iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 9h

I am left shaking by the dangerous power held by those who have so casually dismissed the need to consider the consequences of their actions, or rather inactions. The world is not safe because of their choices. It it time to take away their power.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 23h

I've largely focused on student life at Alpha School, but there is a story (or stories rather) to be told regarding the complicated web of Joe Liemandt's business affairs. They share a common source for hiring, named appropriately: Crossover. And IQ testing is the name of the game.

crossover.com

Crossover

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Reposted by Benjamin Riley

Kevin Carey @kevincarey1.bsky.social · 23h

Every week @benjaminjriley.bsky.social publishes a new investigative report on Alpha School that's more alarming than the last

The student who tweeted about being dropped in the wilderness with de minimis adult supervision was prescient.

In general, during the Survival Challenge, sources report that students were largely left unsupervised for three days. Although adult guides were present at River Rock Ranch, they set up camp separately from the students, approximately 20-30 minutes away by foot. Students were told that they could go wherever they wanted within the expansive, 250-acre campground. Although there were numerous port-a-potties, sources told me there was only one shower facility.

Multiple sources confirm that at least one major traumatic incident took place over the weekend, one that involved a student falling and becoming concussed. Emergency Medical Services and Fire Department teams were dispatched, and the student was provided advanced life support services on site. The student was then evacuated from the campground by ambulance, and taken to the emergency room at the local hospital.

I know this in part because on Friday, September 26, 2026, I filed a public record request with the Victoria Fire Marshal’s office, and later that day I was provided an incident report for the night of September 19, 2026. The first page of this report appears below, with my circles in red:

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 23h

I want to underscore that there is an ***open and active police investigation*** related to Alpha School’s boot camp. The events in question took place more than a week ago. This is major news. Alpha can refuse to answer my questions. But they cannot refuse to answer the Sheriff’s Department.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

FIFTH REPORT: CHILDREN HARMED AT ALPHA SCHOOL'S BOOT CAMP Just over a week ago, 73 Alpha School high school students were left almost entirely unsupervised for three days in the Texas wilderness. It was a Fyre Festival-like disaster. buildcognitiveresonance.substack.com/p/fifth-repo...

buildcognitiveresonance.substack.com

FIFTH REPORT: CHILDREN HARMED AT ALPHA SCHOOL’S BOOT CAMP

Student hospitalized during Survival Challenge on wilderness ranch; police investigation is ongoing; other concerning incidents re student safety and privacy; one guide fired; also Little B. Diddies

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Amazing. Everyone who continues to bind themselves to the sinking ship of Alpha School is going to feel very uncomfortable in just a few hours (if that). Stay. F'ing. Tuned.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I mean, not only compelling on the merits, but this is legal writing at its finest. (CC: @janerosenzweig.bsky.social @biblioracle.bsky.social)

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Yes, but provisionally — we need a dramatic transformation of our understanding of the role that higher education should play in our society. We’ve created little communities of the cognitive elite, with poor institutional incentives disconnected to the broader world. This must change.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I am grateful to @mattseybold.bsky.social for writing an extraordinary and comprehensive essay that places Alpha School at the heart of a much larger question: whether the social compact that both provides and protects public schooling will endure. The battle has been joined. It's time to fight.

theamericanvandal.com

All Our Kids Will Go To Alpha School

On the plans to hyperscale Alpha School’s “AI” tutoring software to “a billion kids.”

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Today is my father's birthday, my first without him. Not an hour passes without my thinking of the love and support he'd be providing me right now. And he relished a good conspiracy. If you missed the story about him, please read it today. He was such a decent, interesting man. I love you, Pop.

nytimes.com

He Warned About the Dangers of A.I. If Only His Father Had Listened.

Ben Riley was already writing about the risks of chatbots when his dad started trusting A.I. over his doctor.

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Ryan Roat @ryanroat.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I am married to a public school classroom teacher. She's been doing this for nearly 35 years. Yes, she is extraordinary.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

This is extraordinary, in the best sense of the word.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

You would think it couldn’t get worse. And yet it continues to get so…much…worse.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

There will have to be a reckoning with the role the press has played in amplifying Alpha School’s narrative. Many exceptions to this. But nonetheless, a reckoning is due.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

A helpful and comprehensive overview of Alpha School’s high school boot camp activities and the fallout from the student tweets. (One correction: students aren’t learning from an “AI tutor” when using the TimeBack/2 Hour Learning software.) www.the74million.org/article/insi...

the74million.org

Inside Alpha School’s ‘Bootcamp’: Heart Monitors, Unpaid Labor & Many, Many Tweets

Students at the AI-powered private school are chronicling grueling tests of composure, endurance and grit.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Appreciate the reporting of my reporting (sincerely, we need to get the word out far and wide).

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Rob McEntarffer @rmcenta.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Great conversation between @benjaminjriley.bsky.social and C. Tennie bsky.app/profile/cten... about evolution and human thinking. Full conversation here: buildcognitiveresonance.substack.com/p/humans-fro...

buildcognitiveresonance.substack.com

Humans from A to B

My interview with Dr. Claudio Tennie on how humans and great apes culturally diverged

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

How did we humans become what we are? Why did we diverge from other primates and develop our culture? What role does copying (imitation) play in that process, and how do we compare to great apes today? My interview with @ctennie.bsky.social explores these questions and more. Please check it out!

buildcognitiveresonance.substack.com

Humans from A to B

My interview with Dr. Claudio Tennie on how humans and great apes culturally diverged

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I think the good Dr. Cottom clocks Alpha School *exactly right* in this mini-thread of observations. It took me several days to release my existing mental model of private schooling to understand Alpha’s true aims. But I get it now. (Mostly.)

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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

It is breathtaking. Like many things these days it is hard, but necessary, to figure what is a continuity and what is a rupture. EdTech has always been a private sector parasite feeding off the public sector. The rupture is AI EdTech is experimenting on the rich instead of the poor.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

No one will believe me, in fact I don’t believe it myself, but I wrote this overview of Alpha School *before* my investigative reporting on its activities commenced.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Being on the Alpha beat has been a lot, but hearing these students describe what it means to them to be human is inspiring. Passion fuels everything. It’s certainly fueling my reporting.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

FOURTH REPORT: Former Alpha School students speak out I have just posted my latest report on what student life is *really* like at Alpha School, based on interviews with several student sources. They describe anti-patterns, rocket ships & pirate ships, and "getting nuked." Here's a short summary.

buildcognitiveresonance.substack.com

FOURTH REPORT: Former Alpha School students speak out

“A science experiment that’s been framed as a school” - “pretty much a concentration camp” - “cool the first few months and then it just becomes shit”

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Worthy thread on the stupid “two brains” thing making the rounds.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

I have to add: Alpha School is not AI focused. They say they are, but they are not. Kids are using shitty software with shitty apps. That’s the focus.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Restated: Most Americans realize tool for not-thinking is doing harm to institutions designed to cultivate thinking, called “schools.”

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Jane Rosenzweig @janerosenzweig.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Here's what I like about this: Instead of answering the question, what should we do about AI, these outcomes answer the question, what do we want our students to be able to do? Yes, implementation has new challenges now because of AI. And in some fields, what we want our students to be able to do/1

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Ami Weaver @amerei.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

"... indoctrination camps for the airport-book class? What the hell is happening here?" @ifbookspod.bsky.social bonus episode when?

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

I knew that Alpha School's terminally online supporters would be whipped into frenzy by my reporting. I call them the Alpha-Betas, and while they are grotesque, I admit I enjoyed making fun of them here.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

I suspect Alpha School leadership is already regretting their decision to force their students to use Twitter. New story from the SF Standard on what's happening in boot camp. sfstandard.com/2026/09/16/7...

sfstandard.com

The $75k-a-year private school encouraging kids to go viral on Twitter

Life skills or initiation? Alpha School’s 8-week bootcamp splits the internet.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

“Democracy itself is at stake. Historically, public schools are where Americans of different backgrounds come together by learning together. With shared purpose, we become a people able to weather disagreement and build a multifaceted country.”

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

One thing we should do, should we manage to defeat the fascism, is force every single Big Tech company to have one-click deactivation. Currently trying to shut down one of mine and the rage I'm experience at the deliberate design to make this impossible is hard to describe.

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

The Dean of Harvard College has been on a PR tour defending the institution's approach to AI and writing, but student testimony from inside the institution suggests that the school is retreating from human exchange as central to the learning experience. www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...

thecrimson.com

I’m a Writing Tutor at Harvard. The College is Failing Us. | The Harvard Crimson

The Writing Center’s dismantling evokes a broader pattern of institutions treating human learning and connection as costs to cut, not values to protect.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Two of my sources expressed complete bewilderment after seeing the positive media coverage even after the thorough and damning reporting of @wired.com and @404media.co. “What is it going to take? Why aren’t people listening to us?”, one desperate former Alpha parent asked. I had no answer.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

New narrative unlocked! “As I read more about Alpha School’s design and its founder, MacKenzie Price, I was struck by how bizarrely similar it seemed to Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes’s Silicon Valley start-up.” fordhaminstitute.org/national/com...

fordhaminstitute.org

Alpha School’s Theranos problem

I was recently walking around Austin, Texas. And a block from the new W Hotel, I passed Alpha School, housed in what looked like a tech office. Outside was a sign reading “Kids crush academics in two ...

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Trying not to think about this paragraph from an essay I wrote in -- checks notes -- May of this year. (No time to reflect Ben, report report report!)

Squint, and you might start to see signs of this transition already underway. While I have vowed to spend as little of my life as possible thinking about the pedagogical horror show that is Alpha School, it might just be a canary in the coal mine (an industrial-era metaphor I invoke deliberately). What is Alpha School promising? To parents who can afford its $40,000 to $75,000 annual tuition, they offer an automated experience of core academics, but also a highly curated set of fun stuff for kids to do.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

God I hate LinkedIn but it's arguably the preferred social media of the professional Alpha School-curious set, soooooo.... A question for my wonderful followers here: Have any of you "boosted" a post there? Was it worth it? Feel free to DM if you are just a tad ashamed of yourself. (I tease!)

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

I’m sorry, but this is f’ing hilarious. Maybe AI really has gone rogue.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

As I turn my life over (hopefully temporarily) to studying Alpha School, it’s striking how much contempt they have for everything I hold precious. “Normal schools.” Teaching, and the parent-teacher relationship. Literature. Empathy. Curiosity. But I didn’t expect their *own parents.* Stunning.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

NEW REPORT ON ALPHA SCHOOL Last week, I reported on troubling activities at Alpha School's boot camp. This week, I report on the broader activities going on at Alpha School, and its culture. What I found is deeply disturbing. Children are at risk. I will now share some of what I uncovered.

buildcognitiveresonance.substack.com

“It’s pretty dystopian if you think about it”

New report on Alpha School’s activities and culture

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

I don’t always drink beer or agree with @mattyglesias.bsky.social but when I do…

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

I would simply align them to human values

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Hear me out here: what if throwing literally hundreds of millions of dollars to extraordinarily smart AI engineers resulted in a myopic focus on improving AI capability without any real sense of the broader social consequences of this obsession?

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Last week, Alpha School made a microsite for its boot camp visible on the same day I published my special report. On the left is how they described "independence" then. On the right is how they describe it now. Very, very interesting.

So, in short, the first graphic shows hard if not impossible targets for kids to meet on improving SAT scores in eight weeks, like 200 points for the lowest students (but a lot more detail). On the right, now just says, "raise your SAT score by a set target."

I have to say I don't think the comms team is killing it at Alpha School.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

I am inviting respectful, thoughtful commentary on the phrase "global-majority students" to refer to non-white students. Please comment if you have a view, pro or con. I will delete this if it turns into a fight between folks, I am trying to understand the range of reactions people might have.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

I often disagree with @timkellogg.me, but not on this. Something important is happening.

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