Benjamin Riley

Indeed I did! Thanks for the pointer

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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

Indeed, oops. Deleted so that other Eliot doesn’t get confused hahaha.

Isn’t it though? Eloquent, yet grounded in the practical challenge we face. Thanks for reading and pointing @naomialderman.bsky.social here.

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

"This is a crisis of epistemic infrastructure. If schools are to build positive cultures in this digital world, we have to start with how information actually functions in social groups: how identity, relationships, and status shape what young people trust and share."
- @pipsanderson.bsky.social

How Talks Between Anthropic and the Defense Dept. Fell Apart

It's hard not to read this story and conclude that every single person and entity involved is moronic. The US government is in the hands of facist morons, and the Big Tech companies producing AI tools are led by delusional or self-serving morons.

We are in a very dangerous place.

It’s madness to me. Check Dylan’s posts, written before 404 blew open the bullshit. Even if we take their results at face value — which we should not — it ain’t the tech that’s responsible.

More Everything Forever, MORE MORE MORE! My interview with scientist-turned-author Adam Becker

If you haven’t had your fill of @adambecker.bsky.social — and how could you, really — he swung by my Substack for an interview last year:

open.substack.com/pub/buildcog...

Have you seen the 404 story and/or @dylanpkane.bsky.social recent posts?

I asked AI to shorten you

Quote paraphrased to meet space constraints

Surviving the Third Information Crisis Writer Naomi Alderman gives us tips and tricks on how to stay sane in a maddening world

"I’m remembering that everyone else is a person, not a symbol...
I actually find that quite inspiring. We’re living through this really tumultuous epoch, and we can decide whether we fight for the civil public space, and how long our 'wars of reformation' will go on."
- @naomialderman.bsky.social

To be clear, I do not fear AI-as-Skynet. I fear what we are already seeing, fascist idiots incorporating AI into our weaponry system, leading to military chaos that spawns nuclear war. Iran can’t hit us, but China sure can.

Correct. I may add a clarification along those lines.

The nightmarish combination of nuclear weapons and AI no longer feels like some far-fetched science fiction to me. Yesterday was the first day I truly contemplated the danger of nuclear holocaust in my lifetime.

It will be hard to use AI to cultivate “co-intelligence” if we are all dead.

Might want to read up on the Iranian primary school for girls that that was hit yesterday. 148 dead, last I checked.

Only took a day

Damn man, what a call.

I genuinely think the morons in charge of the US military may have used some form of AI to pick targets. It’s a recipe for disaster and we may already be seeing exactly how.

Thank you. It’s more than troubling, of course — people are dying because of these tools, specifically the most vulnerable among us, those with mental health issues. I find it unfathomable this has not stirred public outrage but I will continue to do my part to change that.

*But we do know.

We don’t know, and perhaps may never know, what role “generative” AI played in identifying the targets of the military fury the US and Israel unleashed yesterday, and plan to continue.

But do know one target was a primary school for young girls that’s left nearly 150 dead.

That sounds viable to me, tbh. Litigation is one of our major ways of curbing social harms.

Kind of a side note to the geopolitical chaos we’ve just unleashed but yes, ban this shit.

The role of AI in the death of my father A sad strange story

In my case, personally, it’s definitely been worse.

open.substack.com/pub/buildcog...

I agree with your latter point. I’ve chimed in here for the obvious reason that we might win that battle while continuing to lose the ongoing war these companies are waging to automate cognition. I don’t see a path to that “going right” and I’m hoping over time you’ll see that too.