Rasmus Birk
@rasmusbirk.bsky.social
Associate Professor in Psychology @ Aalborg University. I use qualitative methods to study mental health, focusing especially on the social, cultural and spatial contexts of experience.
https://www.rasmusbirk.org/
https://www.rasmusbirk.org/
aside from the *many* problems here, the idea that chatGPT can just 'know' what 'developmental psychology' is is completely nonsensical. How were these academic disciplines defined?
Many psychologists are treating LLMs as if they are the mind of god.
This study had chatGPT rate how central academic disciplines are to various constructs.
Why would chatGPT know this?
Where is the evidence its ratings are reliable or valid?
compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
This study had chatGPT rate how central academic disciplines are to various constructs.
Why would chatGPT know this?
Where is the evidence its ratings are reliable or valid?
compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
December 10, 2025 at 11:32 AM
aside from the *many* problems here, the idea that chatGPT can just 'know' what 'developmental psychology' is is completely nonsensical. How were these academic disciplines defined?
Reposted by Rasmus Birk
'Over-diagnosis' may have become adopted by the Right, but the experts leading Streeting's review (www.ucl.ac.uk/psychoanalys...) are entirely unlike the economistic, cognitivist ones who worked to deliver Osborne's cuts circa 2011
Peter Fonagy
Psychoanalysis Unit
www.ucl.ac.uk
December 8, 2025 at 10:47 AM
'Over-diagnosis' may have become adopted by the Right, but the experts leading Streeting's review (www.ucl.ac.uk/psychoanalys...) are entirely unlike the economistic, cognitivist ones who worked to deliver Osborne's cuts circa 2011
there's a whole sociology dissertation to be written here (provided they don't close the UK sociology departments survive...)
Jerk Chicken is famously a favorite dish in the House. There’s an account alerting people on days it’s served. Every MP stuffs their face with jerk chicken before voting for the Shake Immigrants Upside Down To See If Coins Fall Out Bill
I'm sorry but a country where the legislature sells jerk seasoning as gift shop tat is not one where the engines of multiculturalism can be rolled back to 1948
December 8, 2025 at 12:10 PM
there's a whole sociology dissertation to be written here (provided they don't close the UK sociology departments survive...)
Reposted by Rasmus Birk
Works the other way around too.
“If I was Jonathan Haidt, how would I destroy the next generation?”
“If I was Jonathan Haidt, how would I destroy the next generation?”
December 2, 2025 at 3:35 PM
Works the other way around too.
“If I was Jonathan Haidt, how would I destroy the next generation?”
“If I was Jonathan Haidt, how would I destroy the next generation?”
Spotify wrapped aka the grim realisation of how much children’s music and audiobooks you’ve been subjected to in the past year
December 4, 2025 at 3:40 PM
Spotify wrapped aka the grim realisation of how much children’s music and audiobooks you’ve been subjected to in the past year
Reposted by Rasmus Birk
There was no state. Who does she think crucified him, an anarchist collective?
November 28, 2025 at 11:22 AM
There was no state. Who does she think crucified him, an anarchist collective?
Reposted by Rasmus Birk
Elon Musk and the Trump administration gleefully shutting down USAID “has already caused the deaths of six hundred thousand people, two-thirds of them children.”
People throw around terms like genocide quite freely online but it’s hard to find other words to describe this level of man-made death.
People throw around terms like genocide quite freely online but it’s hard to find other words to describe this level of man-made death.
USAID shutdown has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
The Trump administration’s decision to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths from infectious diseases and malnutrition, accord...
hsph.harvard.edu
November 28, 2025 at 11:24 AM
Elon Musk and the Trump administration gleefully shutting down USAID “has already caused the deaths of six hundred thousand people, two-thirds of them children.”
People throw around terms like genocide quite freely online but it’s hard to find other words to describe this level of man-made death.
People throw around terms like genocide quite freely online but it’s hard to find other words to describe this level of man-made death.
Reposted by Rasmus Birk
It feels like the more important issue here is not the (stupid) question itself, but instead the fantasy of the machine that is both pliant and conscious, and what sort of collective wish that fantasy might index.
nymag.com/intelligence...
nymag.com/intelligence...
Is ChatGPT Conscious?
Many users feel they’re talking to a real person. Scientists say it’s time to consider whether they’re onto something.
nymag.com
November 27, 2025 at 6:29 PM
It feels like the more important issue here is not the (stupid) question itself, but instead the fantasy of the machine that is both pliant and conscious, and what sort of collective wish that fantasy might index.
nymag.com/intelligence...
nymag.com/intelligence...
I have so many questions about this and one is: he needs a manuscript to say this?!
Larry Summers’s co-teacher at Harvard:
“We will miss his insights and his wisdom”
Student:
“NO WE WON’T”
dude pretends he doesn’t hear, then intros Tony Blair lmao
“We will miss his insights and his wisdom”
Student:
“NO WE WON’T”
dude pretends he doesn’t hear, then intros Tony Blair lmao
November 26, 2025 at 9:07 PM
I have so many questions about this and one is: he needs a manuscript to say this?!
Reposted by Rasmus Birk
Reposted by Rasmus Birk
"Unlike continental nonsense, analytic philosophy is clear and intelligible"
November 25, 2025 at 3:40 PM
"Unlike continental nonsense, analytic philosophy is clear and intelligible"
Surely this headline is for rage-engagement, right?
Breaking News: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he personally instructed the CDC to abandon its position that vaccines do not cause autism. The move underscores his determination to challenge scientific orthodoxy — in this case, that vaccines save lives — and bend the health department to his will.
RFK Jr. Says He Instructed CDC to Change Vaccines and Autism Language on Website
In an interview, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cited gaps in vaccine safety research. His critics say he is ignoring a larger point: Vaccines save lives.
nyti.ms
November 23, 2025 at 4:02 PM
Surely this headline is for rage-engagement, right?
Reposted by Rasmus Birk
Find someone that looks at you the way that universities look at AI
November 22, 2025 at 10:10 AM
Find someone that looks at you the way that universities look at AI
So, in the age of ChatGPT etc, do we now have to edit out emdashes from our papers if we don't want them to be (incorrectly) read as written by LLMs?
November 21, 2025 at 11:43 AM
So, in the age of ChatGPT etc, do we now have to edit out emdashes from our papers if we don't want them to be (incorrectly) read as written by LLMs?
Reposted by Rasmus Birk
Reposted by Rasmus Birk
it is almost as if accommodating and conceding to far right ideas legitimizes them and signals to voters that the far right is a legitimate choice for governance
The Danish Social Democrats are currently on course for their worst election result since at least the Second World War, despite their brand of far-right accommodationism being touted as a blueprint for other centre-left parties.
Oh
November 18, 2025 at 2:24 PM
it is almost as if accommodating and conceding to far right ideas legitimizes them and signals to voters that the far right is a legitimate choice for governance
I think the best take on Scorsese I’ve heard comes from @jamellebouie.net who basically described him as exploring the relationship between violence, social life (esp. in the US) and the psyche.
Martin Scorsese is 83.
This guy had a point.
I remember watching The Irishman & thinking ‘This is just Kundun again. What a hack.’
This guy had a point.
I remember watching The Irishman & thinking ‘This is just Kundun again. What a hack.’
November 18, 2025 at 8:23 AM
I think the best take on Scorsese I’ve heard comes from @jamellebouie.net who basically described him as exploring the relationship between violence, social life (esp. in the US) and the psyche.
Completely wrong info here being reposted by 500+ people. Great.
November 17, 2025 at 9:58 AM
Completely wrong info here being reposted by 500+ people. Great.
Reposted by Rasmus Birk
2 fantastic-looking history of medicine research fellowships at Warwick: Traumatised Minds, Neurosis and Hysteria in Soviet Medicine and Culture, 1917-1953
www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPK288/r...
www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPK288/r...
Research Fellow x2 (109856-1125) at University of Warwick
Discover Research Fellow x2 (109856-1125) jobs and more in higher education on jobs.ac.uk. Apply for further details on the top job board.
www.jobs.ac.uk
November 16, 2025 at 11:39 AM
2 fantastic-looking history of medicine research fellowships at Warwick: Traumatised Minds, Neurosis and Hysteria in Soviet Medicine and Culture, 1917-1953
www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPK288/r...
www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPK288/r...
Reposted by Rasmus Birk
Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching
November 3, 2025 at 10:04 AM
Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching
Reposted by Rasmus Birk
The far right is obsessed with Lord of the Rings and Musk keeps posting about "hobbits" because modern scientific racism owes more to fantasy worlds and gaming systems than genetic science, and they see both as effective mediums for right-wing propaganda www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...
Why Elon Musk Needs Dungeons and Dragons to Be Racist
The fantastical roots of “scientific racism”
www.theatlantic.com
November 11, 2025 at 2:42 PM
The far right is obsessed with Lord of the Rings and Musk keeps posting about "hobbits" because modern scientific racism owes more to fantasy worlds and gaming systems than genetic science, and they see both as effective mediums for right-wing propaganda www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...
Reposted by Rasmus Birk
“whatever club he’s invited to join has been devalued by the invitation”
November 11, 2025 at 3:05 AM
“whatever club he’s invited to join has been devalued by the invitation”
Reposted by Rasmus Birk
It's a competitive field obviously, but this is a strong entity for stupidest article about AI and universities in the last year or so. www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/univ...
Universities risk irrelevance by failing to engage fully with AI
It is difficult to think of another sector that has so dismally failed to strategically engage with the transformative potential of IT, says Ian Richardson
www.timeshighereducation.com
November 11, 2025 at 8:50 AM
It's a competitive field obviously, but this is a strong entity for stupidest article about AI and universities in the last year or so. www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/univ...