Benjamin Riley

Burst out laughing at “Air-es-stot-lay” — this is terrific! What a proud dad you must be!

!!!!! Please do!

One brave soul wrote me, asking why I was taking issue with a "decontextualised" image. I am not sure more how contextualized it could be, as the image -- accurately! -- portrays how data on parent-child interactions would likely be collected, if any parent was insane enough to want to do this.

If it makes you feel slightly better, I posted this to a listserv associated with the organization that created it, asking -- and I am genuinely curious -- whether anyone in the group is excited by the vision set forth here.

Thus far, crickets!

There is definitely that.

Can AI Replace Social Science Researchers? No. No it can't. Come on, now.

I'm often asked to make the "steelman" case for LLMs, which I find tiresome.

But lo, my friend @davekarpf.bsky.social just made the best argument for the positive impact LLMs will likely have on society: Destroying journal publications as the coin of the realm in academia.

Let us secularly pray.

Trigger warning @emilycherkin.bsky.social

Insane picture of a mother holding a toddler and infant on their lap, the toddler has a laptop. Text reads: The Promise Of LLMs For Measuring Parent–Child Interaction Large language models (LLMs) have the potential to transform how developmental scientists study parent-child interaction. Where human coding was slow and limited, LLMs could analyze linguistic patterns, conversational responsiveness, and proxies for creative language use at scale. In a new Cutting Ed article, Ariel Kalil, Linxi Lu, and Erik Sarrazin highlight research showing how these tools can provide detailed, automated insights into children’s language and cognitive development – opening new avenues for research and interventions that support families and educators.

Yep, that’s what every parent wants right now, their infants staring at screens, waiting for their glorious AI-infused future. And surely what parents yearn for is measurement of the newly forming parental bond. Yep, that’s they want in “the future.”

So you *had* something good to celebrate, but you were asking for *more*.

MUTINY AFTER MIDNIGHT YouTube video by Johnny Blue Skies

Dope new protest album by Sturgill Simpson & friends just dropped!

youtu.be/QKHGmFvzjJ4?...

Exactly right. Assuming for sake of argument it can be a form of “co-intelligence,” it can also be a form of “co-delusions.” Ethan Mollick blocked me long ago on here but I wonder if he’s ever grappled with that consequence of his own argument.

I will DM you. I am glad you’ve alerted me to your work — vitally needed.

Yes, both issues of product safety. But only AI is a threat to mental safety.

Perhaps bring one of these articles with you. There are many. So many.

@annamillsoer.bsky.social this is one reason I think you are on a doomed quest to see these companies care about education. They do not care about *life*. They have shipped a product that kills people, quite literally. I hope this calls to your conscience.

My experience of AI is seeing stories such as this one and crying out, quite literally, "oh no god no," and then sobbing. What are we doing? Why is this not stirring moral outrage? These tools fuel delusions and suicidal ideation and we are just going to...watch it keep happening?

Interesting if harrowing read about the divergent military tactics unfolding in this war. Trying to think of a historical example of one side succeeding through air power alone. Serbia in early 1990s perhaps, but that was a small state with no economic power. Not so Iran. Horrific that we’re here.

*By “porosity” I meant “proposition” goodness

I agree for sure on ELLs — the whole gen AI technology was borne of language translation — and am curious to know more about SPED, lots of variance there.

But not only do teachers have too much on their plate…no one needs to be taught about how to use LLMs! That’s their value porosity, type and go

Your early posts on AI spurred my direction with Cognitive Resonance, Larry! You broke it you bought it. (Kidding, as the latter)

@johndownesangus.bsky.social

"'If you teach that n--- (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave.' These words stirred up sentiments within that lay slumbering. From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom."

-- Frederick Douglass

Radical clerics in charge of the Revolutionary Guard declare jihad upon the enemies of the Supreme Orange Leader.

Yes, I think *you* should do that and report back to us.

Indeed I did! Thanks for the pointer

There's a lot to hate about Having a Dragon In Your House. But what if there was a way to Have a Dragon In Your House? Our new free course Dragons Can Be Couches will show you practical ways to work with dragons -- without being eaten, losing your family and home, or perishing in a huge fire.

I am re-reading Hellen Keller's autobiography and, once again, I am struck by the how the entirety of the human conscious experience, the independence of language from thought yet also the vital symbiotic relationship between them, is summed in her story. It moves me so deeply I can barely breathe.

The Tuttle Twins Learn Incredibly Wrong History Lessons The libertarian propaganda series is back and worse than ever.

Last week, I shared my daughter (age 9) casually dropped a Thomas Sowell reference in conversation. As I suspected, it’s because she’s watching Tuttle Twins, libertarian cartoons funded by (yep) the Koch network.

Dad is now teaching her about “propaganda.”

www.currentaffairs.org/news/the-tut...

I guess I’d be more confident in the pedagogy of this “newsletter course” on “mindfully” using AI if, within the first five minutes of reading, it did not quote Ethan Mollick saying exactly the same thing twice.

@theguardian.com, I’m available for “mindful editing”! But I am a human, sorry.

In pursuit of Cognitive Solidarity Guest post by Pip Sanderson, National Institute of Teaching (England)

"What durable knowledge and habits can teachers draw on as technologies change faster than curricula ever can?

And how do we replace what can feel like cognitive anarchy with something closer to cognitive solidarity?"
- @pipsanderson.bsky.social