“Hey Mom, I know the good treats are in there, open up please!” Says Penny

@ml @academicchatter
"A new study reveals a significant disparity in neural activity during face-to-face conversations compared to Zoom interactions.

Using advanced neuroimaging, researchers observed suppressed neural signals during online exchanges. In contrast, in-person discussions presented heightened brain activity, with more coordinated neural responses between participants, emphasizing the richness of live social interactions."
I am waiting for the full study: https://neurosciencenews.com/zoom-conversations-social-neuroscience-24996/

Sweet, sweet, (unsweetened), 9:20 p.m. coffee.

In a green chair.

With papers to read.

Fun time last night celebrating the 4th as the Hollywood Bowl (aka The Best Part of Summer in LA)!
❤️🇺🇸🎆

We have spotted quite a few students using generative AI in their essays this summer and applied standard academic misconduct proceedings, though in most cases the work was so bad they would've failed anyway.

Today I learned of one whose use was sufficiently extensive that they will fail their degree.

I am wondering if this is *the first time a student has failed a whole degree for using AI*? Would love to hear about other cases. If you want to tell me in confidence, my Session ID is in my Bio

If anyone is on Bluesky, I am also over there as cabernet.bsky.social

Happy to see so many new lovely people found their way to the Fediverse :nkoHappy: :blobcathearts:

I learned what artificial intelligence is by reading Douglas Hofstadter's work, and it's shaped a lot of my skepticism.

It makes sense that Hofstadter himself would have the same skepticism:

"it’s even worse when people who are employed to use their minds in creating and expressing new ideas are told, by their own institution, to step aside and let their minds take a back seat to mechanical systems whose behavior no one on Earth can explain"

h/t @Iris @fedeadolfi

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/06/generative-artificial-intelligence-universities/674473/

Whoa, this is so cool!! Life may have triggered #PlateTectonics. These researchers suggest that, about 2 1/2 billion years ago, bacteria caused iron to precipitate out of the oceans, depositing 1 km of heavy rock layers every million years, eventually punching through Earth's crust and initiating the plate tectonic cycle. Since then, plate tectonics has helped to stabilize Earth's climate. h/t @DrFunkySpoon https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023GL103553

All of social media has ground to such a halt that I have no idea what has happened anywhere in the world, today, except that social media has ground to a halt.

I think my photos are too large for posting, so just imagine a nice porcelain saucer full of fresh-picked wild black raspberries.

Bluesky paused new sign-ups, temporarily, so looks like I got in just in time!

I have two Mastodon accounts, and I can't log into the other one, because I forgot which instance it is on.

@TedUnderwood Yup!

Here... boycotting other-place... we'll see what happens.

So, this Bluesky thing... I have to be invited in? Like a vampire?

Why do I have so many old browser sessions still open?

Study showing that ChatGPT can influence our moral judgments, and we underestimate how influenced we are. Highlights the need for education to help people better understand what these systems are doing.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-31341-0

Does anyone else feel that modeling work has a shorter lifespan than experimental work? When I'm searching the literature, I'm less likely to be interested in a modeling paper from e.g. 20 years ago than an experimental paper from the same time.

Modeling work is so dependent on the assumptions and mindsets (and computational tools) of the time, it seems it best serves to move thought forward in the moment, but not (at least on average) last a long time.

@jkottke That sounds like the original LiveJournal.