As the world shifts its gaze away from Palestine, the series stands as documentation of the continued ethnic cleansing and offers testimonies and stories from those facing displacement, homelessness and violence from settlers.

Even the acknowledgements seem to be AI slop 🫠