beccadownes

I'm curious about your experience here. It feels like in data wrangling it would be particularly difficult to spot errors compared to e.g. broad lit reviews or coding. How do you have confidence in the LLM's work?

woman sat in a snowy waste, her feet are bare and she has them under the clothes of a man stood opposite

'An Inuit man warms his wife’s feet. Greenland, 1880—1890s. Photographer Robert E. Peary / National Geographic'

They take advantage of the subtle difference between 'pro market' and 'pro big business'. You could make an argument for the market being useful. This, however, is pro big business at the expense of the market (and the environment and the tax payer).

AI is not a peer, so it can’t do peer review If we still believe that science is a vocation grounded in argument, curiosity and care, we can’t delegate judgement to machines, says Akhil Bhardwaj

'to treat peer review as a throughput problem is to misunderstand what is at stake. Review is not simply a production stage in the research pipeline; it is one of the few remaining spaces where the scientific community talks to itself.' 1/3

Peer review science relies, more than we care to admit, on what @zey.bsky.social calls "load bearing frictions" that make it difficult to fake good science, and on trust that most ppl also value science itself & won't cheat just for personal gain. This creates the wrong environment for that to hold.

1. The thing about science that these jokers don't understand is that science cannot be vibe-coded.

Whatever its flaws, the point with vibe coding is that you're trying to quickly make something that sorta works, where you can immediately sorta see if it sorta works and then sorta use it.

Budget is on 28 May. If things get a tiny bit better, then it's only because in 2 short years, they got so much worse. Cuts to essential public services. Record out-migration of Kiwis. Failing child poverty. New Zealand can't afford more of this failed plan. Let's make this a one-term government.

Organisational/management research: Only if I can read the language. If I'm reading a translation, I cite the translation.

!!!!!

Also, anything you're worried about can be used to be put you under pressure and makes you more susceptible. Worried about a test result, a nagging issue, or something you haven't shared with your spouse yet? That's gold for scammers who want you to react quickly rather than stopping to check.

Just texted a friend "can you remind me when you're around tomorrow/overmorrow" and I just think if a few of us really gave it a try suuuper casually we could bring back this word for day after tomorrow next year

The “machinal bypass” and how we’re using AI to avoid ourselves | PNAS The “machinal bypass” and how we’re using AI to avoid ourselves

Love this short opinion piece on “mechanical bypass” in analogy to “spiritual bypass”.

"An academic discovers a paper attributed to him that does not exist has been cited 42 times" is a sentence with an actual referent in 2025.

Another way to restart the world’s idea machine is to restore funding and grants to universities, researchers, and artists.

Post-doc @ Auckland Looking for a cosmology post-doc at the University of Auckland

I'm hiring a postdoc -- come and do awesome cosmology with great people in one of the nicest cities in the world (not that I'm biased or anything) 🔭 🧪
cosmology.blogs.auckland.ac.nz/2025/12/12/p...

What does it say when the only way to 'celebrate' these billionaires is to steal valour from labourers?

Charles Ebbets balanced, seemingly by his heels, on beam far above the city, delicately holding a large camera as he takes the iconic photo of construction workers having a lunch break on the beam. He is incredibly dapper, wearing a long sleeve shirt, a tie, suspenders, dark trousers well-worn but with a sharp crease, contrasting with his white belt, which connects visually with his jaunty black and white brogues.

and even the photographer that took the picture!

What made the original extraordinary was how it captured the unimaginable, yet somehow offhand, daring of the workers. Actual, mortal risk not such a simulacrum of it.

And as a picture, it has no meaning. It's not aesthetically pleasing and it has no content. Why are they on a beam? Why are they above that city? Why are they bobble-heads?

At best it's an attempt to recast them as working class labourers but as bsky.app/profile/sifi... says, that's grotesque.

Broke: social media ban

Woke: everyone media ban

Bespoke: butlerian jihad

If you want students to do well in life, including in their careers, then give them the tools to forge their own path. They don’t know what tools they might need, and neither do we. We should be offering them a rich array of skills, rather than pretending we are a widget factory.

Would university online learning management systems (used to deliver course-related information, lecture slides, and to submit assignments) like Canvas qualify? Definitely if the course uses discussion boards. Even without, arguably yes.

The purpose of that tech is to connect people

#nzpol

Hey, so guess what I did? 🧵

Can I prove Deloitte used AI to write this report? No. But that would honestly be the less embarrassing option. The research in this report is below par for a 1st year undergrad, where they even bother to show research.

Let's unpack some of the mistakes I found.

#nzpol

I respect that. I'd do the same.

Great culture can save lives. Literally.

Amazing letter in today’s @thetimes.com about Tom Stoppard

Generative AI is this weird little ferret that is carrying a tall pole with a red flag at the top, and it roots out the worst pre-existing problems in society and plants a little slop-flag in them

eg: how companies have made scientific publishing into a for-profit low quality content mill

I don't care if you think I'm an AI. Or if proof-readers try to take them out. I'm never giving up my em dashes.

I think user pays is a silly philosophy for infrastructure in general but if New Zealand has nowhere near the traffic volumes to fund these roads then…why do we need these roads?

With the corollary that capitalism is invoked to end the conversation because "oh well, what are you gonna do? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯"