Esther Mondragón

Hebbian unsupervised learning updates weights locally based on correlations in neural activity. This research advances biologically plausible convolutional neural networks (CNNs) by showing that Hard Winner-Takes-All (WTA) competition can achieve performance comparable to backpropagation.

What would acadmia look like if we went in on this? Is it actually contrary to our values, or have we allowed ourselves to be duped into taking this gig too seriously?

Please drop your thoughts, I have only half answers and I’d like some more

🤣🤣

And yet here we are on a Sunday night, discussing hopes and dreams of our academic life 😊

Wow! 🥰 Thanks a lot. Yes, you are right; I agree that opening possibilities for others is most important, and I would love to keep doing it research-wise and education-wise! That's all my grumble is about.

Oh! I'm afraid it is widespread. Politics and otherwise. 😕

Yes, I agree, one reason for despair is believing that our jobs (and likely everything else, life included) can be more -it is some sort of "religious" hope that can indeed be weaponised against us. But I also believe there is a breaching point for academia, switching into badly paid business work.

The problem is that in many places, egos apart, doing the "work" of science is less and less possible. Of course, we can always redefine academia and remove any trace of intellectual or scientific endeavour from it. We now have LLMs, so we're getting there!

Maybe York is still a nice place to be 😊

But when doing research becomes a luxury, and you are expected to carry it out in your spare time and to "man up" to the circumstances, the idea of privilege seriously waters down.

True. I am not very optimistic either.

Yes, indeed. Forces in need of absolute control and docility. I very much fear tha the risk of losing the academic life may be insignificant for what is to come. One more reason to care about it.

This really is a must read for anyone in academia.

We most certainly do. Let's hope things will get better soon.

If you find one such person, please let me know. 😊

(Also, you may need a rest) 😉

It used to be a privilege. In most universities, it is no longer. I don't believe the issue is that we are not taking it seriously, but that we are not left the time to do real academic work. I agree it might be the wrong frame: it does not address the root of the problem; it is a personal solution.

For me, it used to be a way of life; nowadays, is je nais se quois.

Sadly, my psychopath(s) are still in place.

Yes, it is. But it is also a circular problem. You don't have time to work on your staff, but if you don't get results (read £s), then you are increasingly filled with rubbish work. Especially when doing science is considered a luxury and anything that does not directly bring £ is sort of banned.

Academia is just a job - Nature Human Behaviour Working in academia can be stressful. Laurel Raffington suggests treating it as ‘just a job’ to reduce performance pressure and advocate for structural improvements.

When academics from elite institutions insist that academia is just a job... 🤨
Things are bad, friends, as if we haven't already realised it.

Have a lovely Sunday! 😏

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I'm still refusing to accept, but on my way to (well-being), it is just a job. I agree with Mark's analysis on paper, but the problem is that in many current institutions, "stuff I do for me" is no longer viable, and if you do something well, others will find ways to take it from you (and ruin it).

I agree.

For me, at first, Academia was very much an identity and a calling.

Years later, after some experience of terrible university management, it is "a job".

Some other reflections (which turned out to be about workload management, and ways of working)

On second thoughts, let's focus on the former two and pass the rest on as well, after all, they require some effort.

Google Scholar Is Doomed Academia built entire careers on a free Google service with zero guarantees. What could go wrong?

Since search is dead, how soon do you think Google Scholar is headed for the Google Graveyard? I'm betting it's soon, and academia is NOT prepared

so it begins

It is indeed happening at many levels, but we are still not seeing the full extent of it or its consequences.

We are redundant, at best, right?

On second thoughts, let's focus on the former two and pass the rest on as well, after all, they require some effort.

UKRI opens up grant proposal data to explore using AI to smooth peer review Surging applications has led the UK's main funder to look at ways to reduce the burden on reviewers

Yes, why not?!

Let the machines write the grants for us, review them for us, think and write for us so that we can concentrate on vital functions such as breathing, sleeping, eating, shiting, and sex.

www.chemistryworld.com/news/ukri-op...

Not like it would be justified if they were drug smugglers, but I think it hasn't gotten enough focus that a boat with 11 people onboard heading from Venezuela to Trinidad was almost certainly migrants. These were probably, at least for some of them, people fleeing Maduro. That's who they murdered.