iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Benjamin Riley

Alicia Stoller @aliciastoller.bsky.social · 1h

I'm so thankful to @benjaminjriley.bsky.social for inviting me to share this essay with Cognitive Resonance readers! Writing about a humane vision of schooling buoyed my determination to keep fighting for the learning environments our kids deserve. I hope reading the piece does the same for you.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 10h

I'm very grateful to @aliciastoller.bsky.social for her guest essay this week on reclaiming education. "Love for the world as it is, and as it could be. Our schools, all of our schools, must reclaim and redeem this humane possibility." buildcognitiveresonance.substack.com/p/reclaiming...

Image from Frog and Toad looking in a mirror, Toad is holding a book of fairy tales behind his back.

"We look brave," said Frog.

"Yes, but are we?" asked Toad.

A young child's hand holds down the page.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 10h

Woah that graphic is huge. Sorry y'all.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 12h

I don't know, but my daughter loves capybaras so you are treading on dangerous ground. I'm not defending the provision, of course, it is bizarre. But also strikes me as the sort of thing an admissions office might cook up thinking they're being clever.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 23h

Ahem. Please tell them if they want me to read their submissions, they will refer to me as “cognitive hot dog guy” please and thank you

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Cognitive hot dog declares it has learned how to “read,” and that it finds itself fascinating.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I suggest you think about your callousness in the context of my sharing with you a story about my father's death, less than a year ago. You are exhibiting signs of sociopathy, not uncommon among AI enthusiasts. Go outside, touch grass, and contemplate who you want to be in this world.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

There is no more satisfying feedback a writer can receive than this.

Feedback from reader of my essay in The Verge:

I read your Verge cognitive hot dog article today.

Excellent.

I then followed it to your Substack (and subscribed) and read the Plato skeptic article.

I too use the Socrates admonition against new tech, and love that you've taught me it's a 'Yes, and' sorta thing: 'them books, careful if you totally cognitively offload yourself - you still need to talk to a human and work it out (as Plato and Socrates are famous for).'

I stand, not so much, corrected, but, extended. Thank you.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

There’s some interesting things happening with whale songs and perhaps meaning for animal oral communications is more akin to human gestures than our language, is all I’ll say.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Indeed, some will end badly, and life will stop going on for them www.nytimes.com/2026/04/13/w...

nytimes.com

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

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Too many fresh hells, not enough time…

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

This, but a slightly different vector for me: “Will I be able to keep my non-white friends, and ever make new ones?”. So thought a young Ben Riley at a libertarian conference arguing the Civil War’s greatest tyranny involved Lincoln’s decision to temporarily suspend habeas corpus.

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Reposted by Benjamin Riley

Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

In looking for the best metaphor for understanding and teaching people about today’s AI, I went to mirror made of math when cognitive hot dog was right there

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

By wouldn’t of course I meant *would. Sign, I’m committing grammar crimes by the hour today.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Good to know the humans behind the creativity!

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Woah did @theverge.com just create the gold dress/blue dress of cognitive science?

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Dammit I should have said “mint”

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Interesting point! Also, hi! (Waves)

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

A little inside baseball (perhaps with ballpark franks): I was provided a still shot of the graphic below but didn’t know it wouldn’t be animated in the final version. I’m biased but…pretty cool. As child of the 80s I also love the Trapper Keeper vibe. @lopatto.bsky.social you feel me?

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

!!! Best feedback EVER! Thank you for sharing that. And if any of them want to submit their essay as a guest essay for my substack, let me know — would love to elevate student voice on this issue.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

You can and should do those things. You don’t need to, however, and therein lies the problem.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Thank you! Glad you see that, as it is exactly my goal.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Quite literally in Amodei’s case. A religious faith grounded in eugenic-like notions. Grim.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

(whispers) I pushed for a different headline, “Our minds did not evolve for AI.” I kinda agree the headline doesn’t match the argument I make in the piece. And to be fair, I rejected “AI is a cognitive hot dog” simply because I did not want to become “the hot dog guy.”

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Maybe so, maybe so. I’d like to believe that actually. But it feels closer to religious zealotry to me.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

It is remarkable how even modest criticism of AI often triggers extraordinarily sensitive reactions by those who cling to the glorious future this technology supposedly portends. In my latest essay, I suggest we avoid gorging on "cognitive hot dogs" so as to think healthily. Others want to gorge.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

A good question to ask is whether children know how to use this so-called chainsaw effectively. I cite extensive empirical evidence that answers this question. www.educationnext.org/the-penalty-...

educationnext.org

The Penalty Students Pay for Using AI

Teenagers are willingly automating cognition and learning less. Adults seem unwilling to stop them.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

(whispers) I pushed for "Our minds didn't evolve for AI" but now have joined the club of writers slightly frustrated by their lack of control over the headlines to their pieces

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

“We’ve spent thousands of years building institutions and norms for learning from and communicating with each other, and Big Tech companies are systematically working to dismantle them…AI clogs up our capacity to develop the knowledge we need to navigate the world.”

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

And a very special thank you to Paul Cisek, unfortunately he's not on here (as far as I know), but whose work obviously both informed and inspired this essay. I interviewed Paul last year, his analogy to how some treat AI as magic-made-real remains one of my favorite. For the curious:

buildcognitiveresonance.substack.com

Mystified magicians of the mind

My conversation with neuroscientist Paul Cisek

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I am confident you can connect the dots if you ponder what you're asking a bit longer.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

There's a robust literature on the catching-ball dilemma for the computational model. But one question to ask yourself is how a center fielders know how and where to move to keep the ball in the same position in our visual field. Maybe we just...move.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Thanks. The computational model is compatible with feedback control, as I argue, it's just limited in how far it can explain behavior. It's roughly analogous to Newtonian physics versus relativity -- the former is very useful, arguably even more practical. But it's incomplete.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Thank you for this too. I think it's easy to lose sight of what makes humans unique because we simply experience being human as "the way it is." Pulling up allows us to see the aspects of our culture that are unlike anything any other animal does. Schooling for 12-20 years is one example.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Whooo is this a massive question! I've been on an intellectual quest to investigate this very topic -- central to my thinking is Merlin Donald's Origins of the Modern Mind. If you subscribe to my newsletter, I have an interview of Donald coming soon(ish).

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Special thank you to @thedextriarchy.bsky.social who is just about the ideal editor for these projects -- not only for improving my prose, but also pushing my own thinking. Also grateful to @reckless.bsky.social @lopatto.bsky.social and others at @theverge.com who helped bring this essay to life.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

It’s never left my mind since I read it

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I'm again grateful to @theverge.com for publishing my newest long-form essay on the limits of the computational model of the mind, the benefits of understanding both biological and cultural evolution to explain human thinking, and the danger of cognitive hot dogs in education.

theverge.com

Our minds aren’t equipped to handle AI

AI is junk food for the mind: easy, tempting and ultimately very bad for you.

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