Vance Ricks

I thought you meant his government. If it’s about him personally, then…1960?

2017?

AI Chatbot That Only Responds ‘Huh’ Valued At $200 Billion PALO ALTO, CA—Hailing the new product as a “game changer” in the development of large language models, Silicon Valley insiders confirmed Tuesday that an AI chatbot that only responds “huh” had been va...

theonion.com/ai-chatbot-t...

? Now what?

More information, including deadlines, required qualifications, and other details, is here:

northeastern.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/careers/job/...

I’m leading a search to hire a colleague at Northeastern.

The position is open rank, for a teaching faculty member who’ll be full-time in the Philosophy department and specializes in AI Ethics. They’d begin this coming fall semester.

I got that a lot.

Universities can do better by our employees, faculty, admin, contract workers, and students. Let us show the way to a new form of labor — of exemplary value produced in a humane and just way.

This is possible and, in this moment, required to break the bonds of authoritarianism gripping our nation.

Given that heart disease is a leading cause of death...yes.

It's autotune for thinking

Feds Create Drone No Fly Zone That Would Stop People Filming ICE The FAA has altered a no fly zone designation that was originally created for US military bases to apply to DHS units.

www.404media.co/feds-create-...

Giddy Trump Struts All Around White House With Nobel Peace Prize In Mouth WASHINGTON—Panting excitedly as he trotted from room to room displaying his prized possession, a giddy President Donald Trump was reportedly seen Friday strutting all around the White House with a Nob...

theonion.com/giddy-trump-...

About the PhD: Audits and evaluation of AI systems — and the broader context that AI systems operate in — have become central to conceptualising, quantifying, measuring and understanding the operations, failures, limitations, underlying assumptions, and downstream societal implications of AI systems. Existing AI audit and evaluation efforts are fractured, done in a siloed and ad-hoc manner, and with little deliberation and reflection around conceptual rigour and methodological validity. This PhD is for a candidate that is passionate about exploring what a conceptually cogent, methodologically sound, and well-founded AI evaluation and safety research might look like. This requires grappling with questions such as: What does it mean to represent “ground truth” in proxies, synthetic data, or computational simulation? How do we reliably measure abstract and complex phenomena? What are the epistemological or methodological implications of quantification and measurement approaches we choose to employ? Particularly, what underlying presuppositions, values, or perspectives do they entail? How do we ensure the lived experiences of impacted communities play a critical role in the development and justification of measurement metrics and proxies? Through exploration of these questions, the candidate is expected to engage with core concepts in the philosophy of science, history of science, Black feminist epistemologies, and similar schools of thought to develop an in-depth understanding of existing practices with the aim of applying it to advance shared standards and best practice in AI evaluation. The candidate is expected to integrate empirical (for example, through analysis or evaluation of existing benchmarks) or practical (for example, by executing evaluation of AI systems) components into the overall work.

are you displeased with today’s AI safety evaluation landscape and curious about what greater conceptual clarity, methodological soundness, and rigour in AI evaluation could look like? if so, consider coming to Dublin to pursue a PhD with me

apply here: aial.ie/hiring/phd-a...

pls repost

DHS Warns Any Action By Americans Will Be Treated As Domestic Terrorism WASHINGTON—Claiming that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who fatally shot 37-year-old Minneapolis resident Renee Good as she drove away from him was “fully justified,” Homeland Security ...

theonion.com/dhs-warns-an...

52 years later, only known copy of Unix v4 recovered from randomly found tape, now up and running on a system — first OS version with kernel and core utilities written in C A heart-warming story for cold, stony sysadmin hearts.

A Christmas miracle -

www.tomshardware.com/software/lin...

You didn't ask for advice about handling those feelings, but you're absolutely not alone in having them!

...or something like this? canvas.sydney.edu.au/courses/63765

Four Frictions: or, How to Resist AI in Education - Public Books We are calling for resistance to the AI industry’s ongoing capture of higher education.

What level of generality would be helpful? Something more like this: www.publicbooks.org/four-frictio... ? Or something more like this? annamills.substack.com/p/myessayfee...

Is it people not using the tools correctly, or is it really that the version of Adobe was inadequate? I'm having trouble finding sources that link the snafu to DOGE and not just to regular old user error.

They look super comfortable.

"The Printing Press Democratized Knowledge": When Slogans Masquerade as History — Sonja Drimmer The phrase is said so frequently it seems, like the mechanism it celebrates, to mechanically replicate itself.  It's become a favorite catchphrase among tech boosters of any sort (see my post on...

Hi, hello! My book _Impressive Politics: Print before the Press in Late Medieval England_ is forthcoming from University of Pennsylvania Press.

I think about print all the time but in ways you might not expect.

sonjadrimmer.com/blog-1/2025/...

YouTube video by AreaEightyNine The Simpsons - Indian Burial Ground

www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_y9...

"abolition"?

That's what I spent too much time wondering, too.

We caught up with one of the kids who sang on 'A Charlie Brown Christmas.' He's 72 now Dave Willat was just 11 years old when he showed up for what he thought would be a routine church choir practice in 1965. He and his fellow singers ended up making history.

Dave Willat was just 11 years old when he showed up for what he thought would be a routine church choir practice in 1965. He and his fellow singers ended up making history.

sick burn

"Powerful like a gorilla, yet soft and yielding like a Nerf ball."

"Not all LLMs!" :-|

Fairly Trained Fairly Trained is a non-profit that certifies AI companies for fairer training data sourcing.

www.fairlytrained.org