M
@minestartswithm.bsky.social
Reposted by M
I am flabbergasted I am by how much vibe coding has expanded my capacities as a scientist and teacher.
In the last few weeks, I've mocked up class demos of a live turing test, generated cross-references for an encyclopedia, and prototyped new tablet tasks for developmental psych.
It's wild.
In the last few weeks, I've mocked up class demos of a live turing test, generated cross-references for an encyclopedia, and prototyped new tablet tasks for developmental psych.
It's wild.
February 5, 2026 at 11:44 PM
I am flabbergasted I am by how much vibe coding has expanded my capacities as a scientist and teacher.
In the last few weeks, I've mocked up class demos of a live turing test, generated cross-references for an encyclopedia, and prototyped new tablet tasks for developmental psych.
It's wild.
In the last few weeks, I've mocked up class demos of a live turing test, generated cross-references for an encyclopedia, and prototyped new tablet tasks for developmental psych.
It's wild.
Reposted by M
Russia's fiscal situation is worse than expected: The consolidated budget had a deficit of nearly 4% of GDP in 2025. Regions are under pressure from increasing war costs. Social funds were forced to draw down their reserves after federal transfers were cut. Read: open.substack.com/pub/janisklu...
Russia’s consolidated budget deficit reached almost 4% of GDP in 2025
As Russian regions shoulder more war costs and social security funds are depleted, the consolidated budget balance has deteriorated far more than expected.
open.substack.com
February 7, 2026 at 2:42 PM
Russia's fiscal situation is worse than expected: The consolidated budget had a deficit of nearly 4% of GDP in 2025. Regions are under pressure from increasing war costs. Social funds were forced to draw down their reserves after federal transfers were cut. Read: open.substack.com/pub/janisklu...
Reposted by M
FIRE is representing NewsGuard as it sues the FTC:
“At stake is whether the govt can punish private companies and nonprofits that it sees as part of a “censorship-industrial complex” suppressing conservative viewpoints — or whether the 1A protects those orgs”
www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...
“At stake is whether the govt can punish private companies and nonprofits that it sees as part of a “censorship-industrial complex” suppressing conservative viewpoints — or whether the 1A protects those orgs”
www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...
A company that rates news sites says the Trump administration is strangling it
NewsGuard sues Trump’s FTC alleging censorship after Chairman Andrew Ferguson barred a major ad agency from using its ratings
www.washingtonpost.com
February 7, 2026 at 5:36 PM
FIRE is representing NewsGuard as it sues the FTC:
“At stake is whether the govt can punish private companies and nonprofits that it sees as part of a “censorship-industrial complex” suppressing conservative viewpoints — or whether the 1A protects those orgs”
www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...
“At stake is whether the govt can punish private companies and nonprofits that it sees as part of a “censorship-industrial complex” suppressing conservative viewpoints — or whether the 1A protects those orgs”
www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...
Reposted by M
Bellingcat's Director of Research and Training @giancarlofiorella.bsky.social appeared on CTV yesterday to discuss the misleading AI-generated images that were used to falsely identify ICE agents and weapons at the centre of the two fatal shootings in Minneapolis youtu.be/mL7Fbp3UrSo?...
AI images spreading confusion about ICE agents in Minneapolis, expert says
YouTube video by CTV News
youtu.be
February 5, 2026 at 9:36 AM
Bellingcat's Director of Research and Training @giancarlofiorella.bsky.social appeared on CTV yesterday to discuss the misleading AI-generated images that were used to falsely identify ICE agents and weapons at the centre of the two fatal shootings in Minneapolis youtu.be/mL7Fbp3UrSo?...
Reposted by M
This is another reason why I think the information retrieval push, even pre-LLM, to shift from 10 Blue Links to retrieving contents, answering questions, etc. may be a mistake. We lose important things when we unmoor information from authorial & organizational grounding (and cites aren’t enough).
Sobering assessments from the just released NATO Stratcom brief on information risks.
stratcomcoe.org/pdfjs/?file=...
stratcomcoe.org/pdfjs/?file=...
February 7, 2026 at 1:36 PM
This is another reason why I think the information retrieval push, even pre-LLM, to shift from 10 Blue Links to retrieving contents, answering questions, etc. may be a mistake. We lose important things when we unmoor information from authorial & organizational grounding (and cites aren’t enough).
Reposted by M
‘About 80% of data-annotation and content moderation workers are drawn from rural, semi-rural or marginalised backgrounds. Firms deliberately operate from smaller cities and towns, where rents and labour costs are lower, and a growing pool of first-generation graduates are seeking jobs.’
‘In the end, you feel blank’: India’s female workers watching hours of abusive content to train AI
Women in rural communities describe trauma of moderating violent and pornographic content for global tech companies
www.theguardian.com
February 7, 2026 at 12:28 PM
‘About 80% of data-annotation and content moderation workers are drawn from rural, semi-rural or marginalised backgrounds. Firms deliberately operate from smaller cities and towns, where rents and labour costs are lower, and a growing pool of first-generation graduates are seeking jobs.’
Reposted by M
Striking paper from researchers at Anthropic using a randomised control trial to look at the effects of AI use on skills acquisition.
TL:DR ‘We found that using AI assistance led to a statistically significant decrease in mastery.’
www.anthropic.com/research/AI-...
TL:DR ‘We found that using AI assistance led to a statistically significant decrease in mastery.’
www.anthropic.com/research/AI-...
February 4, 2026 at 7:47 AM
Striking paper from researchers at Anthropic using a randomised control trial to look at the effects of AI use on skills acquisition.
TL:DR ‘We found that using AI assistance led to a statistically significant decrease in mastery.’
www.anthropic.com/research/AI-...
TL:DR ‘We found that using AI assistance led to a statistically significant decrease in mastery.’
www.anthropic.com/research/AI-...
Reposted by M
New and open access, in @psrm.bsky.social: What happens when we make politicians draw distributions? Nic Dias, @jacklucas.bsky.social and I explore whether the large errors politicians make about public opinion are artificially inflated by how researchers ask them to estimate it /1
cup.org/4kltoyE
cup.org/4kltoyE
February 3, 2026 at 12:04 PM
New and open access, in @psrm.bsky.social: What happens when we make politicians draw distributions? Nic Dias, @jacklucas.bsky.social and I explore whether the large errors politicians make about public opinion are artificially inflated by how researchers ask them to estimate it /1
cup.org/4kltoyE
cup.org/4kltoyE
Reposted by M
Paris prosecutors raid French offices of Elon Musk's X
Paris prosecutors raid French offices of Elon Musk's X
The search is part of a preliminary investigation into a range of alleged offenses, including reports that the AI chatbot Grok helped disseminate Holocaust denial content and sexual deepfakes.
www.lemonde.fr
February 3, 2026 at 11:27 AM
Paris prosecutors raid French offices of Elon Musk's X
Reposted by M
We have little direct evidence about what happens when working scientists—not students, not white-collar professionals doing routine tasks—offload the cognitive labor of scientific writing to AI, writes Tim Requarth.
#neuroskyence
www.thetransmitter.org/artificial-i...
#neuroskyence
www.thetransmitter.org/artificial-i...
Betting blind on AI and the scientific mind
If the struggle to articulate an idea is part of how you come to understand it, then tools that bypass that struggle might degrade your capacity for the kind of thinking that matters most for actual…
www.thetransmitter.org
February 2, 2026 at 3:09 PM
We have little direct evidence about what happens when working scientists—not students, not white-collar professionals doing routine tasks—offload the cognitive labor of scientific writing to AI, writes Tim Requarth.
#neuroskyence
www.thetransmitter.org/artificial-i...
#neuroskyence
www.thetransmitter.org/artificial-i...
Reposted by M
Well, what does it mean for AI to be "fake?" Language evokes intelligence - in the reader. It's a powerful illusion. A reasonable critic sees that computation at scale can fuse language w/math in ways that do things. That is not "intelligence," and the problems that come that error are bountiful.
You can totally point out that some aspects of AI are overhyped, you can believe that AGI is not possible, you can criticize how the companies and governments developing AI are using or being coopted by these tools. There is a lot to criticize.
But "it doesn't work and is fake" is just wrong now.
But "it doesn't work and is fake" is just wrong now.
February 2, 2026 at 12:04 PM
Well, what does it mean for AI to be "fake?" Language evokes intelligence - in the reader. It's a powerful illusion. A reasonable critic sees that computation at scale can fuse language w/math in ways that do things. That is not "intelligence," and the problems that come that error are bountiful.
Reposted by M
Large language models can accurately score people’s Big 5 personality traits on the basis of their brief, open-ended narratives.
LLM ratings converged with self-reports and predicted daily behaviour & mental health www.nature.com/articles/s41...
LLM ratings converged with self-reports and predicted daily behaviour & mental health www.nature.com/articles/s41...
February 2, 2026 at 2:17 PM
Large language models can accurately score people’s Big 5 personality traits on the basis of their brief, open-ended narratives.
LLM ratings converged with self-reports and predicted daily behaviour & mental health www.nature.com/articles/s41...
LLM ratings converged with self-reports and predicted daily behaviour & mental health www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by M
One of the best AI critiques I’ve seen read.dukeupress.edu/critical-ai/...
A Pedagogy of the Inevitable
Over the last couple of years, two altogether incompatible discourses of “AI literacy” have emerged. One seeks just enough literacy to support a smooth, perhaps even joyful, integration with new techn...
read.dukeupress.edu
January 16, 2026 at 5:14 AM
One of the best AI critiques I’ve seen read.dukeupress.edu/critical-ai/...
Reposted by M
Guest Post — The Ghost in the Machine: Why Generative AI is a Crisis of Authorship, Not Just a Tool scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2026/01/22/g...
Guest Post - The Ghost in the Machine: Why Generative AI is a Crisis of Authorship, Not Just a Tool - The Scholarly Kitchen
Today's guest author raises the question of whether a researcher submitting an article that was significantly drafted by an LLM without clear disclosure is effectively engaging in a contemporary form ...
scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org
January 22, 2026 at 10:37 AM
Guest Post — The Ghost in the Machine: Why Generative AI is a Crisis of Authorship, Not Just a Tool scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2026/01/22/g...
Reposted by M
Being able to identify hoaxes, avoid scams & debunk propaganda is a civic skill required in today's information society. That's why curriculum for students in Finland includes media literacy lessons, aimed at safeguarding a precious resource: the truth. Via @aljazeera.com
Finland teaches media literacy to fight fake news and disinformation
YouTube video by Al Jazeera English
youtube.com
January 28, 2026 at 8:10 AM
Being able to identify hoaxes, avoid scams & debunk propaganda is a civic skill required in today's information society. That's why curriculum for students in Finland includes media literacy lessons, aimed at safeguarding a precious resource: the truth. Via @aljazeera.com
Reposted by M
In Printz v. United States, #SCOTUS held that the Constitution bars the federal government from forcing or otherwise compelling local or state governments to enforce federal law.
The liberal squish who wrote the majority opinion in that case? Justice Antonin Scalia:
tile.loc.gov/storage-serv...
The liberal squish who wrote the majority opinion in that case? Justice Antonin Scalia:
tile.loc.gov/storage-serv...
January 28, 2026 at 1:41 PM
In Printz v. United States, #SCOTUS held that the Constitution bars the federal government from forcing or otherwise compelling local or state governments to enforce federal law.
The liberal squish who wrote the majority opinion in that case? Justice Antonin Scalia:
tile.loc.gov/storage-serv...
The liberal squish who wrote the majority opinion in that case? Justice Antonin Scalia:
tile.loc.gov/storage-serv...
Reposted by M
“I watched him die… then I watched them maneuver his body like a rag doll— only to discover it was because they wanted to count the bullet wounds and see how many they ‘got’, like he was a deer.”
January 28, 2026 at 5:46 AM
“I watched him die… then I watched them maneuver his body like a rag doll— only to discover it was because they wanted to count the bullet wounds and see how many they ‘got’, like he was a deer.”
Reposted by M
AI deepfakes affect people even if they know the videos are fake: nice media coverage here of phys.org/news/2026-0... one of our recent studies. 1/2
1/2
1/2
People are swayed by AI-generated videos even when they know they're fake, study shows
Generative deep learning models are artificial intelligence (AI) systems that can create texts, images, audio files, and videos for specific purposes, following instructions provided by human users. Over ...
phys.org
January 27, 2026 at 2:34 PM
AI deepfakes affect people even if they know the videos are fake: nice media coverage here of phys.org/news/2026-0... one of our recent studies. 1/2
1/2
1/2
Reposted by M
A review of the app stores “found 55 nudify apps on Google Play and 47 in the Apple App Store…”
Apple, Google host dozens of AI ‘nudify’ apps like Grok, report finds
A tech watchdog organization found 55 nudify apps on Google Play and 47 in the Apple App Store.
www.cnbc.com
January 27, 2026 at 12:39 PM
A review of the app stores “found 55 nudify apps on Google Play and 47 in the Apple App Store…”
Reposted by M
NEW: The Transportation Department, which oversees the safety of airplanes, cars and pipelines, plans to use Google Gemini to draft new regulations.
“We don’t need the perfect rule,” said DOT’s top lawyer. “We want good enough.”
By @jessecoburn.bsky.social
“We don’t need the perfect rule,” said DOT’s top lawyer. “We want good enough.”
By @jessecoburn.bsky.social
Government by AI? Trump Administration Plans to Write Regulations Using Artificial Intelligence
The Transportation Department, which oversees the safety of airplanes, cars and pipelines, plans to use Google Gemini to draft new regulations. “We don’t need the perfect rule,” said DOT’s top lawyer....
www.propublica.org
January 26, 2026 at 1:05 PM
NEW: The Transportation Department, which oversees the safety of airplanes, cars and pipelines, plans to use Google Gemini to draft new regulations.
“We don’t need the perfect rule,” said DOT’s top lawyer. “We want good enough.”
By @jessecoburn.bsky.social
“We don’t need the perfect rule,” said DOT’s top lawyer. “We want good enough.”
By @jessecoburn.bsky.social
Reposted by M
We have a new paper in Science today on how malicious AI swarms can threaten democracy.
AI systems can already coordinate autonomously, infiltrate communities, and fabricate social consensus.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Led by @kunstjonas.bsky.social & @daniel-thilo.bsky.social!
AI systems can already coordinate autonomously, infiltrate communities, and fabricate social consensus.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Led by @kunstjonas.bsky.social & @daniel-thilo.bsky.social!
January 22, 2026 at 7:09 PM
We have a new paper in Science today on how malicious AI swarms can threaten democracy.
AI systems can already coordinate autonomously, infiltrate communities, and fabricate social consensus.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Led by @kunstjonas.bsky.social & @daniel-thilo.bsky.social!
AI systems can already coordinate autonomously, infiltrate communities, and fabricate social consensus.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Led by @kunstjonas.bsky.social & @daniel-thilo.bsky.social!
Reposted by M
Trump links Greenland pursuit to failure to win Nobel Prize ft.trib.al/ZfbSDmt
Trump links Greenland pursuit to failure to win Nobel Prize
US president texts Norwegian leader that he no longer feels obliged ‘to think purely of Peace’ after missing out on award
ft.trib.al
January 19, 2026 at 8:55 AM
Trump links Greenland pursuit to failure to win Nobel Prize ft.trib.al/ZfbSDmt
Reposted by M
Not the sort of letter committed to paper by a well man. "Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace"
January 19, 2026 at 7:04 AM
Not the sort of letter committed to paper by a well man. "Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace"
Reposted by M
Writing is thinking
Outsourcing the entire task of writing to LLMs will deprive us of the essential creative task of interpreting our findings and generating a deeper theoretical understanding of the world.
Outsourcing the entire task of writing to LLMs will deprive us of the essential creative task of interpreting our findings and generating a deeper theoretical understanding of the world.
January 18, 2026 at 6:15 PM
Writing is thinking
Outsourcing the entire task of writing to LLMs will deprive us of the essential creative task of interpreting our findings and generating a deeper theoretical understanding of the world.
Outsourcing the entire task of writing to LLMs will deprive us of the essential creative task of interpreting our findings and generating a deeper theoretical understanding of the world.
Reposted by M
THREAD: Viral misinformation on US capture of Nicolas Maduro - 4 January
This video, shared by Alex Jones and others, falsely claims to show millions of Venezuelans in Caracas celebrating Maduro's capture.
In fact, it shows anti-Maduro protests in July 2024 over a highly disputed election.
This video, shared by Alex Jones and others, falsely claims to show millions of Venezuelans in Caracas celebrating Maduro's capture.
In fact, it shows anti-Maduro protests in July 2024 over a highly disputed election.
January 4, 2026 at 7:29 PM
THREAD: Viral misinformation on US capture of Nicolas Maduro - 4 January
This video, shared by Alex Jones and others, falsely claims to show millions of Venezuelans in Caracas celebrating Maduro's capture.
In fact, it shows anti-Maduro protests in July 2024 over a highly disputed election.
This video, shared by Alex Jones and others, falsely claims to show millions of Venezuelans in Caracas celebrating Maduro's capture.
In fact, it shows anti-Maduro protests in July 2024 over a highly disputed election.