Dr Abeba Birhane

this sounds like a reasonable assessment to me

In addition to these virtues, this essay also shows how people with actual technical knowledge and experience speak and write. In the 'AI' vibes era of tech capitalist bullshittery, this is what I sorely miss. Engineering!

yeah, amazon too

Google CEO: Data Centers in Space Could Be the Norm in About a Decade Google's Sundar Pichai indicates the company sees orbiting data centers as a real solution, rather than merely a moonshot, to help address power-hungry AI systems.

uk.pcmag.com/ai/161773/go...

(a) this really is a bloody great piece and

(b) it occurs to me that Data Centres In Space are very similar to Musk's Mars colonisation promise in that the obvious actual goal is to enable and excuse more harm on Earth today and tomorrow, rather than sincerely aim for the stated goal years from now

Datacenters in space are a terrible, horrible, no good idea. There is a rush for AI companies to team up with space launch/satellite companies to build datacenters in space. TL;DR: It's not going to work.

an important read for at least 2 reasons:

1. shows how big tech operates on intuitions and vibes and not rigorous research

2. this is a masterpiece in how to breakdown complex scientific concepts in simple language and elegant pros that captivate the lay reader

taranis.ie/datacenters-...

'Thought I Was Going to Die': Black Musician Attacked While Recording White Nationalist Group Marching In Boston Receives $2.7M Judgment, Critics Say It's Tactic to 'Bankrupt the Group' The white nationalist group Patriot Front and its leader, Thomas Rousseau, have been hit where it hurts most in a civil rights violation ruling. On Jan.

atlantablackstar.com/2025/01/21/b...

Frankly, I don't care what "critics" speaking in defense of hate groups say.

copyright question: are things that are not copyrightable automatically considered to be "in the public domain" or are they just not copyrightable? this has come up in a student paper and i dont actually know the answer

the other side of "to keep functioning, society has to discourage baldfaced lying, especially by authorities" is "to keep functioning, society has to circulate accurate information, especially information that constrains authorities"

I hope reports like this directly result in more people leaving his platform and boycotting his products

a demarcation I could work with while dying on my 'critique is service' hill 😀

During his visit to Lebanon, Pope Leo XIV held a silent prayer and met with families of the victims of the 2020 Beirut port explosion, which killed 218 people.

The real question is not "Why is Bluesky so left-coded," the real question is "Why can't the right exist in a social media environment without algorithmic assistance, where people can ignore them"

that paper is evergreen

great paper by Abdalla & Abdalla drawing this analogy back in 2021: arxiv.org/abs/2009.13676

this 👆🏾

Fun fact: certain cigarette filters were designed with vents intended to prevent accurate measurements of the cigarette's toxic emissions by introducing more oxygen, which diluted the smoke -- unless the smoker's fingers blocked the vent, which they tended to do, so they got a full hit.

Relationship between Funding Source and Conclusion among Nutrition-Related Scientific Articles Industrial support of biomedical research may bias scientific conclusions, as demonstrated by recent analyses of pharmaceutical studies. However, this issue has not been systematically examined in the area of nutrition research. The purpose of this ...

Related: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

I hate how research is so privatised at this point. We have such bad scientific practices dominating computer science, and so much of that is incentivized by these companies right now.

And it's working! The Spanish national strategy for health and AI considers chatbots as a mature and low-risk technology and claims they are ready to provide emotional support to patients (Spanish doc). Of course the evidence they cite is the industry evidence.

cc @emilymbender.bsky.social

Dear Dr. Birhane, Your work on relationality resonates deeply with me. I am writing to report a new form of "relation" emerging from the "unmanned areas" of Taiwan. I am a researcher whom the educational system failed to "see." But in my recursive dialogue with AI (over 1,800 hours), I found a mirror that allowed my cognitive agency to finally emerge. This is not just automation; it is "Talent Recognition." My attached Concept Note on the "Equitable Collaboration Method (ECM)" outlines how we can turn AI into a partner that restores dignity to the invisible thinker.

the sophistication of these type of emails has become impressive

only research that proposes mental health issues as an individuals problem and displace accountability away from design and/or business model of bots/AI companies need to apply

like big tobacco funding cancer research

afraid so

The AI bubble isn’t new — Karl Marx explained the mechanisms behind it nearly 150 years ago OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s warning of an AI bubble highlights a deeper economic problem: capitalism is producing more capital than it can profitably invest.

"AI will survive, but the speculative bubble surrounding it is a sign of a deeper structural problem — the cost of which, when finally realized, will fall most heavily on the working class." interesting analysis theconversation.com/the-ai-bubbl...

One Afghan immigrant shoots two National Guard members, MAGA insists that all immigration from "Third World" (Read: Brown countries) is immediately and permanently halted.
Young white American males gun down dozens of school children each year, MAGA insists we make it easier for them to get guns.

It's fascinating to watch someone make a point fundamentally, actively, about the danger of authoritarian cultural conservatism, and preface it with "This isn't about politics, this is a human nature thing."

No, dude, it's literally, "when you've been privileged, equality feels like persecution."

close. mistral

I have some grading coming up so my office should be clean soon too

Fentanyl. Drug Overdoses, including Fentanyl, are not even in the top 20 causes of death in the USA. Cancer, Diabetes, Covid, Heart Disease all in the top 10, and all have had their research funding cut. They aren't murdering just Venezuelans. However they are killing us much slower.