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David Berreby

@davidberreby

Author, Writer, Journalist. Robots, Identity, AI. Brooklyn husband and dad

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11.12.2023
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Latest posts by David Berreby @davidberreby

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The AI Revolution Asks Us: What Kind of People Do We Want to Be? Deciding You Can Skip This Question Is Tempting, But It’s a Dead End

In the face of #AI onslaughts, the editors of @nplusonemag.com say "it's OK to be a Luddite." Here's why I think that is wrong.

03.11.2025 18:38 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Why Build AI? Maybe Because It's Fun for the Builders The underrated allure of exercising one's talent to do cool things

Why do people work on AI when they think it could harm us long-term? Let’s not underestimate the appeal of creating beautiful things for their own sake. Also: AI used to recreating a murder victim to testify in court, the impact of AI college-cheating. In the latest Robots for the Rest of Us post.

09.05.2025 15:24 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Could #AI interpreters let us talk (and listen) to animals? More importantly, would we like what we hear? Also this week: Why economists think robots cause crime. robots4therestofus.substack.com/p/talking-to...

25.04.2025 16:40 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Good idea.

18.03.2025 17:17 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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The right dominates the online media ecosystem, seeping into sports, comedy, and other supposedly nonpolitical spaces As Americans increasingly get their news from online shows and streamers, the influence of this media ecosystem becomes more prominent β€” and Media Matters has found that the most popular of this conte...

NEW: As Americans increasingly get their news from online shows and streamers, our analysis found that this expanding media ecosystem is overwhelmingly right-leaning.

14.03.2025 14:02 πŸ‘ 882 πŸ” 459 πŸ’¬ 80 πŸ“Œ 159

A cowardly publisher is a sad sight -- even when I agree with the views of those who intimidated that publisher.

12.03.2025 21:50 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

More & more I find myself treating LLMs as commodities. Some Perplexity for this, a bit of Claude for that, Grok now, NotebookLM later. With so many flooding the zone I don't feel loyal to one over another. Am I unusual?

12.03.2025 21:43 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Authoritative perspective on all the recent "robots are ready" hype.

12.03.2025 16:22 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Is there any reason for Senate Dems to vote for keeping the gov't open? Shouldn't they hold out for some concessions, like restored NIH and USAID funding? Not seeing how a shutdown is worse than letting Trump's rampage continue

12.03.2025 12:49 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Amazed people who are cheering b/c they hate today's victim of the gov't ignoring its own laws. Do people really think it could never happen to them?

10.03.2025 15:05 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

That's a fair assessment, I agree

10.03.2025 14:30 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

I am with you on "CU has failed its duties" but "CU had it coming" comes too close to justifying a gov't whose acts are far worse than circulating vile leaflets on a campus. My 2 thoughts are 1 CU must repair its breach AND 2 no one should find Fed action is reasonable

09.03.2025 23:46 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

I fail to see the justice in, say, scotching the plans of a postdoc to study cancer at CU because some admins failed in their duties. I don't see how any misconduct or incompetence at CU justifies the disappearing of a green card holder by ICE.

09.03.2025 23:46 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

I don't defend CU or thug protests. As you've said, we should be capable if holding 2 ideas at once about all this. CU should act. But this gov't cure is worse than the disease.

09.03.2025 23:46 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Surely they're at risk because the Trump administration seized on a pretext for its planned attacks on academia. Why blame kids for decisions of the regime?

09.03.2025 04:50 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

At the Women's March in Manhattan today, police presence was pretty unobtrusive and chill. Except for the 8 or 9 cops standing close around a parked Tesla truck. Ready to spring to its defense, I guess.

08.03.2025 23:42 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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After Elon Musk Fired Her, She Kept Showing Up to Workβ€”for Free The billionaire and his followers are out to cull federal employees they think are lazy and overpaid. But without people like Bianca Sicich, the Attwater’s prairie chicken could go extinct.

Yet another dedicated scientist and public servant, this time from US Fish and Wildlife, showing up unpaid after she was fired to volunteer to protect an endangered species.

What are we even doing here.

🎁 link: πŸ§ͺ

06.03.2025 01:56 πŸ‘ 3066 πŸ” 927 πŸ’¬ 57 πŸ“Œ 35
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Every Robot Has a Plan, Until It Gets Punched in the Face Inevitably, now and then, a robot will smack a human (due to error). And a human will smack a robot (due to human nature)

As robots appear more frequently in ordinary lives, there are going to be times when people bash the machines. And times when robots bash people. Here’s what I think such incidents tell us about human-robot relations. (Spoiler: Nothing to do with uprisings and dystopias.)

06.03.2025 18:58 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

What the hell? Why?

06.03.2025 18:47 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Aquarium at Coney Island? Our family loves that place! Or, really, any place that looks like that.

06.03.2025 18:45 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

What could possibly go wrong?

05.03.2025 18:08 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Sometimes AI Mediocrity Is Just What You Want If your strategy at work is to spare yourself for other purposes, AI can help

There are times in life when you don't want to give 100 % at work. When you just want to be adequate and leave on time. And maybe even make a little trouble. If this is you, don't fear #AI. It can be a great accomplice in your quest for non-excellence.

25.02.2025 15:54 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Here’s What a General Strike Would Take Investigative reporting about corporate malfeasance and government wrongdoing, analysis of national and world affairs, and cultural criticism that matters.

Never too early to start making summer plans.

20.02.2025 15:30 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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How to Manage AI Therapists, Robot Friends, AI Ghosts Anat Perry on how to decide where an AI or robot can help humans with emotional labor -- and where the machines can't.

Had a great talk with @anatperry.bsky.social about when/why people want human effort, not just a product, in their relationships. Important for deciding how and when to regulate AI therapists, AI friendship, AI romance, AI "ghosts" (recreations of deceased loved ones).

16.02.2025 17:55 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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An "#AI in 2025" moment: My pdf app has a #LLM "copilot" that can summarize a document and suggest questions about it. But it can't tell me how many words are in it.

12.02.2025 20:41 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

A hallmark of a state that is coming apart is when regular people have to think about the government all the time.

30.01.2025 02:23 πŸ‘ 188 πŸ” 45 πŸ’¬ 4 πŸ“Œ 1

Also, to be specific here (because it does matter) DeepSeek is *not* open source β€” it’s open _weights_ with the difference being that you can run it on your own machine with the code, but you don’t know what material exactly it was trained on. An important distinction, worth emphasizing.

27.01.2025 13:48 πŸ‘ 773 πŸ” 106 πŸ’¬ 8 πŸ“Œ 15

Good to know!

28.01.2025 04:48 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Since it is open source, though, can this sort of thing be corrected by users? I assume yes but would love to know what tech-adept folks think.

28.01.2025 00:55 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0