James Ashford
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jelashford.bsky.social
James Ashford
@jelashford.bsky.social
610 followers 3K following 58 posts
Researcher in Machine Learning and Genetics. Here to explore projects in ALife and machine learning - particularly interested in self organising systems and interpretability! (he/him)
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Reposted by James Ashford
rjb-mallacore.bsky.social
Some of my Star Trek based art.

Enjoy.

#scifiart #scifi #fanart #startrek
November 11, 2025 at 11:34 PM
Reposted by James Ashford
olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social
Nuremburg trials is the moderate position
lyndab08.bsky.social Lynda Lopez @lyndab08.bsky.social · 6d
He said that the agents would throw food at them to eat. The agents threatened to withhold food for a week and to beat him up if he didn't sign deportation papers. He said he saw others refuse and get beaten/receive no food. He signed because he was afraid.
November 7, 2025 at 12:34 PM
Reposted by James Ashford
bencollins.bsky.social
“I want you to understand what it is like to live in Chicago during this time.”

aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...
I want you to understand what it is like to live in Chicago during this time. Every day my phone buzzes. It is a neighborhood group: four people were kidnapped at the corner drugstore. A friend a mile away sends a Slack message: she was at the scene when masked men assaulted and abducted two people on the street. A plumber working on my pipes is distraught, and I find out that two of his employees were kidnapped that morning. A week later it happens again. An email arrives. Agents with guns have chased a teacher into the school where she works. They did not have a warrant. They dragged her away, ignoring her and her colleagues’ pleas to show proof of her documentation. That evening I stand a few feet from the parents of Rayito de Sol and listen to them describe, with anguish, how good Ms. Diana was to their children. What it is like to have strangers with guns traumatize your kids. For a teacher to hide a three-year-old child for fear they might be killed. How their relatives will no longer leave the house. I hear the pain and fury in their voices, and I wonder who will be next. Understand what it is to pray in Chicago.
November 9, 2025 at 5:26 PM
Reposted by James Ashford
zackpolanski.bsky.social
Cheers!

We don't have to agree on absolutely everything.

But want lower bills? Think billionaires should pay more tax?

Join.greenparty.org.uk
November 9, 2025 at 6:17 PM
Reposted by James Ashford
lpachter.bsky.social
I wrote a review of James Watson's obituary by CSHL: liorpachter.wordpress.com/2025/11/08/r...
Review of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory’s Obituary for Dr. James Watson
James Watson, who described himself as “not a racist in a conventional way”, has died at the age of 97. Below is a review of an obituary for Dr. James Watson published by Cold Spring Ha…
liorpachter.wordpress.com
November 8, 2025 at 9:58 PM
Reposted by James Ashford
dryad.technology
Edited scan of an iconic IBM document: "A computer can never be held accountable Therefore a computer must make all management decisions"
November 9, 2025 at 6:45 PM
Reposted by James Ashford
jeffreymphd.bsky.social
Her sister wrote my favorite essay about her. She points out that RF would have been famous even if she'd never looked at DNA

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
Remembering my sister Rosalind Franklin
Rosalind Franklin died of ovarian cancer in 1958 aged 37 years. Sympathy and feminism have combined to give us her familiar image as a downtrodden woman scientist, brilliant but neglected, a heroine t...
www.thelancet.com
November 7, 2025 at 11:20 PM
Reposted by James Ashford
emilyhughes.bsky.social
pre-writing a devastating obituary for your enemy is god-tier hating of a kind you don’t often see anymore. renaissance haterism. beautiful stuff.
brittanytrang.com Brittany Trang @brittanytrang.com · 4d
A Sharon Begley byline, almost 5 years after her death.

Upon hearing the news James Watson had died, a STAT reporter said in our Slack, "I wish I could read what Sharon would have written."

Incredible news: Sharon in fact did pre-write a Watson obit. And it is masterful and excoriating.
🧪🧬🧫
James Watson, dead at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers
James Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA who died Thursday at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers.
www.statnews.com
November 9, 2025 at 12:55 AM
Reposted by James Ashford
irisvanrooij.bsky.social
‘Study after study shows that students want to develop these critical thinking skills, are not lazy, and large numbers of them would be in favor of banning ChatGPT and similar tools in universities’, says @olivia.science www.ru.nl/en/research/...
‘Opposing the inevitability of AI at universities is possible and necessary’ | Radboud University
Since the widespread release of ChatGPT in December of 2022, AI has taken over much of the world by storm – including academia. Most of this happened with very little pushback, despite a myriad of iss...
www.ru.nl
November 1, 2025 at 10:26 PM
Reposted by James Ashford
perfors.net
Getting nervous for the talk I'm about to give at a workshop about "using AI to drive impact" which features slides such as these.
Slide is titled: You don't need to use LLMs. Science is a process of collaborative meaning making, by which we try to understand the world Even if AI were perfect, we rely on it at our peril — it is not science if we (i.e., humanity as a whole) do not understand and cannot recapitulate all parts of it I very, very rarely use LLMs myself. You can give yourself permission not to. Don’t FOMO yourself into it Conclusion: Don't rely on something you don't understand and can't control If you must use LLMS: 1. Treat them like you would an intern: only use them for things you can easily and thoroughly check 2. Make your process as robust as possible 3. Be aware of your own (human) cognitive biases
November 6, 2025 at 8:41 PM
Reposted by James Ashford
zackpolanski.bsky.social
And another councillor defection - after another two in London!

Over and over again people speaking out against this Labour Government and joining the hopeful movement in the Green Party!

Huge welcome to Caroline! 🎉

www.bedfordtoday.co.uk/news/politic...
Former Labour councillor defects to Bedford Green Party
Independent councillor Caroline White (Kempston Central and East ward) has joined the Green Party.
www.bedfordtoday.co.uk
November 6, 2025 at 8:13 AM
Reposted by James Ashford
crobertcargill.bsky.social
As many have pointed out, Mamdani didn't stand apart from our trans brothers and sisters. He didn't play the "Gee, gosh, it sure is complicated," milquetoast moderate card. And he crushed.

The way forward is together, not over the bodies of our own.
November 5, 2025 at 2:52 AM
Reposted by James Ashford
katmabu.bsky.social
Good things are possible and we don’t have to settle.
November 5, 2025 at 3:35 AM
Reposted by James Ashford
cabalittle.bsky.social
Bluesky rn
The Dimitri finds out meme, which is a two panel vertical meme of a guy being interviewed by a lady. The caption reads "The club is bumping, the ladies look good, the alcohol is flowing." The second caption reads "There is much pain in the world, but not in this room."
November 5, 2025 at 3:04 AM
Reposted by James Ashford
illufinch.bsky.social
#pixelart #ドット絵
November 4, 2025 at 7:00 AM
Reposted by James Ashford
tylerfromtheinternet.com
"Dislike button." Fucking grow up
October 31, 2025 at 10:45 PM
Reposted by James Ashford
nocontexttrek1.bsky.social
Star Trek The Next Generation scene. Tasha Yar, Riker, and Data stand outside with some greenery in the background, a questionably perfect blue sky backdrop, and lots of fog. Yar and Riker have a defensive posture holding phaser pistols, Data is staring at his phone. (It's a tricorder). Closed caption reads, "Spooky " 👻
October 31, 2025 at 1:46 PM
Reposted by James Ashford
michaelemann.bsky.social
Let me excerpt the concluding paragraph:
excerpt from linked commentary
October 31, 2025 at 10:50 PM
Reposted by James Ashford
faineg.bsky.social
“Individuals on the ground sent a message that reached us Monday morning that 1,200 were dead,” Nathaniel Raymond, the lab’s executive director, said. “By that evening, they said 10,000. By Tuesday, we couldn’t reach them anymore. We assume our ground contacts are dead.”
Yale lab reports mass killings in Sudan, calls for student activism
The Humanitarian Research Lab was told this week that over 10,000 people in Sudan were killed within three days.
yaledailynews.com
October 31, 2025 at 8:02 PM
Reposted by James Ashford
fasterthanli.me
it's such a joy to build software exclusively for yourself

definitely a form of self-care
October 30, 2025 at 11:30 AM
Reposted by James Ashford
katmabu.bsky.social
I have been charged in a federal indictment sought by the Department of Justice.

This political prosecution is an attack on all of our First Amendment rights. I’m not backing down, and we’re going to win.
October 29, 2025 at 4:55 PM
Reposted by James Ashford
tristanod.bsky.social
October 28, 2025 at 9:18 PM
Reposted by James Ashford
nsousanis.bsky.social
My statement on Ai from the mini-comic as syllabus i made for new class I'm teaching that starts tomorrow! It robs you of your decisions & struggles - and the joy of being surprised. We won’t to be robbed of our learning - this is essential. This & the full mini at post:
bsky.app/profile/nsou...
a snippet of a mini-comic, at top - straight line stretches from point A to B. Immediately below, same dot at A, then becomes a curving, meandering line that winds through the page and ends at a point with rays and a question mark emanating from it. Text reads: "Nothing can do this for you - for that robs you of experience and conflates answers with learning. Rather, it's all the decisions you make along the way, the mistakes, struggles, and surprises! These pathways you create - this is learning.
August 24, 2025 at 7:26 PM
Reposted by James Ashford
katie.bzky.team
the most interesting anecdotes about LLMs to me have been the programmers who had no hype but earnestly believed all the marketing that it'd improve their workflow that extensively tried to implement various tools to little success, only to be bewildered by the religious devotion pro-LLM pushback.
October 24, 2025 at 12:01 AM
Reposted by James Ashford
gettheorion.bsky.social
I DONT WANT TO SAVE TIME. I WANT to obsess over every detail & decision. I WANT to look at an accidental line & decide if it makes the piece better or worse. I WANT to challenge myself to discover & grow.
"AI can save you time." It takes however long it takes. I owe the clocks of this world nothing.
spavel.bsky.social Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 15d
"AI can save you time." You miserable fool. You stupid baby. Technology can't save you time. The mechanical clock and the Google Calendar have chopped your life into small pieces to be sold, and you think adding more technology will let you keep some of those pieces for yourself?
October 28, 2025 at 2:44 PM