Lessons Learned from Year One of Data Science at Sea Most of us are so used to working with unlimited tools and documentation (although limited data), that I quail at the idea of trying to do data science with a low bandwidth connection. usni.org/magazines/proc…

Underrated info hazard from AI: when employees learn that they can automate their own work & no one cares. I think a lot about this study, when managers doing processes design learned how screwed up their firm was, they gave up trying for leadership roles in existential despair.

There are myriad ways AI can interact with teaching. Here is a new scam: create nonexistent students to get Pell loans (or something). Universities will be overwhelmed #academia 1/3 of My Online College Students are AI-Powered Spambots. Mary Rose link.medium.com/98pRcqXCsKb

California's Reversing Atmospheric Rivers paulkedrosky.com/californas-rev… Comment: Residents WILL retreat from fire-prone areas (due to loss of insurance coverage, if not before). Unless someone can invent fire-proof neighborhoods. Because plants gonna grow then burn.

The choice is simple: 1. A decent but frail old man, surrounded by a good, experienced team. 2. A bat-shit crazy old man, surrounded by a bunch of sycophant hooligans.

Summer Reminder: Don't change planes in DFW 1 AC arrives DFW late 2 Loads late 3 Long line AC to take off=40 min wait 4 Wind reverses; take offs now S to N 5 Re-arrange whole line of AC 6 Back to gate for fuel 7 Finally take off 8 Fly crazy route to avoid storms Total=3 hrs late

Yes, college students have lost their ability to read. I have taught lit for 24 years; the threshold started to decline in the late aughts and nosedived during Covid. A thread with observations + how I get my students to read ALL (or at least most) of the reading I assign: 🧵

Rodney Brooks’s 3 Laws of Robotics. Real world use completely different than academic demos! "Great-looking videos are just not the same things as working for a customer every time. Most of what we see in the news about robots is lab demonstrations." spectrum.ieee.org/rodney-brooks-…

It’s a shame that I never ran into this before. I mostly figured it out from other sources, but this captures “basic paper organization” very clearly.

BREAKING! @FrancescaGino's ridiculous defamation lawsuit against Data Colada from last year has been dismissed by the court! This is an important victory.. if this had been allowed to move forward it would have had a chilling effect on whistleblowers! storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

Scary! Covid caused a notable drop in cognitive performance. The size was moderate - about .7 standard deviations, by eyeball. But that is from a single infection. What about after multiple infections?

The level of caution about automated AI tools is way too low. Don't use new tools until you personally test them, and consider failure modes. Example here: Otter AI transcript Prediction: within 3 years, AI-connected cars used for attacks on their occupants or passers-by

In an SUV: raise your seat! And if possible, move it forward to further improve your view. substack.com/@speakeasy/not…

Such an uplifting story - in an obituary! nytimes.com/2024/10/19/hea… via @NYTimes It’s nice to be reminded that the wonderful parts of life go on 95% of the time, away from the horrors in the other 5%.

Why nonviolent resistance beats violent force in effecting social, political change — Harvard Gazette. In case Trump becomes president, perhaps with a boost from his corrupt Supreme Court. Nonviolent resistance not easy, but easier than the violent kind! news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/…

I just received a $48 settlement check in the "Peters v Apple" class action case. My experience with minor class actions is that few people apply, and the $ payout is therefore larger than expected. We got $300 from a minor Pet Smart #classaction Most much less.

I'm attending Hands Off's event, “Hands Off! San Diego Fights Back” - sign up now to join me! mobilize.us/handsoff/event…

X (and other social media sites) make our 1990s optimism about the Information Age seem silly. Even with all of the world's information a click away (& a free AI that can help explain that information in a personalized way), half-mangled anecdotes with no source win every time.

My overall view at this point (slightly more positive than Luiza Jarovsky, PhD below) is that generative AI chatbots (distinct from domain-specific tools like AlphaFold) will on net increase productivity to a moderate degree in many domains, with large benefits in a few areas. (I

Unfortunately there is no theorem that says glamorous new technologies will ultimately be beneficial for humanity. Even though in past that’s been true. Marcus predicts LLM benefits will be positive but small, while side effects will be serious. (Kind of like social networking?)