Ary Shalizi

A linkedin post from a Stanford AI researcher describing using generative AI to come up with "alternatives" to a big mac that discovers people prefer homemade hamburgers to mcdonalds hamburgers, and that portobello burgers and bean burgers can, in fact, be tasty an nutritious.

In a double whammy, generative AI solves both nutrition and sustainability crises by discovering that people prefer homemade burgers to big macs AND that portobello or bean burgers can be delicious while having a smaller environmental footprint than beef?

NO WAY.

I get that the Superbowl is a high profile event, but having two Coast Guard speedboats with bow-mounted machine guns escort every Marin-SF commuter ferry seems like the definition of security theater?

I love this. I have a reminder set for when Colossal should be announcing an elephant pregnant with a mammoth...

the synthesis of red and blue?

2026 book thread, pt. 2.

Wherein I read my older daughter's favorite books series, and learn that it's pretty fun.

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As a biologist who grew up in the shadow of an older brother who is physicist, this is the burn I wish I'd had handy in our school days.

Books You’ve Always Pretended to Have Read and Now It’s Time to Sit Down and Really Read Them My first review of this year is actually of the last book I finished last year. A book that’s been on my to-be-read pile since 2006, but that I wasn’t ready for until 2025.

Here's a 2026 books thread.

First review this year is one I'm surprised doesn't get referenced more often by critics of genAI. It even talks about the "electronic production of homogenized literary works," which is remarkably on the nose for something published more than four decades ago...

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Works ok for me if the books are different enough (e.g., one fiction and one non-fiction, or two different non-fiction genres like history and pop sci), but can't do two of the same type at the same time without getting confused...

Cannot possibly be accurate.

disappointing.

Did that reporter ever get back to you with an explanation? I am so curious!

Hey #booksky, this year I got myself off of Audible in favor of Libro, Libby, and Hoopla. I tried leaving GoodReads, but never really came around to StoryGraph. Has anyone tried Bookwyrm, or Bookworm, or know of other reading trackers they enjoy? Or should I give the StoryGraph another go in 2026?

To be fair, Rodriques IS a scientist (PhD with Ed Boyden at MIT, did solid doctoral work, and was faculty at the Crick before starting Future House), but he is also a True Believer.

I’ve been reading a lot of what I can only describe as “biotech evangelism” over the last few years, and I’ve noticed that “theoretically possible” is usually conflated with “practically inevitable,” even by accomplished researchers…

It’s that #vibephysics we’ve been hearing so much about.

Join now, and your home also receives a discount code from the ever loyal and true security experts at Boromir Protective Services, LLC.

I wouldn’t call the people scooped up by Operation Paperclip “refugees.” It was more “we need to collect them before the Soviets do, war crimes be damned.”

OTOH, first to the Moon thanks to importing a bunch of barely reformed Nazis from Pennemunde…

Against Method The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, by David Graeber and David Wengrow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2021. Pp. 704. $35. ISBN 9780374157357 (paper). | American Jou...

DoE has problems of its own…

(It’s intellectually provocative and well researched, but as Henry Farrell puts it, probably best considered as “speculative non-fiction.”)

The economist Jeff Sachs would be another example. Definitely not right wing, but super into the lab leak idea.

I don’t know, there’s a certain class of centrist who believes intelligence reports are superior to scientific evidence (eg, the former obama national security staffer and author Jaime Metzl), and Stewart is one of those.

Know the differences between the various tools, they just find “AI” a useful general label.

And unfortunately ARE referred to as AI by practitioners using them. I am a cell/molecular biologist, and have computational biologist colleagues who refer to all kinds of AI tools in exactly the kind of undifferentiated way critics find so problematic. These are sophisticated professionals who

Ok, but what about systems that propose de novo proteins, a la David Baker’s work? That is also considered generative AI, and a class of language model. Or the use of LLMs for annotating large sequencing datasets, often done with tools like GPT-4? Even the “bad” tools have narrow use cases,

Had to stop listening to him once he went full lab leak…

Older man with two girls looking through window to design studio where he studied six decades earlier

Man shows stream on Berkeley campus to his granddaughter while reminiscing about his time as a student radical.

My father’s first visit to CA since the girls were born, showing his grandkids around the Berkeley campus.

“I think those are the same tables they had when I was studying architecture.”

“Yes, we ran down to that stream after Reagan ordered the soldiers to teargas the protestors.”

Oh, and @annaleen.bsky.social and @charliejane.bsky.social have a great podcast about the intersection of pop culture and tech, but you’re probably aware of that already.

I think @adambecker.bsky.social does a great job of exploring the cultural influences on the same iteration of Silicon Valley that Daub discusses, and if Disney was an influence, I don’t think any of the tech titans are going to admit to that…