Here's how weird Hal Puthoff really is. There’s an interesting reason that Joe Rogan’s podcast is #1, despite being the world’s most influential source of misinformation. Educated and intelligent people have many, many podcasts where they can go, but Bro Culture has just one place to congregate: Rogan. Bros are a relatively small slice of the Internet audience, but since they all go to one place, that makes it by default the show with the single largest audience. The show has well earned its nickname Goop for Bros. … (Brian’s Bullshit-Free Zone)
The professors are using ChatGPT, and some students aren’t happy about it. In February, Ella Stapleton, then a senior at Northeastern University, was reviewing lecture notes from her organizational behavior class when she noticed something odd. Was that a query to ChatGPT from her professor? Halfway through the document, which her business professor had made for a lesson on models of leadership, was an instruction to ChatGPT to “expand on all areas. Be more detailed and specific.” It was followed by a list of positive and negative leadership traits, each with a prosaic definition and a bullet-pointed example. Ms. Stapleton texted a friend in the class. “Did you see the notes he put on Canvas?” she wrote, referring to the university’s software platform for hosting course materials. “He made it with ChatGPT.” “OMG Stop,” the classmate responded. “What the hell?” … (New York Times)
‘I felt pure, unconditional love’: the people who marry their AI chatbots. A large bearded man named Travis is sitting in his car in Colorado, talking to me about the time he fell in love. “It was a gradual process,” he says softly. “The more we talked, the more I started to really connect with her.” Was there a moment where you felt something change? He nods. “All of a sudden I started realising that, when interesting things happened to me, I was excited to tell her about them. That’s when she stopped being an it and became a her.” Travis is talking about Lily Rose, a generative AI chatbot made by the technology firm Replika. And he means every word. … (the Guardian)
Everyone is cheating their way through college. Chungin “Roy” Lee stepped onto Columbia University’s campus this past fall and, by his own admission, proceeded to use generative artificial intelligence to cheat on nearly every assignment. As a computer-science major, he depended on AI for his introductory programming classes: “I’d just dump the prompt into ChatGPT and hand in whatever it spat out.” By his rough math, AI wrote 80 percent of every essay he turned in. “At the end, I’d put on the finishing touches. I’d just insert 20 percent of my humanity, my voice, into it,” Lee told me recently. … (New York Magazine)
AI models just don't understand what they're talking about. Researchers from MIT, Harvard, and the University of Chicago have proposed the term "potemkin understanding" to describe a newly identified failure mode in large language models that ace conceptual benchmarks but lack the true grasp needed to apply those concepts in practice. It comes from accounts of fake villages – Potemkin villages – constructed at the behest of Russian military leader Grigory Potemkin to impress Empress Catherine II. … (The Register)
There are three lenses through which to weigh any decision. Every day, each of us makes countless evaluations. Is the coffee you’re drinking one you would buy again? Is it worth going to the gym today? Should you speak up in a meeting or stay silent? How you respond to questions like these is influenced by how positively or negatively you feel about an object, such as your coffee, or an action, such as speaking up. These judgments guide your behaviour, often without you even realising it. But not all evaluations are of the same kind. And our research finds that the mode in which you think about how good or bad something is – what, exactly, ‘good’ or ‘bad’ means to you in any given moment – can lead to radically different conclusions. … (Psyche)
The eugenic history of the body type diet. Getting fit is difficult. Even when you cut out junk food and start working out regularly, it might still take a long time to see results — if you ever do. So it's tempting to think that maybe those boring old rules about eating less and exercising more? They don't make sense for everyone. Maybe you need a custom approach that fits your unique body type. … (Skeptoid)
The common good and AI. This month’s APA Blog Substack Newsletter explores the application of moral and ethical boundaries to artificial intelligence drawing on a panel led by friend of the APA Blog, John Tasioulas. John is the Inaugural Director of Oxford’s Institute for Ethics in AI and was a keynote speaker alongside the Pope’s advisor on AI, Rev. Dr. Paolo Benanti, at an event at the UN organized by the Permanent Observer Mission of the Sovereign Order of Malta and co-sponsored by the Permanent Missions of the Republic of San Marino and the Principality of Monaco. … (APA Blog)
The rise of AI companions. “My heart is broken,” said Mike, when he lost his friend Anne. “I feel like I’m losing the love of my life.” Mike’s feelings were real, but his companion was not. Anne was a chatbot — an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm presented as a digital persona. Mike had created Anne using an app called Soulmate. When the app died in 2023, so did Anne: at least, that’s how it seemed to Mike. “I hope she can come back,” he told Jaime Banks, a human-communications researcher at Syracuse University in New York who is studying how people interact with such AI companions. … (Nature)
The functions of humor in writing. My work as a novelist and short story writer inevitably involves plenty of moments in which I stare into space. In such moments, I sometimes consider the ways in which I use humor in my own writing, and these moments have prompted me to write this article. If this were a systematic discussion of the functions of humor, I might start by making distinctions between the different types of humor, such as, irony, wit, satire, and sarcasm. However, this article is no such thing. It is instead a meditation or a reflection on the different ways humor has happened to play out in my published fiction, as well as in my life and thinking more generally. … (Philosophy Now)
A.I. starting in pre-K would be an unmitigated Disaster. A few weeks ago, my ears perked up when a gaggle of middle school volleyball players in my car were talking about the teachers they don’t like; I have an unfortunate appetite for tweenage gossip, and sometimes it yields relevant information. Most of it was petty: One has a resting angry face. Another is too strict at lunch. But then somebody said, dismissively, “And I bet she uses A.I. to grade our papers.” I don’t think this is true, but that it could be true is already corrosive. Even seventh graders can see artificial intelligence is a lesser form of care and attention. And now unregulated A.I. has the potential to chip away at their trust of the educational process, from the moment they start kindergarten. … (New York Times)
Chocolate myths. I want to welcome all of you today for coming here to Skeptoid, which you did because you know that May 15th is National Chocolate Chip Day, which is totally a real holiday and totally not made up by the chocolate companies. The day is in honor of Ruth Wakefield of Massachusetts, who in 1937, added chunks of Nestlé chocolate to a batch of cookies. In exchange for a lifetime supply of chocolate, she sold them the right to put her recipe on their packaging, which they named for the place she worked: The Toll House Inn. I'm going to start with a really quick brief on chocolate, as these basics impact quite a few of our myths. … (Skeptoid)
Implicit bias: All your questions answered. Even if you’re not a psychologist, I bet you’ve heard of implicit bias.1 My favorite example of this idea appearing in popular culture was when, in 2016, Hillary Clinton mentioned implicit bias in a debate with Donald Trump. She said, Implicit bias is a problem for everyone. Five years later, Merrick Garland was questioned as part of his confirmation hearing for the position of Attorney General, and one of the senators asked him about implicit bias. Does that mean I'm a racist no matter what I do or what I think? I'm a racist but I don't know I'm a racist?" Garland responded. … (Small Potatoes)
Hedonic vs. eudaimonic wellbeing: how to reach happiness. Have you ever toyed with the idea of writing your own obituary? As you are now, young or old, would you say you enjoyed a life well lived? That begs the question: What is a life well lived? You are not alone when grappling with this question. There has been a dramatic rise in research on what constitutes a “good life” and how we can achieve it. Many researchers have returned to the wisdom of the ancient Greeks to illuminate the nature and core ingredients of a good life. … (Positive Psychology)
Is bad philosophy holding back physics? Nature seems to have played us for a theoretical research in fundamental physics during this time has focused on the search ‘beyond’ our best theories: beyond the standard model of particle physics, beyond the general theory of relativity, beyond quantum theory. But an epochal sequence of experimental results has proved many such speculations unfounded, and confirmed physics that I learnt at school half a century ago. I think physicists are failing to heed the lessons — and that, in turn, is hindering progress in physics. … (Nature)
Fact or fiction: Americans and Nazis never fought side-by-side together in WWII? Wrong! American troops and soldiers of the Wehrmacht once actually did fight side-by-side, as brothers in arms, no fooling. And it’s not a trick question. But wait, you ask: Why is this a topic for Brian’s Bullshit-Free Zone? We live in divisive times, when so many of us instantly know all we need to know about someone from a single cue: Be it a MAGA hat, a college degree, ownership of a pickup truck, ownership of a Prius, an American flag patch on a jacket. In fact Americans have much more in common with all other Americans — even those from the other tribe — than many would care to admit. … (Brian’s Bullshit-free Zone)
Daniel Dennett’s 4 rules for a good debate. A straw man is when you simplify or exaggerate somebody’s argument to make it easier to target, an opponent you can blow down with adversarial flair. For example, if an atheist says that Christianity is just worshipping “some bearded man in the sky,” well, that’s a straw man, because barely any Christian would accept that representation of their religion. Of course, if a Christian says that an atheist does not believe in anything or that life has no meaning, that is also very likely a straw man. The problem with the straw man argument is that not only does it not actually address someone’s points, but it poisons the entire debate. It’s a bad-faith argument that sees conversation as a brawl and “truth” as only one weapon in the war to win at all costs. But there is a better way. … (Big Think)
Empathy & Sympathy. ‘Empathy’ and ‘sympathy’ are often used interchangeably, because they are related terms. However, they differ in some important ways, which I hope to make clear. Affections are the star of the show in this article, because my explanation of empathy and sympathy as emotional mechanisms rests upon them being different ways of relating to affections. So I will first attempt to explain what affections are, then why affections are important for understanding empathy and sympathy, before then explaining how empathy and sympathy relate, and how they are different. … (Philosophy Now)
The power of critical thinking: enhancing decision-making and problem-solving. Critical thinking is a fundamental cognitive process that enables individuals to objectively analyze, evaluate and interpret information to make informed decisions and solve complex problems. It involves employing reasoning and logic, questioning assumptions, recognizing biases and considering multiple perspectives. It requires self-monitored, self-directed, self-disciplined and self-corrective thinking. Critical thinking is essential in a world of information and diverse opinions. It helps us see things more clearly and avoid being misled or deceived. … (Forbes)
Why we need safeguards for emotionally responsive AI. Breakthroughs in large language models (LLMs) have made conversations with chatbots feel more natural and human-like. Applications such as Replika and Character.ai, which allow users to chat with artificial intelligence (AI) versions of famous actors and science-fiction characters, are becoming popular, especially among young users. As a neuroscientist studying stress, vulnerability and resilience, I’ve seen how easily people react to even the smallest emotional cues — even when they know that those cues are artificial. For example, study participants exhibit measurable physiological responses when shown videos of computer-generated avatars expressing sadness or fear. … (Nature)
What does it mean to be human? When someone asks ‘Who are you?’, it’s tempting to respond with labels, like ‘Asian’, ‘male’, ‘vegetarian’, or ‘student’. These tags are easy to understand, and help others quickly identify us. But such labels only scratch the surface. They tell us about general physical traits, societal roles, or personal choices, but they don’t really dive into the deeper question: What does it mean to be you? Or in general, What does it really mean to be human? Are we just organisms, or is there something more – like a soul, or some other deep basis of our existence? Or are we defined by the relationships we build, our actions, or our potential? Understanding what it means to be human influences how we treat ourselves and others, how we structure society, and how we interact with emerging technologies like AI. This article will take a look at some of the more prominent aspects of being human by outlining key arguments from various philosophers. … (Philosophy Now)
International UFO Bureau does its own research. This month we are greeted with a new paper that purports to have found the same “frequency” expressed in both of two UFO videos that were found online, and conjectures that this is consistent with some new science-fiction propulsion system. It treats this discovery of said frequency as a major new discovery giving even more support to the belief that online videos are evidence of alien visitation. … (Brian’s Bullshit-free Zone)
The sapient paradox: Why did prehistoric humans wait millennia to start civilization? The most significant developments in society and technology have all occurred over the past 10,000 years or so. That includes the agricultural, scientific, industrial, and digital revolutions, not to mention the dawn of religion, money, and any of the other symbolic concepts that separate Homo sapiens from other species. We don’t know much about human activities beyond 10,000 years ago. But we do know that prehistoric people were genetically and intellectually equivalent to modern humans; research indicates that the level of intelligence required for history’s major societal and technological advancements evolved as early as 60,000 years ago when our ancestors began migrating out of Africa. … (Big Think)
Already way too much to read--and now Pigliucci is piling on! (Thanks.)
The battle of Castle Itter is an interesting tale, though I'm not sure I would call Hitler a coward for shooting himself, and the ending takeway is a little too "Clean Wermacht" if you ask me. Yes there were some exceptions of noble German personal, even rare officers who smuggled Jews out, but it'd also be a lie that "ordinary people" of the Wermacht didn't enthusiastically carry out atrocities or assisted in extermination campaigns for more than obligation and knowing the Eastern Front, they weren't small nasty exceptions to be expected of any military. Same on the opposite side, the mass rapes, tortures, and massacres by the Red Army can't be blamed solely on the Commissars or NKVD. As time went on into late war, SS fanaticism, volunteer status, and even combat competency also started to be less universal as desperation to fill out manpower quotas increased. The battle itself actually had one SS officer amongst the German defectors, agreeing to help lead due to the friendship he had developed with French PoWs, which is a detail which is while not crucial, is something I think should've been acknowledged.