Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 10h

I am an enormous fan of @glupyan.bsky.social he is the cognitive scientist I wanted to be. I'm content enough with who I am now to just be terrifically happy whenever I find he's written something on a question that most people just aren't thinking clearly about.

www.frontiersin.org/journals/psy...

Frontiers | Linguistically Modulated Perception and Cognition: The Label-Feedback Hypothesis

How does language impact cognition and perception? A growing number of studies show that language, and specifically, the practice of labeling, exerts rapid a...

www.frontiersin.org

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 12h

At @gotocon.com Copenhagen I heard a few people say that programmers are FINALLY making it easy to do things that ought always to have been easy – just so they can program "agentic" AI to do those things for them.

cc @simon.fedi.simonwillison.net.ap.brid.gy

michael veale @michae.lv · 13h

Do the Zendesk agents resolve 80% of customer service issues in the presence or absence of a proper FAQ and easy-to-use and powerful customer user interface?

TechCrunch @techcrunch.com · 13h

This has been a big week for AI companies signing enterprise deals, with Zendesk unveiling new AI agents that are supposed to be able to resolve 80% of customer service issues, Anthropic and IBM announcing a strategic partnership, and Deloitte also announcing a deal with Anthropic.

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michael veale @michae.lv · 13h

Do the Zendesk agents resolve 80% of customer service issues in the presence or absence of a proper FAQ and easy-to-use and powerful customer user interface?

TechCrunch @techcrunch.com · 13h

This has been a big week for AI companies signing enterprise deals, with Zendesk unveiling new AI agents that are supposed to be able to resolve 80% of customer service issues, Anthropic and IBM announcing a strategic partnership, and Deloitte also announcing a deal with Anthropic.

Ready or not, enterprises are betting on AI | TechCrunch

This has been a big week for AI companies signing enterprise deals, with Zendesk unveiling new AI agents that are supposed to be able to resolve 80% of customer service issues, Anthropic and IBM announcing a strategic partnership, and Deloitte also announcing a deal with Anthropic.

techcrunch.com

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michael veale @michae.lv · 13h

Does your university have a contract with Grammarly? Write to the decision-maker asking if they think the university should be paying for a tool that is fast integrating features that can only be used for academic misconduct and cognitive offloading and request they drop the contract.

Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · Aug 18

It is not "attribution and sourcing" to generate post-hoc citations that have not been read and did not inform the student's writing. Those should be regarded as fraudulent: artifacts testifying to human actions and thought that did not occur.
www.theverge.com/news/760508/...

For help with attribution and sourcing, Grammarly is releasing a citation finder agent that automatically generates correctly formatted citations backing up claims in a piece of writing, and an expert review agent that provides personalized, topic-specific feedback.

Screenshot from Grammarly's demo of inserting a post-hoc citation.
https://www.grammarly.com/ai-agents/citation-finder

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Ryan J. Reilly “paints a vivid and urgent portrait of… disarray” @ryanjreilly.com · 15h

PORTLAND, Ore. — A small group of federal agents in camouflage and face masks watched from atop the immigration processing center Thursday night as a unicorn, peacock, dinosaur and raccoon danced to Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time.” www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

Costumed protesters in Portland defy description of the city as a 'war zone'

Dancing frogs, peacocks and unicorns outside the federal immigration building present a joyful contrast to the Trump administration's portrait of the Oregon city, they say.

www.nbcnews.com

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 19h

Why is @signal.org asking to see devices on my local network?

I'm used to (constantly) denying chrome that permission...

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 21h

bsky.app/profile/j2br... your fault ;-)

Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 22h

I wasted way to much time reading this this morning. There's nothing there except evidence that concentrated wealth/capital/leverage just disintegrates coherence. I got more out of a side trip into reading the Book of Daniel (NRSV) which is also incoherent but at least a bit poetic. 1/2

Purge Palantir @purgepalantir.bsky.social · 1d

"'I’m a libertarian, or a classical liberal, who deviates in one minor detail, where I’m worried about the antichrist,' Thiel said during his third lecture."

Okay, dude.

From The Guardian: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 22h

I think these guys are giving up on science because they don't like where it takes them. Art, fiction, fantasy, religion can give you comfort and identity. So can science, but they're bored, frustrated, or scared of what's evidenced about structure, ecosystems, and their consequent obligations. 2/2

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 22h

I wasted way to much time reading this this morning. There's nothing there except evidence that concentrated wealth/capital/leverage just disintegrates coherence. I got more out of a side trip into reading the Book of Daniel (NRSV) which is also incoherent but at least a bit poetic. 1/2

Purge Palantir @purgepalantir.bsky.social · 1d

"'I’m a libertarian, or a classical liberal, who deviates in one minor detail, where I’m worried about the antichrist,' Thiel said during his third lecture."

Okay, dude.

From The Guardian: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Inside tech billionaire Peter Thiel’s off-the-record lectures about the antichrist

The political svengali and investor has been giving lectures on ‘an evil king or tyrant … who appears in the end times’

www.theguardian.com

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Cynthia Brumfield @metacurity.com · 1d

nypost.com/2025/10/10/u...

Cybersecurity agency that clashed with Trump one of the first hit with federal firings due to government shutdown

Cybersecurity agency that clashed with Trump one of the first hit with federal firings due to government shutdown

CISA plans to keep just 889 employees on duty during a shutdown while furloughing 65% of its workforce.

nypost.com

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 1d

Same day bsky.app/profile/mark...

Kathy Baxter @baxterkb.bsky.social · 1d

I'm thrilled to announce that @salesforce.com has obtained the ISO/IEC 42001 certification for our #AI Management System (AIMS), the first internationally recognized standard for #ResponsibleAI governance! 🎉 www.salesforce.com/blog/salesfo...

Salesforce earns first ISO 42001 certification

Salesforce earns ISO 42001 certification for Agentforce, Einstein, and Slack AI, proving its commitment to ethical, secure, and transparent AI.

www.salesforce.com

1

Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 1d

VERY strong recommend in this very short piece!

The final line is magnificent; so is @danwphilosophy.bsky.social’s theory on which the piece rests. Together, they exactly describe my naïve experience of wandering into #AIEthics over the decades.

#consciousness

Matan Mazor @matanmazor.bsky.social · 1d

Consciousness science as a marketplace of rationalizations

my commentary on @smfleming.bsky.social and @matthiasmichel.bsky.social's thought-provoking BBS paper, and more generally about the field.

osf.io/preprints/ps...

OSF

osf.io

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John Skiles Skinner @skiles.blue · 1d

I don't know if there's such a thing as a "world cyberwar" but I think we are in one? and the US is determined to lose it. 🧵

Today the admin is mass-firing the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the nation's cybersecurity protection across all levels of government.

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 1d

Mulling = “waiting to see what happens, rather than pitching in and trying to improve what happens via solidarity”

Reuters @reuters.com · 1d

MIT refuses to accept White House terms for funding, other schools still mulling reut.rs/471tkNZ

MIT refuses to accept White House terms for funding, other schools still mulling

Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth on Friday said she "cannot support" a memo that the White House sent to nine elite U.S. universities last week detailing policies they should follow to get preferential consideration for federal funding.

reut.rs

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Simon Willison @simon.fedi.simonwillison.net.ap.brid.gy · 1d

This is a wildly creative set of customizations for Claude Code, using the new plugin system they just released. There are SO many fascinating ideas in this! Strongly recommend reading it and then spending some time exploring the accompanying repo: https://github.com/obra/superpowers […]

Original post on fedi.simonwillison.net

fedi.simonwillison.net

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Naomi Oreskes @naomioreskes.bsky.social · 1d

People need to read Ruth Schwarz Cowan's classic book:
hss.sas.upenn.edu/content/more...

More Work For Mother: The Ironies Of Household Technology From The Open Hearth To The Microwave | HSS | Arts & Sciences

In this classic work of women’s history (winner of the 1984 Dexter Prize from the Society for the History of Technology), Ruth Schwartz Cowan shows how and why modern women devote as much time to hous...

hss.sas.upenn.edu

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NightMar on Hicks Street, Part 4: The Rabbit’s Revenge @histoftech.bsky.social · 1d

The Virginia Senate just told UVA it’s not getting state funding if it accepts the compact since UVA exists to serve Virginia, its residents, & their interests—not be a tool of the federal govt. Scoop from our student newspaper, who’ve been doing vital reporting www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2025...

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Reuters @reuters.com · 1d

MIT refuses to accept White House terms for funding, other schools still mulling reut.rs/471tkNZ

MIT refuses to accept White House terms for funding, other schools still mulling

Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth on Friday said she "cannot support" a memo that the White House sent to nine elite U.S. universities last week detailing policies they should follow to get preferential consideration for federal funding.

reut.rs

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Kathy Baxter @baxterkb.bsky.social · 1d

I'm thrilled to announce that @salesforce.com has obtained the ISO/IEC 42001 certification for our #AI Management System (AIMS), the first internationally recognized standard for #ResponsibleAI governance! 🎉 www.salesforce.com/blog/salesfo...

Salesforce earns first ISO 42001 certification

Salesforce earns ISO 42001 certification for Agentforce, Einstein, and Slack AI, proving its commitment to ethical, secure, and transparent AI.

www.salesforce.com

2

Matan Mazor @matanmazor.bsky.social · 1d

Consciousness science as a marketplace of rationalizations

my commentary on @smfleming.bsky.social and @matthiasmichel.bsky.social's thought-provoking BBS paper, and more generally about the field.

osf.io/preprints/ps...

OSF

osf.io

2 18 42

Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 1d

That’s what Trump and Putin want Chicago to think. I’m actually from there.

Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 1d

you miss his message that the praying and peace are getting through to the ICE agents

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Purge Palantir @purgepalantir.bsky.social · 1d

"'I’m a libertarian, or a classical liberal, who deviates in one minor detail, where I’m worried about the antichrist,' Thiel said during his third lecture."

Okay, dude.

From The Guardian: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Inside tech billionaire Peter Thiel’s off-the-record lectures about the antichrist

The political svengali and investor has been giving lectures on ‘an evil king or tyrant … who appears in the end times’

www.theguardian.com

12 18 40

Our World in Data @ourworldindata.org · 1d

Over the last 60 years, the world population has more than doubled.

This has inevitably reduced the land available per person to live and grow food.

How have we managed to feed a rapidly growing population with ever-shrinking land resources?

A line chart showing the change from 1961 to 2023 in global cereal production, yield, land use, and population. All figures are indexed to 1961, which is given a value of zero.

In this time, the world population has more than doubled. And the world can now produce more than three times as much cereal from a given area of land as it did in 1961 (i.e., an increase in yield of 214%). In the same period, land used for cereal has only increased by 14%.

The data sources are the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (2025); HYDE (2023); Gapminder (2022); and the UN WPP (2024). The chart is licensed CC BY to Our World in Data.

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 1d

Can I get money for tweeting at them bugs in their OS like I did earlier this week?

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 1d

We need governance– not of the technology, but of the companies creating the technology, and their wealth / financial leverage in terms of market capitalisation. This is a transnational challenge. Leaving it to one country just let it eat that country. But governments are how we coordinate on power.

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 1d

Maybe Trump is less interested in the US as we knew it than a new supranational entity cornering the market in fossil fuels? Are we handing the world to China on a plate? Well, and Iceland is pretty good at geothermal. Anyway, this would explain the Venezuela obsession. And Texas.

Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 1d

news.mit.edu/2001/reflect... the trades people that built it in 30 hours demanded a flag be added to the top, which the professor of memorials told us wasn't his original design, but also meant that it reflected the full MIT community better.

Replica of World Trade Center wall built at MIT as place for reflections, flowers

news.mit.edu

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