Ambrose

Yeah, I'm trying to think about some of the big problems in science right now and be more thoughtful about how I work and how I contextualize my work. It's also really important to me we all critically examine the way academia functions. But that's long term, science should be slow.

"Cognition is a collective activity." Wow, I love this line, I'm less on the philosophy side of things, but love reading it, and especially spend a lot of time thinking about this (recently wrote a piece on this actually), so I'm excited to add Fleck to my reading list, thank you.

ChatGPT uninstalls surged by 295% after DoD deal | TechCrunch Many consumers ditched ChatGPT's app after news of its DoD deal went live, while Claude's downloads grew.

Yeah that's the shit

ChatGPT uninstalls surged by 295% after DoD deal | TechCrunch

techcrunch.com/2026/03/02/c...

Thank you, these all seem explicitly useful for my research! I've encountered similar findings already on the persistence of false beliefs and cognitive dissonance, so I'm keen to see what these add, I'm very interested in the idea of epistemic capture as you mentioned.

People or systems? To blame is human. The fix is to engineer Person-centered safety theories that place the burden of causality on human traits and actions have been largely dismissed in favor of systems-centered theories. Students and practitioners are now taught that accidents are caused by multiple factors ...

How many of us read it and didn't believe for science-based reasons vs not believing it because our social context told us not to?

We tend frame it as if we have one rational side and one set of idiots, but...attribution bias. Context is more complex to tweak. We're entitled to expect integrity!

Wait, do you have any paper recommendations on this?

Slide on Misinformation: Misinformation: the false dichotomy ➢ Most discussion of misinformation is overly simplistic: “With us or against us!” ➢ “Things are OK, back to normal!” vs “Things are not OK (because microchips/5G/etc)” ➢ Often led by institutional voices ➢ Frames misinformed beliefs as “human error” (and claims of stupidity, malice, etc) ➢ Proposed solutions generally involve shouting at (big budgets for PR campaigns) and/or punishing (social media bans) people until they do what they are told ➢ That’s about obedience, not understanding ➢ It also doesn’t work

Slide: Preamble: “human error” is not a cause ➢ One of the most common findings of an incident investigation, across fields, is “human error” ➢ That answers “Who is to blame?” ➢ But humans commit errors – that’s unavoidable! ➢ Preventing failure is a systems problem. We have to ask: “Why does the system allow a predictable event (human error) to lead to a significant failure?”

Slide: Preamble: “human error” is not a cause ➢ This does not mean there is not a place for accountability, but we have an obligation to learn from failure ➢ When the same error is widely repeated, we also have to ask: “Why is the system creating this error?” ➢ “Human error” is at most a component of a bigger systems failure, and often an excuse to stop thinking

Love these three slides especially, can't wait to read this now:
direct.mit.edu/books/oa-mon...
Thank you.

Just dm'd it.

A folk logic about it is starting to develop. People may not understand the monopolies and geopolitics of renewable energy at a gradual level. But they can see data centers, hear data centers, and read their electric bill statements. They are angry.

Resist ‘dangerous and socially unacceptable’ age checks for social media, scientists warn Computer scientists are campaigning against the global march toward age checks online.

Over 400 scientists have signed a letter calling for a moratorium on the deployment of age-verification technologies. The letter suggests the widespread deployment of untested AV tech is making the internet less safe.

www.politico.eu/article/age-...

Soldier Details Chilling Messaging From Higher-Ups About ‘God’s Plan’ In Iran: ‘It Shocked Many Of Us’ One commander had a “big grin” on his face while saying Donald Trump “has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran," a service member said.

The Huffington post did an article on this.

Mr Onion, did Milo really stan Clinton. Actually nevermind, I don't want context.

The strongest reason to get off X always has been "otherwise you are quite literally enriching nazis" but some people really don't want to hear that.

X Is Drowning in Disinformation Following US and Israel’s Attack on Iran WIRED has reviewed hundreds of posts on X that promote misleading claims about the locations and scale of the attack.

“Almost all of the most viral posts reviewed by WIRED on Saturday came from accounts with blue check marks, meaning they…could be eligible to earn money based on how much engagement their posts generate, even if the content is false.”

From @davidgilbert.bsky.social

Parents Tried to Shield Their Children From Vaccines. Instead They Got Measles.

Impeccable headline writing here.
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/03/u...

It was that amazing interview you did Sophie btw. Thank you for the great reporting, keep going, everything matters.

I wrote about this problem at the beginning of February actually citing something else you wrote, so its funny seeing this piece.

This Is What It Looks Like When Nothing Matters Welcome to the internet’s nihilism crisis.

I wrote about something I've been thinking about for a long time. A kind of post-ironic collapse in our politics and culture where nihilism has become the lingua franca of the internet and beyond. It links Kirk, Clavicular, Epstein, memestock/coin stuff, mass shooters. I hope you'll read it.

A DHS document obtained by 404 Media shows for the first time CBP used location data sourced from the online advertising industry to track phone locations. ICE has bought access to similar tools. @evystadium.bsky.social reports.

Story by @josephcox.bsky.social: www.404media.co/cbp-tapped-i...

I think you sort of knew on some level that your core argument here is v v flimsy and the examples you cite are insubstantial, so you've dropped it on bsky with provocative language in the hope the angry backlash stops people from noticing you've done a bad job at proving your point

"Your responses may be analysed and summarised using technology, such as artificial intelligence (AI), to help us to handle consultation responses efficiently and accurately."

Algorithms are not neutral. Can the public have more transparency on how our responses are analyzed?

If you have any thoughts about the failures or successes of the Online Safety Act, Grok undressing kids, Meta intentionally connecting groomers to kids, or the mental health crisis created by these addictive, polarizing, disinformation machines, better to speak up here than a social media post.

Learning to Think Critically | 10 | v3 | Handbook of Research on Learn Critical thinking (CT) is increasingly recognized as an essential skill for education, employment, and civic engagement in the 21st century. With the rapid

Reformers have called for better critical thinking education to help people deal w/modern challenges (#GenAI, social media, post-truth world). This book chapter expertly discusses what critical thinking is, how to measure it, & how to teach it re: these challenges. #PsychSciSky #AcademicSky #EduSky

X introduces ‘Made with AI’ label for creators posting synthetic content The new disclosure feature allows users to mark AI-generated or manipulated content on posts, as platforms face growing regulatory pressure over synthetic media

X is introducing a "made with AI label" to ensure ethical production of child abuse and sexual abuse material on its website

www.buzzincontent.com/news/x-intro...

i find the LLM "capabilities" debate to be almost uniquely poisoned. people who claim that LLMs cannot do things that they verifiably can arguing with people claiming that LLMs can do things that they verifiably cannot.

One annotator sums it up:

“You think that if they knew about the extent of the data collection, no one would dare to use the glasses”.

This strikes at a core principle of the American republic, one that has traditionally been especially dear to conservatives: private property. Suppose, for example, that the military approached Google and said “we would like to purchase individualized worldwide Google search data to do with whatever we want, and if you object, we will designate you a supply chain risk.” I don’t think they are going to do that, but there is no difference in principle between this and the message DoW is sending. There is no such thing as private property. If we need to use it for national security, we simply will. The government won’t quite “steal” it from you—they’ll compensate you—but you cannot set the terms, and you cannot simply exit from the transaction, lest you be deemed a “supply chain risk,” not to mention have the other litany of policy obstacles the government can throw at you.

Good point from Dean Ball on Pentagon/Anthropic and why the real stakes go even further than AI www.hyperdimensional.co/p/clawed

American schools weren’t broken until Silicon Valley used a lie to convince them they were—now reading and math scores are plummeting | Fortune Neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath warns the U.S.’s $30 billion bet on laptops in schools has made Gen Z less cognitively capable than their parents.

Not mad about the spate of headlines like this one.

"Internal communications also show that TikTok teams then tracked these “guardrail metrics” carefully to ensure the tools did not negatively impact revenue beyond the “acceptable” limit."
Be so fr.

We are really going to regret the technology we have built.