“This does not follow. Computationalism does not even imply makeism. See 📝 link.springer.com/article/10.1... See 🧵 bsky.app/profile/iris...”
“One paper I thought a lot while writing was this by @irisvanrooij.bsky.social et al (linked in my piece; I recommend). There's a role for AI for "assessing whether something is computationally possible or not, in principle and in practice." link.springer.co…”
6 experts discussed this · 119 posts
Iris van Rooij: What, in your opinion, is the strongest anti-computationalist argument out there?
Iris van Rooij: Here, by 'computationalism' I mean the metatheoretical thesis that cognition is, or can be understood as, a form of computation. See eg link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Iris van Rooij: Was not rhetorical, but I wonder if question was understood? bsky.app/profile/iris...
Olivia Guest: I think being anti AI is entering a more mainstream phase! While incredibly good at the same time we're finally meeting a low bar. This means: 1) more critical thinking is needed now as non-experts…
Olivia Guest: 2) industry buys people out a great deal and conflicts of interest are often not properly displayed. Many already have started rebranding as AI literacy and even critical AI literacy "experts" — wh…
Olivia Guest: Obviously, when you see research that involves anything to do with AI, look up what side projects these people have, what startups they spun up, & sadly if they are in the Epstein files, etc. bsky.…
““Much like fascism generally, if left unchecked and unaddressed: AI is a totalising force that destroys people and planet from the inside out.” olivia.science/entryism/”
“managers or indeed uhhh editors in chief... context: olivia.science/entryism”
3 experts discussed this · 40 posts
Ben Williamson: Here’s what I’m observing in AI papers: Title and abstract: these set the scene in academic jargon overdrive. You’ve never seen so much over-use of the word “epistemic”. AI-enhanced papers start ja…
Ben Williamson: Introduction. AI-supported papers frequently introduce themselves as a “conceptual synthesis.” It's like everyone is a poor synthetic theorist who only does conceptual work based on existing litera…
Ben Williamson: Lit review. You don’t really get a proper lit review but long lists of various conceptual approaches and literatures thrown together in a way that is supposed, I guess, to appear impressive. Often …
“2/2 bsky.app/profile/oliv... pdf here: doi.org/10.5281/zeno...”
3 experts discussed this · 24 posts
Olivia Guest: New preprint! So honoured to have worked with Ishani Ray on providing vital critique on "AI literacy" & correctives for those interested in understanding why "just use the newest version of an LLM"…
Olivia Guest: Maybe many mid-career and above academics have my experience, and so can relate, but it never ever gets any less impressive, overwhelming, or old when a student appears our of nowhere (notice our g…
Olivia Guest: Anyway, back to the work itself (from the abstract): > Critical discourse on large language models (LLMs) has bifurcated between epistemic dismissal [...] and pragmatic accommodation that treats LL…
“3️⃣ for those who make excuses for AI, or stats in general, in "scientific settings" without any critical reflection, see the thread below and this manuscript: doi.org/10.5281/zeno... I might come back and add more later, but maybe this is enough for now. ☺…”
2 experts discussed this · 22 posts
Olivia Guest: I wrote a very short piece on models & modelling in part because we need to protect our scientific praxis damage caused by AI in terms of addictive frictionless thinking, esp since it harms society…
Olivia Guest: > [We need] to push back against correlationism[:] the idea that because things can appear similar that therefore their [other properties match. A] video of me may directly coincide with many of my…
Olivia Guest: > This becomes utterly damaging pedagogically when we assume the ‘output’ of an assignment, the essay or horrifically the grade, is the essence. The point is for students to engage with the subject…
“yup! I propose they perform a different function, more discursive and rhetorical. I analyse some interesting patterns within such letters/other outputs (in the preprint below), such as the bizarre claim that the creators of AI don't understand it: doi.org/1…”
4 experts discussed this · 17 posts
Shannon Vallor: I was in two intensive week-long workshops this year with neuroscientists, philosophers and computer scientists and not *one* thought LLMs are conscious, or that anything is ‘mysterious’ in a model…
Shannon Vallor: Because none of those scientists and philosophers were on an AI company payroll
rev. howard arson: fwiw it is actually a reallly interesting question but it is interesting in terms of "what about the optimization dynamics results in this phenomenology" rather than "is the thing making an accurat…
“I find the research increasingly compelling — this week's example being a case in point: www.nature.com/articles/d41... I look forward to reading your book and having these concerns placed in the context of earlier technological transitions and their attend…”
“What a surprise ….. “Is AI ruining our skills? Early results are in — and they’re not good Reliance on artificial-intelligence tools degrades the abilities of physicians and software engineers, studies show.” www.nature.com/articles/d41...”
2 experts discussed this · 6 posts
Edouard Machery: The literature on cognitive offloading and deskilling should be taken with a serious grain of salt. See literature on video games in the 1980s, see Haidt style literature on social media. The last …
Alondra Nelson: I find the research increasingly compelling — this week's example being a case in point: www.nature.com/articles/d41... I look forward to reading your book and having these concerns placed in the c…
Edouard Machery: The issue, in my opinion, is publication bias and p-hacking. The literature is clearly titled toward finding negative effects - this is what gets in the news etc. As a result I don’t think we can t…
“Not sure of you saw it, but this open letter may be of use/interest: openletter.earth/open-letter-...”
“It's been about a year and the university has still not replied to our open letter: openletter.earth/open-letter-... They reply to so many other letters and events, rightfully so of course, and much faster. I can only guess as to why we're ignored and none …”
2 experts discussed this · 19 posts
Iris van Rooij: I am responsible for the academic skills line in our AI programme and I think part of the 26/27 curriculum needs to be to help students understand that all those “AI assistants” that publishers and…
Iris van Rooij: Sadly, we need to teach students now that, in contrast to computers >3 years ago, the current software is actively designed to offer them slop, desinformation, and deskilling. >>
Iris van Rooij: As if learning academic skills was not hard enough, it is now made actively harder by all the bloated “clippies”. Students need to learn and understand that part of growing to be an academic in the…
“OK, maybe these are useful for your exploration. Hopefully, but please ignore of course if not. I'll link you directly to where there is the full paper and related threads as much as possible. 1/ PDF: doi.org/10.31234/osf... bsky.app/profile/oliv...”
Olivia Guest: What exactly are you looking for if useful I can suggest readings? Especially if you're interested in academic work.
Olivia Guest: OK, maybe these are useful for your exploration. Hopefully, but please ignore of course if not. I'll link you directly to where there is the full paper and related threads as much as possible. 1/ P…
“Yes, thank you for sharing the `German version! On @olivia.science ’s CAIL website there are also links to translations in Brazilian Portuguese, Dutch, French, Italian, and Spanish. olivia.science/ai/#activism”
“All the critical AI stuff is here if useful olivia.science/ai 💞”
2 experts discussed this · 9 posts
Olivia Guest: There's no engineering reason for human shaped robots other than that one actually. And there's so many engineering reasons against. The sooner people realise it has always been true & sexist (oliv…
Olivia Guest: Also see: bsky.app/profile/oliv... 2/
Thomas Dietterich: My colleague Jonathan Hurst (at Agility Robotics) has a long list of reasons why humanoid robots make sense. For years he was opposed to humanoids, but he found that for lifting and carrying loads,…
Abstract Tesseract: "However, with the start of 2026, the software industry needs terminology that better reflects professional development practices" Well I guess if any company understands the need to do damage cont…
“I think you’ll like this essay by @atomless.bsky.social “Predictive systems only simulate coherence, without, in fact, recognising the user as a subject at all; they do not truly respond to intention or meaning, only to statistical correlation.” 👀 @irisvanr…”
2 experts discussed this · 17 posts
Neil Turkewitz: How is cognition like democracy? “Cognition is not a state, but a collection of capacities.” We are more than the sum of our parts. Our humanity isn’t reducible to data.
Iris van Rooij: How is cognition like democracy? “Cognition is not a state, but a collection of capacities.” We are more than the sum of our parts. Our humanity isn’t reducible to data.
Olivia Guest: you will love dialectics, if you like this way of thinking ☺️
“. @olivia.science and I also wrote about capacities here (and elswhere): journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... Reason I emphasize is that many people conceptualise cognition as "what we measure" + think this is consistent with or implied by computationalism.…”
3 experts discussed this · 6 posts
Iris van Rooij: Published version now available in Current Directions in Psychological Science: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Olivia Guest: Published version now available in Current Directions in Psychological Science: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
“Protein folding is intractable in general, so the barrier cannot have been broken algorithmically in general. Where is the scam hidden? Either algorithms consume super-polynomial resources or they are simply not solving the problem reliably. There is no oth…”
“With respect to how it harms theory, you'll need this one which has a small overlap only and otherwise explains the issues with AI on science internally. youtu.be/4DHgVkIWhig 4/”
2 experts discussed this · 6 posts
Iris van Rooij: Protein folding is intractable in general, so the barrier cannot have been broken algorithmically in general. Where is the scam hidden? Either algorithms consume super-polynomial resources or they …
Olivia Guest: Protein folding is intractable in general, so the barrier cannot have been broken algorithmically in general. Where is the scam hidden? Either algorithms consume super-polynomial resources or they …
Olivia Guest: CC @trantteam.bsky.social maybe of interest?
“ah yeah > In 2009, MIRI (then known as the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence) received a $50,000 donation from Jeffrey Epstein rationalwiki.org/wiki/LessWro...”
2 experts discussed this · 5 posts
Olivia Guest: ah yeah > In 2009, MIRI (then known as the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence) received a $50,000 donation from Jeffrey Epstein rationalwiki.org/wiki/LessWro...
Abstract Tesseract: Weirdly, this is the second time CFI came up for me today. A friend just shared some research from a fellow there, which is basically a series of user interviews and testimonials for "AI" products,…
Iris van Rooij: ah yeah > In 2009, MIRI (then known as the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence) received a $50,000 donation from Jeffrey Epstein rationalwiki.org/wiki/LessWro...
“let's get real. If you just exist to direct all energy debating and to staying in the conceptual you're not anti AI because while it is an ideology it's also a material technology directly harming lives right now. That redirect helps AI companies and that's…”
2 experts discussed this · 5 posts
Iris van Rooij: not that the other philosophies of ethics are any better lost trust in ethics
Olivia Guest: not that the other philosophies of ethics are any better lost trust in ethics
Olivia Guest: I think it's a huge problem for the context Iris is talking about Gerdes, A. The tech industry hijacking of the AI ethics research agenda and why we should reclaim it. Discov Artif Intell 2, 25 (20…
“As scientists ought to know, and editors in chief especially, LLMs and/or chatbots are not replacements for search engines — see e.g., work by @emilymbender.bsky.social and Chirag Shah, and many others. iai.tv/articles/all...”
2 experts discussed this · 5 posts
Iris van Rooij: “Used ChatGPT as my search engine” 👀 🫠 Editor-in-Chief of Science
Iris van Rooij: As scientists ought to know, and editors in chief especially, LLMs and/or chatbots are not replacements for search engines — see e.g., work by @emilymbender.bsky.social and Chirag Shah, and many ot…
Olivia Guest: “Used ChatGPT as my search engine” 👀 🫠 Editor-in-Chief of Science
Iris van Rooij: Preprinted! Been working on this for ~1 year w wonderful coauthors Nancy & Mark: > Understanding Artificial Neural Networks: Mysterianism about Known Mechanism is Mysticism doi.org/10.5281/zeno... …
Emily M. Bender: Not loving how the #ACL2026 keynote represents "philosophy" graphically here.
Emily M. Bender: If the point of the example is not to critique the lack of gender diversity in philosophy, then representing it like this only reinforces that. Plus: the Greeks are not the only ancient philosophers!
Eryk Salvaggio: We really must acknowledge that when you see “AI” making half-assed work it’s because someone looked at it, said “good enough” and shared that half-ass work just to stand by it, point out that it w…
Eryk Salvaggio: Like yes Gen AI UX is designed to encourage half-assery but Netflix is designed to keep you binge watching and we would not tolerate an academic staying up all night watching the Great British Bake…
Iris van Rooij: AI boosters want you to believe there's something special, unexplainable even (but see @olivia.science et al, 2026), about AI at the algorithmic level. But it's the functions at computational level…
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