Anil Ananthaswamy
@anilananth.bsky.social
Journalist with bylines in Nature, Quanta, Scientific American, New Scientist, and many more; former deputy news editor at New Scientist Author of 4 popular science books, including WHY MACHINES LEARN: The Elegant Math Behind Modern AI; TED speaker
Reposted by Anil Ananthaswamy
An AI model called V-JEPA is capable of “intuiting” the physical properties of the real world, gaining a sense of object permanence, the constancy of shape and color, and the effects of gravity. @anilananth.bsky.social reports:
www.quantamagazine.org/how-one-ai-m...
www.quantamagazine.org/how-one-ai-m...
How One AI Model Creates a Physical Intuition of Its Environment | Quanta Magazine
The V-JEPA system uses ordinary videos to understand the physics of the real world.
www.quantamagazine.org
October 3, 2025 at 2:48 PM
An AI model called V-JEPA is capable of “intuiting” the physical properties of the real world, gaining a sense of object permanence, the constancy of shape and color, and the effects of gravity. @anilananth.bsky.social reports:
www.quantamagazine.org/how-one-ai-m...
www.quantamagazine.org/how-one-ai-m...
Reposted by Anil Ananthaswamy
This book by @anilananth.bsky.social is great — perfect for those, like me, who have an intuitive and geometric grasp of math but unfortunately no formal training. Highly recommended!
October 1, 2025 at 3:47 PM
This book by @anilananth.bsky.social is great — perfect for those, like me, who have an intuitive and geometric grasp of math but unfortunately no formal training. Highly recommended!
Reposted by Anil Ananthaswamy
A nice article by @anilananth.bsky.social on using AI to explore design spaces, find unexpected solutions, (re)discover symmetries, and propose new relationships featuring @yuqirose.bsky.social @mariokrenn.bsky.social & myself.
Note AI ≠ LLMs in this piece.
www.quantamagazine.org/ai-comes-up-...
Note AI ≠ LLMs in this piece.
www.quantamagazine.org/ai-comes-up-...
AI Comes Up with Bizarre Physics Experiments. But They Work. | Quanta Magazine
Artificial intelligence software is designing novel experimental protocols that improve upon the work of human physicists, although the humans are still “doing a lot of baby-sitting.”
www.quantamagazine.org
July 22, 2025 at 1:58 PM
A nice article by @anilananth.bsky.social on using AI to explore design spaces, find unexpected solutions, (re)discover symmetries, and propose new relationships featuring @yuqirose.bsky.social @mariokrenn.bsky.social & myself.
Note AI ≠ LLMs in this piece.
www.quantamagazine.org/ai-comes-up-...
Note AI ≠ LLMs in this piece.
www.quantamagazine.org/ai-comes-up-...
Reposted by Anil Ananthaswamy
"AI Comes Up with Bizarre Physics Experiments. But They Work." by @anilananth.bsky.social @quantamagazine.bsky.social:
www.quantamagazine.org/ai-comes-up-...
Covering our work with Rana Adhikari @ligo.org on discovering GW detectors & work by @yuqirose.bsky.social & @kylecranmer.bsky.social on ...
www.quantamagazine.org/ai-comes-up-...
Covering our work with Rana Adhikari @ligo.org on discovering GW detectors & work by @yuqirose.bsky.social & @kylecranmer.bsky.social on ...
AI Comes Up with Bizarre Physics Experiments. But They Work. | Quanta Magazine
Artificial intelligence software is designing novel experimental protocols that improve upon the work of human physicists, although the humans are still “doing a lot of baby-sitting.”
www.quantamagazine.org
July 21, 2025 at 7:33 PM
"AI Comes Up with Bizarre Physics Experiments. But They Work." by @anilananth.bsky.social @quantamagazine.bsky.social:
www.quantamagazine.org/ai-comes-up-...
Covering our work with Rana Adhikari @ligo.org on discovering GW detectors & work by @yuqirose.bsky.social & @kylecranmer.bsky.social on ...
www.quantamagazine.org/ai-comes-up-...
Covering our work with Rana Adhikari @ligo.org on discovering GW detectors & work by @yuqirose.bsky.social & @kylecranmer.bsky.social on ...
Thank you, David
Finished reading @anilananth.bsky.social's book, Why Machines Learn. This was an excellent read. I feel that the context and history for which science develops helps my understanding. His prose and explanations were better than anything else I have yet to encounter in my Computer Science education.
July 2, 2025 at 3:26 PM
Thank you, David
Reposted by Anil Ananthaswamy
Finished reading @anilananth.bsky.social's book, Why Machines Learn. This was an excellent read. I feel that the context and history for which science develops helps my understanding. His prose and explanations were better than anything else I have yet to encounter in my Computer Science education.
July 2, 2025 at 3:07 PM
Finished reading @anilananth.bsky.social's book, Why Machines Learn. This was an excellent read. I feel that the context and history for which science develops helps my understanding. His prose and explanations were better than anything else I have yet to encounter in my Computer Science education.
Reposted by Anil Ananthaswamy
SFO has a nice collection of AI books
@adambecker.bsky.social @anilananth.bsky.social @emilymbender.bsky.social @alexhanna.bsky.social @summerfieldlab.bsky.social @sayash.bsky.social @randomwalker.bsky.social
@adambecker.bsky.social @anilananth.bsky.social @emilymbender.bsky.social @alexhanna.bsky.social @summerfieldlab.bsky.social @sayash.bsky.social @randomwalker.bsky.social
June 8, 2025 at 8:17 PM
SFO has a nice collection of AI books
@adambecker.bsky.social @anilananth.bsky.social @emilymbender.bsky.social @alexhanna.bsky.social @summerfieldlab.bsky.social @sayash.bsky.social @randomwalker.bsky.social
@adambecker.bsky.social @anilananth.bsky.social @emilymbender.bsky.social @alexhanna.bsky.social @summerfieldlab.bsky.social @sayash.bsky.social @randomwalker.bsky.social
1/4 These days most writers, including me, get asked: "Will you use AI to help you write?" My answer is: No. Not because I'm inherently against the idea, but because it undercuts the very reason I became a writer...
June 4, 2025 at 1:44 AM
1/4 These days most writers, including me, get asked: "Will you use AI to help you write?" My answer is: No. Not because I'm inherently against the idea, but because it undercuts the very reason I became a writer...
Reposted by Anil Ananthaswamy
"Why machines learn" by @anilananth.bsky.social is an amazing book that teaches the fundamental math concepts behind machine learning and artificial intelligence. I lost count of the "aha!" moments I experienced while reading this masterpiece. I loved it! #AI #math
May 25, 2025 at 1:22 PM
"Why machines learn" by @anilananth.bsky.social is an amazing book that teaches the fundamental math concepts behind machine learning and artificial intelligence. I lost count of the "aha!" moments I experienced while reading this masterpiece. I loved it! #AI #math
When I proposed WHY MACHINES LEARN in Oct 2020, to my then editor Stephen Morrow, @carpenter512.bsky.social, I was sure he'd say no to a book full of math & equations. But he saw something in the proposal that even I hadn't and said yes, and I'm grateful for that! Got to thank him today in person.
May 19, 2025 at 11:23 PM
When I proposed WHY MACHINES LEARN in Oct 2020, to my then editor Stephen Morrow, @carpenter512.bsky.social, I was sure he'd say no to a book full of math & equations. But he saw something in the proposal that even I hadn't and said yes, and I'm grateful for that! Got to thank him today in person.
Reposted by Anil Ananthaswamy
I have just started reading this fantastic book by @anilananth.bsky.social. I look forward to diving into the hardcore #math behind machine learning! It will be a challenging journey, but a rewarding one. 🤖
May 16, 2025 at 6:32 PM
I have just started reading this fantastic book by @anilananth.bsky.social. I look forward to diving into the hardcore #math behind machine learning! It will be a challenging journey, but a rewarding one. 🤖
Looking forward to reading this @rowhoop.bsky.social ! Thanks...
Nooooo, not the double slit!!! Cc @anilananth.bsky.social
Huge story from @kpc.bsky.social - physicists are claiming that, despite all appearances, light isn't a wave after all, in an attempt to overturn a century-old interpretation of the double-slit experiment www.newscientist.com/article/2477...
April 30, 2025 at 11:45 AM
Looking forward to reading this @rowhoop.bsky.social ! Thanks...
Thank you @ganyet.bsky.social. I love this line about WHY MACHINES LEARN: "This book is like an invitation to enter Mago Pop's workshop to realize that magic doesn't exist: that it's all mathematics, engineering, and a lot, a lot of human intelligence." I had to look up Mago Pop and Sant Jordi :-)
Els llibres q no em compraré a #SantJordi:
-Entre el Paradís i l’Apocalipsi @xsalaimartin.bsky.social
-Why Machines Learn @anilananth.bsky.social
-El món interior @francescseres.bsky.social
-Replay @jmechner.bsky.social
-Història dels grecs. Indro Montanelli
www.viaempresa.cat/opinio/lopin...
-Entre el Paradís i l’Apocalipsi @xsalaimartin.bsky.social
-Why Machines Learn @anilananth.bsky.social
-El món interior @francescseres.bsky.social
-Replay @jmechner.bsky.social
-Història dels grecs. Indro Montanelli
www.viaempresa.cat/opinio/lopin...
Els llibres que no compraré per Sant Jordi, per Josep M. Ganyet
"No els compraré perquè ja els tinc i ja els he llegit, alguns fins i tot dues vegades. Tots molt bons. Bon Sant Jordi a tothom"
www.viaempresa.cat
April 23, 2025 at 6:19 PM
Thank you @ganyet.bsky.social. I love this line about WHY MACHINES LEARN: "This book is like an invitation to enter Mago Pop's workshop to realize that magic doesn't exist: that it's all mathematics, engineering, and a lot, a lot of human intelligence." I had to look up Mago Pop and Sant Jordi :-)
The Centrality of Bayes's Theorem for Machine Learning.
It’s hard to overstate just how important Bayes’s Theorem — something that Thomas Bayes came up with in the 1700s — is for machine learning. But the theorem challenges our intuitions. Here’s a brief intro: anilananthaswamy.com/why-machines...
It’s hard to overstate just how important Bayes’s Theorem — something that Thomas Bayes came up with in the 1700s — is for machine learning. But the theorem challenges our intuitions. Here’s a brief intro: anilananthaswamy.com/why-machines...
The Centrality of Bayes’s Theorem for Machine Learning — Anil Ananthaswamy
It’s hard to overstate just how important Bayes’s Theorem — something that Thomas Bayes, English minister and mathematician, came up with in the 1700s — is for making sense of machine learning. Bu...
anilananthaswamy.com
April 10, 2025 at 7:37 PM
The Centrality of Bayes's Theorem for Machine Learning.
It’s hard to overstate just how important Bayes’s Theorem — something that Thomas Bayes came up with in the 1700s — is for machine learning. But the theorem challenges our intuitions. Here’s a brief intro: anilananthaswamy.com/why-machines...
It’s hard to overstate just how important Bayes’s Theorem — something that Thomas Bayes came up with in the 1700s — is for machine learning. But the theorem challenges our intuitions. Here’s a brief intro: anilananthaswamy.com/why-machines...
Came out of my AL/ML bubble to write a 'crisis in cosmology' story, about a new study that uses TRGB stars to scale a new cosmic distance ladder to measure the Hubble constant; the tension persists...for @scientificamerican.bsky.social @leebillings.bsky.social scientificamerican.com/article/the-...
The Hubble Tension Is Becoming a Hubble Crisis
A long-simmering disagreement over the universe’s present-day expansion rate shows no signs of resolution, leaving experts increasingly vexed
scientificamerican.com
April 2, 2025 at 1:44 PM
Came out of my AL/ML bubble to write a 'crisis in cosmology' story, about a new study that uses TRGB stars to scale a new cosmic distance ladder to measure the Hubble constant; the tension persists...for @scientificamerican.bsky.social @leebillings.bsky.social scientificamerican.com/article/the-...
Reposted by Anil Ananthaswamy
"For the first time, we can...get performant neural networks that mimic complex human & animal cognition," said @suryaganguli.bsky.social speaking on the symbiosis of AI & neuroscience at the Simons Institute. "That's remarkable and exciting. Caveats...to follow" simons.berkeley.edu/talks/surya-...
March 6, 2025 at 2:35 AM
"For the first time, we can...get performant neural networks that mimic complex human & animal cognition," said @suryaganguli.bsky.social speaking on the symbiosis of AI & neuroscience at the Simons Institute. "That's remarkable and exciting. Caveats...to follow" simons.berkeley.edu/talks/surya-...
Reposted by Anil Ananthaswamy
I had a great time talking with @anilananth.bsky.social as part of the Simons Institute Polylogues. We cover universal learning, generalization phenomena, how transformers are both surprisingly general but also limited, and the difference between statistics and ML! www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aja0...
Andrew Gordon Wilson | Polylogues
YouTube video by Simons Institute
www.youtube.com
February 28, 2025 at 2:52 PM
I had a great time talking with @anilananth.bsky.social as part of the Simons Institute Polylogues. We cover universal learning, generalization phenomena, how transformers are both surprisingly general but also limited, and the difference between statistics and ML! www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aja0...
Reposted by Anil Ananthaswamy
I went through my RL bookmarks, because it seems like finally the rest of the world has caught up to my world, I rediscovered this gem 💎 mpatacchiola.github.io/blog/2016/12... although I suspect nobody wants to learn RL this way now 😜
Dissecting Reinforcement Learning-Part.1
Explaining the basic ideas behind reinforcement learning. In particular, Markov Decision Process, Bellman equation, Value iteration and Policy Iteration algorithms, policy iteration through linear alg...
mpatacchiola.github.io
January 28, 2025 at 4:50 AM
I went through my RL bookmarks, because it seems like finally the rest of the world has caught up to my world, I rediscovered this gem 💎 mpatacchiola.github.io/blog/2016/12... although I suspect nobody wants to learn RL this way now 😜
Everyone is talking about DeepSeek's impact on industry. But another huge impact is the leveling of playing field between academia and industry: if these efficiency numbers bear out, then academia can both use LLMs and study/research them at scale!
January 27, 2025 at 9:49 PM
Everyone is talking about DeepSeek's impact on industry. But another huge impact is the leveling of playing field between academia and industry: if these efficiency numbers bear out, then academia can both use LLMs and study/research them at scale!
Reposted by Anil Ananthaswamy
These two books, by @anilananth.bsky.social and @tomchivers.bsky.social, are the first two books in a very long time that I read in their entirety without significant pause or other diversion along the way.
I cannot recommend them enough!
#booksky #dataSkyence
I cannot recommend them enough!
#booksky #dataSkyence
January 23, 2025 at 9:29 PM
These two books, by @anilananth.bsky.social and @tomchivers.bsky.social, are the first two books in a very long time that I read in their entirety without significant pause or other diversion along the way.
I cannot recommend them enough!
#booksky #dataSkyence
I cannot recommend them enough!
#booksky #dataSkyence
As always, @rao2z.bsky.social has a way with words and speaks his mind in this Machine Learning Street Talk episode: "We should be looking for secrets of Nature, because Nature won't tell us. But we are now looking for secrets of OpenAI."
youtube.com/clip/UgkxCH1...
youtube.com/clip/UgkxCH1...
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January 23, 2025 at 7:46 PM
As always, @rao2z.bsky.social has a way with words and speaks his mind in this Machine Learning Street Talk episode: "We should be looking for secrets of Nature, because Nature won't tell us. But we are now looking for secrets of OpenAI."
youtube.com/clip/UgkxCH1...
youtube.com/clip/UgkxCH1...
Reposted by Anil Ananthaswamy
This lecture is primarily about how animal brains have evolved, but in so doing Paul Cisek helps illuminate why artificial intelligence based on large-language models is fundamentally insufficent in reaching anything resembling human intelligence (perhaps even lampray intelligence).
January 18, 2025 at 2:41 PM
This lecture is primarily about how animal brains have evolved, but in so doing Paul Cisek helps illuminate why artificial intelligence based on large-language models is fundamentally insufficent in reaching anything resembling human intelligence (perhaps even lampray intelligence).
Reposted by Anil Ananthaswamy
January 17, 2025 at 11:36 PM
Reposted by Anil Ananthaswamy
Philosophy & Theory of Neuroscience Conference 🧠 next week @ Chapman & available via zoom.Talks by @drmichaellevin.bsky.social @meganakpeters.bsky.social Newsome, Yassa, Roskies, Carolyn Parkinson, Frederick Eberhardt & many others!
www.chapman.edu/scst/confere...
#philsky #philsci #neuroskyence
www.chapman.edu/scst/confere...
#philsky #philsci #neuroskyence
January 12, 2025 at 7:59 PM
Philosophy & Theory of Neuroscience Conference 🧠 next week @ Chapman & available via zoom.Talks by @drmichaellevin.bsky.social @meganakpeters.bsky.social Newsome, Yassa, Roskies, Carolyn Parkinson, Frederick Eberhardt & many others!
www.chapman.edu/scst/confere...
#philsky #philsci #neuroskyence
www.chapman.edu/scst/confere...
#philsky #philsci #neuroskyence
Reposted by Anil Ananthaswamy
A gentle reminder that you should always resist the temptation to tag a creative person into a negative review of their work. It doesn't matter what your intentions are, it's kind of an asshole maneuver. You are free to say whatever you like, of course. Making it their problem, however, is not kind.
January 7, 2025 at 2:13 PM
A gentle reminder that you should always resist the temptation to tag a creative person into a negative review of their work. It doesn't matter what your intentions are, it's kind of an asshole maneuver. You are free to say whatever you like, of course. Making it their problem, however, is not kind.