Esther Mondragón
@emp1.bsky.social
Hic sunt dracones
I represent myself, no one else.
Computational and associative learning.
Biologically-inspired AI.
She/They
https://cit-ai.net/people.html#Mondragon
https://www.city.ac.uk/about/people/academics/esther-mondragon
I represent myself, no one else.
Computational and associative learning.
Biologically-inspired AI.
She/They
https://cit-ai.net/people.html#Mondragon
https://www.city.ac.uk/about/people/academics/esther-mondragon
Pinned
Esther Mondragón
@emp1.bsky.social
· Jun 9
Advancing the Biological Plausibility and Efficacy of Hebbian Convolutional Neural Networks
The research presented in this paper advances the integration of Hebbian learning into Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) for image processing, syst…
www.sciencedirect.com
Ablation study and resulting optimal architecture that considerably improves recent research on CNN-Hebbian learning integration with competition mechanisms.
with @julian-jn.bsky.social
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
with @julian-jn.bsky.social
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Reposted by Esther Mondragón
Funnily enough, I am coming to the opposite conclusion about journalists...
November 25, 2025 at 10:32 PM
Funnily enough, I am coming to the opposite conclusion about journalists...
Reposted by Esther Mondragón
It sounds familiar
"No one’s in charge. Everyone’s exposed. And no one’s acting like that’s a problem."
skooloflife.medium.com/99-of-ai-sta...
"No one’s in charge. Everyone’s exposed. And no one’s acting like that’s a problem."
skooloflife.medium.com/99-of-ai-sta...
99% of AI Startups Will Be Dead by 2026 — Here’s Why
In the late ’90s, I was a student at Berkeley watching the dot-com boom unfold like a fever dream.
skooloflife.medium.com
November 21, 2025 at 8:01 PM
It sounds familiar
"No one’s in charge. Everyone’s exposed. And no one’s acting like that’s a problem."
skooloflife.medium.com/99-of-ai-sta...
"No one’s in charge. Everyone’s exposed. And no one’s acting like that’s a problem."
skooloflife.medium.com/99-of-ai-sta...
Reposted by Esther Mondragón
As if social media/online "friendship" was not sad enough
"A recent study found that one of the top uses of generative AI is companionship [] to create personalised chatbots of the ideal friend, romantic partner, parent, therapist or any other persona you can dream up."
www.ft.com/content/9cdd...
"A recent study found that one of the top uses of generative AI is companionship [] to create personalised chatbots of the ideal friend, romantic partner, parent, therapist or any other persona you can dream up."
www.ft.com/content/9cdd...
The State of AI: don’t share your secrets with a chatbot
Tech companies are harnessing the language of relationships to harvest data
www.ft.com
November 25, 2025 at 3:01 PM
As if social media/online "friendship" was not sad enough
"A recent study found that one of the top uses of generative AI is companionship [] to create personalised chatbots of the ideal friend, romantic partner, parent, therapist or any other persona you can dream up."
www.ft.com/content/9cdd...
"A recent study found that one of the top uses of generative AI is companionship [] to create personalised chatbots of the ideal friend, romantic partner, parent, therapist or any other persona you can dream up."
www.ft.com/content/9cdd...
Reposted by Esther Mondragón
Brenda Milner showed the world that memory isn’t one thing — the hippocampus supports our life stories, while other circuits let us keep learning skills.
Her research on patient H.M. built the foundation of cognitive neuroscience.
#WomenInScience #MemoryResearch #NeuroHistory
Her research on patient H.M. built the foundation of cognitive neuroscience.
#WomenInScience #MemoryResearch #NeuroHistory
November 25, 2025 at 10:05 PM
Brenda Milner showed the world that memory isn’t one thing — the hippocampus supports our life stories, while other circuits let us keep learning skills.
Her research on patient H.M. built the foundation of cognitive neuroscience.
#WomenInScience #MemoryResearch #NeuroHistory
Her research on patient H.M. built the foundation of cognitive neuroscience.
#WomenInScience #MemoryResearch #NeuroHistory
As if social media/online "friendship" was not sad enough
"A recent study found that one of the top uses of generative AI is companionship [] to create personalised chatbots of the ideal friend, romantic partner, parent, therapist or any other persona you can dream up."
www.ft.com/content/9cdd...
"A recent study found that one of the top uses of generative AI is companionship [] to create personalised chatbots of the ideal friend, romantic partner, parent, therapist or any other persona you can dream up."
www.ft.com/content/9cdd...
The State of AI: don’t share your secrets with a chatbot
Tech companies are harnessing the language of relationships to harvest data
www.ft.com
November 25, 2025 at 3:01 PM
As if social media/online "friendship" was not sad enough
"A recent study found that one of the top uses of generative AI is companionship [] to create personalised chatbots of the ideal friend, romantic partner, parent, therapist or any other persona you can dream up."
www.ft.com/content/9cdd...
"A recent study found that one of the top uses of generative AI is companionship [] to create personalised chatbots of the ideal friend, romantic partner, parent, therapist or any other persona you can dream up."
www.ft.com/content/9cdd...
Reposted by Esther Mondragón
Go, read.
💥New: Creative commons licenses and copyright may not stop academic work being used to train AI
✍️ @eve.gd
#CreativeCommons #ScholComm #AcWri
✍️ @eve.gd
#CreativeCommons #ScholComm #AcWri
Creative commons licenses and copyright may not stop academic work being used to train AI - Impact of Social Sciences
Considering the legal standing of creative commons licenses & copyright, Martin Eve suggests legal protections for academic work are unlikely to be forthcoming.
blogs.lse.ac.uk
November 25, 2025 at 10:04 AM
Go, read.
Reposted by Esther Mondragón
Setting aside the whole AI debacle for a second, I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why a government that has so much contempt for science, scientists, and scientific thinking would ever want to "accelerate scientific advancement". So they can destroy more of it in a record amount of time??
Launching the Genesis Mission
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered: Section 1. Purpose.
www.whitehouse.gov
November 25, 2025 at 4:57 AM
Setting aside the whole AI debacle for a second, I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why a government that has so much contempt for science, scientists, and scientific thinking would ever want to "accelerate scientific advancement". So they can destroy more of it in a record amount of time??
Reposted by Esther Mondragón
Being Interdisciplinary feels like practicing non-attachment. Different disciplines come in & out of focus in waves, each a whole world. Engaging with philosophy gives access to different ontologies than engaging in neuroscience or AI. This helps us evaluate each field from within & outside itself.
November 23, 2025 at 11:35 PM
Being Interdisciplinary feels like practicing non-attachment. Different disciplines come in & out of focus in waves, each a whole world. Engaging with philosophy gives access to different ontologies than engaging in neuroscience or AI. This helps us evaluate each field from within & outside itself.
Reposted by Esther Mondragón
sometimes a halfway decent model is REALLY hard to come up with
we're too quick to mistake `what i know how to easily model' for `what is' and even `what should be'.
November 23, 2025 at 6:03 PM
sometimes a halfway decent model is REALLY hard to come up with
Why should you pay attention to uneducated, ill posed and malicious "opinions". Friends, just block and help isolating those individuals.
November 23, 2025 at 5:59 PM
Why should you pay attention to uneducated, ill posed and malicious "opinions". Friends, just block and help isolating those individuals.
Reposted by Esther Mondragón
Argumentum ad AI slopulum
if only there were a name for this kind of reasoning. oh wait there is
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumen...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumen...
November 17, 2025 at 8:11 PM
Argumentum ad AI slopulum
Yeah! Don't use any of these shit. But, mind reading devices?! Anda ya! This is just bollocks.
"Consumer neurotech products capture less-sophisticated data than implanted BCIs do."
Ya don't say. Don't use those, please, everybody.
Ya don't say. Don't use those, please, everybody.
Ethicists tell Nature that AI-powered advances in technology will threaten the privacy and autonomy of people who use neurotechnology, like brain-computer interfaces. #Neuroskyence 🧪
November 23, 2025 at 5:25 PM
Yeah! Don't use any of these shit. But, mind reading devices?! Anda ya! This is just bollocks.
Reposted by Esther Mondragón
To all my new followers, please check this out before much else, but also my research is all available freely here (see the little pdf icons):
olivia.science#publications
olivia.science#publications
November 23, 2025 at 12:36 PM
To all my new followers, please check this out before much else, but also my research is all available freely here (see the little pdf icons):
olivia.science#publications
olivia.science#publications
Reposted by Esther Mondragón
Ablation study and resulting optimal architecture that considerably improves recent research on CNN-Hebbian learning integration with competition mechanisms.
with @julian-jn.bsky.social
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
with @julian-jn.bsky.social
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Advancing the Biological Plausibility and Efficacy of Hebbian Convolutional Neural Networks
The research presented in this paper advances the integration of Hebbian learning into Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) for image processing, syst…
www.sciencedirect.com
June 9, 2025 at 5:41 PM
Ablation study and resulting optimal architecture that considerably improves recent research on CNN-Hebbian learning integration with competition mechanisms.
with @julian-jn.bsky.social
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
with @julian-jn.bsky.social
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
You may also need to visit
chrome://settings/searchEngines?search=AI+mod
and deactivate Gemini and Google AI mode.
chrome://settings/searchEngines?search=AI+mod
and deactivate Gemini and Google AI mode.
People using Chrome may want to know about this.
To disable the new default AI mode. Type chrome://flags in your address bar. Search for AI mode in the search box below and disable the three options displayed.
To disable the new default AI mode. Type chrome://flags in your address bar. Search for AI mode in the search box below and disable the three options displayed.
November 22, 2025 at 9:31 AM
You may also need to visit
chrome://settings/searchEngines?search=AI+mod
and deactivate Gemini and Google AI mode.
chrome://settings/searchEngines?search=AI+mod
and deactivate Gemini and Google AI mode.
It sounds familiar
"No one’s in charge. Everyone’s exposed. And no one’s acting like that’s a problem."
skooloflife.medium.com/99-of-ai-sta...
"No one’s in charge. Everyone’s exposed. And no one’s acting like that’s a problem."
skooloflife.medium.com/99-of-ai-sta...
99% of AI Startups Will Be Dead by 2026 — Here’s Why
In the late ’90s, I was a student at Berkeley watching the dot-com boom unfold like a fever dream.
skooloflife.medium.com
November 21, 2025 at 8:01 PM
It sounds familiar
"No one’s in charge. Everyone’s exposed. And no one’s acting like that’s a problem."
skooloflife.medium.com/99-of-ai-sta...
"No one’s in charge. Everyone’s exposed. And no one’s acting like that’s a problem."
skooloflife.medium.com/99-of-ai-sta...
As always, women are the primary victims of a brute reality, now augmented by genAI fakes, which goes to increase the degradation.
"This "massive leak" is the latest case of people using generative AI tools to turn innocent photos into nonconsensual explicit deepfakes."
shorturl.at/tmYVd
"This "massive leak" is the latest case of people using generative AI tools to turn innocent photos into nonconsensual explicit deepfakes."
shorturl.at/tmYVd
'Spicy' AI image generator left millions of photos exposed
The leak included AI-generated explicit videos.
mashable.com
November 21, 2025 at 7:57 PM
As always, women are the primary victims of a brute reality, now augmented by genAI fakes, which goes to increase the degradation.
"This "massive leak" is the latest case of people using generative AI tools to turn innocent photos into nonconsensual explicit deepfakes."
shorturl.at/tmYVd
"This "massive leak" is the latest case of people using generative AI tools to turn innocent photos into nonconsensual explicit deepfakes."
shorturl.at/tmYVd
" I watched birds and tried to figure out what they were up to....
I have to admit, these birds were weird! I mean, the woodpecker was hopping around on a tree, smashing it’s bill into the wood. The parrot had a really big bill and was really noisy. And the penguin looked more like a fish!"
I have to admit, these birds were weird! I mean, the woodpecker was hopping around on a tree, smashing it’s bill into the wood. The parrot had a really big bill and was really noisy. And the penguin looked more like a fish!"
November 21, 2025 at 6:38 PM
" I watched birds and tried to figure out what they were up to....
I have to admit, these birds were weird! I mean, the woodpecker was hopping around on a tree, smashing it’s bill into the wood. The parrot had a really big bill and was really noisy. And the penguin looked more like a fish!"
I have to admit, these birds were weird! I mean, the woodpecker was hopping around on a tree, smashing it’s bill into the wood. The parrot had a really big bill and was really noisy. And the penguin looked more like a fish!"
Reposted by Esther Mondragón
November 21, 2025 at 3:55 PM
A perfect Dickinsonian London. Welcome!
It’s the exclusive everyone wanted, the story that will win next year’s Pulitzer…
I can reveal London’s giant AI generated Christmas artwork, the subject of much online mockery, is being torn down - and I honestly *genuinely* think you’ll never guess why. www.londoncentric.media/p/ai-artwork...
I can reveal London’s giant AI generated Christmas artwork, the subject of much online mockery, is being torn down - and I honestly *genuinely* think you’ll never guess why. www.londoncentric.media/p/ai-artwork...
London's giant AI artwork to be torn down
The bizarre story of why a much-talked-about creation is being torn down. Plus: Docklands Light Railway extension, giant laser stalks the night sky, and more tales of Android phone theft rejection.
www.londoncentric.media
November 20, 2025 at 11:36 AM
A perfect Dickinsonian London. Welcome!
Reposted by Esther Mondragón
News you can use.
People using Chrome may want to know about this.
To disable the new default AI mode. Type chrome://flags in your address bar. Search for AI mode in the search box below and disable the three options displayed.
To disable the new default AI mode. Type chrome://flags in your address bar. Search for AI mode in the search box below and disable the three options displayed.
November 19, 2025 at 8:21 PM
News you can use.
Reposted by Esther Mondragón
"ai" and "gemini" both can be disabled this way
People using Chrome may want to know about this.
To disable the new default AI mode. Type chrome://flags in your address bar. Search for AI mode in the search box below and disable the three options displayed.
To disable the new default AI mode. Type chrome://flags in your address bar. Search for AI mode in the search box below and disable the three options displayed.
November 19, 2025 at 8:24 PM
"ai" and "gemini" both can be disabled this way
Reposted by Esther Mondragón
pass the word
People using Chrome may want to know about this.
To disable the new default AI mode. Type chrome://flags in your address bar. Search for AI mode in the search box below and disable the three options displayed.
To disable the new default AI mode. Type chrome://flags in your address bar. Search for AI mode in the search box below and disable the three options displayed.
November 19, 2025 at 8:30 PM
pass the word
Reposted by Esther Mondragón
Awesome advice. I had no idea this was even a thing.
People using Chrome may want to know about this.
To disable the new default AI mode. Type chrome://flags in your address bar. Search for AI mode in the search box below and disable the three options displayed.
To disable the new default AI mode. Type chrome://flags in your address bar. Search for AI mode in the search box below and disable the three options displayed.
November 19, 2025 at 8:39 PM
Awesome advice. I had no idea this was even a thing.