iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by David P. Baker

Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 7h

it takes something special see a man hounded out of his future by politics you've helped legitimize step in front of a truck and then ask how the trucker feels

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Reposted by David P. Baker

Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · 20h

A whole political movement should be stood up against this arrogant and sociopathic bullshit www.politico.com/newsletters/...

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David P. Baker @netdpb.bsky.social · 12h

Are you sure there's no one who should maybe join him

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David P. Baker @netdpb.bsky.social · 12h

Okay this is a good article. Presents a rough summary of behavioral evolution, the brain as a feedback-control system rather than a Turing machine, and argues against AI for cognitive delegation.

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Reposted by David P. Baker

Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

We need to rephrase the whole discussion in terms of hazardous products, instead of "minds". And then we need to make sure that there's liability. A model hacks someone? Put a C-suite guy in jail. A model produces sexual harassment material? Put a C-suite guy in jail. Watch how fast things get safe

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David P. Baker @netdpb.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Is this about the guy Cheney shot in the face

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David P. Baker @netdpb.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Just in time for Halloween!

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David P. Baker @netdpb.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Boy are those checks' arms tired

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Reposted by David P. Baker

Coach Finstock @coachfinstock.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I'm Johnny Knoxville welcome to Jackass

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David P. Baker @netdpb.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Classic engineer-named product

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David P. Baker @netdpb.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Intelligence is more than a request server

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David P. Baker @netdpb.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

My stronger version is that even if the room "understands" Chinese, it still does nothing on its own. That autonomous agency is still missing.

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David P. Baker @netdpb.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

How's the Hollandaise sauce in Amsterdam?

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David P. Baker @netdpb.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Yeah what is this "burden of proof" thing I keep hearing about

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Reposted by David P. Baker

Sam Wang @samwang.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

This is the point. When early filmgoers saw a clip of a train approaching the screen, in the viewers' minds, a train was coming. They behaved accordingly. These technologies make us believe that they are something more than they are. LLMs just take it to a higher level. bsky.app/profile/tall...

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David P. Baker @netdpb.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Yes, and people are hard wired to be fooled in both cases. The visual-cognitive system interprets what we see as reality so strongly that visual art works even when we know it's just an image. Our anthropomorphization instinct is similarly triggered by these things that emit person-shaped sentences.

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Reposted by David P. Baker

evil cheese mouse @cheesemouse.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

cheese mouse

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David P. Baker @netdpb.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

What happened in late 2024 hmmm

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Reposted by David P. Baker

apenwarr @apenwarr.ca · 14/09/2026

rationalist: I predict there‘s a 10% chance that 100% of humanity is wiped out in 10 years actuary: there was already a 100% chance that 10% of humanity would die in the next 10 years utilitarian: it’s the same thing

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David P. Baker @netdpb.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Mine is consistent and unique. You can barely make out a D and a B. And my essential tremor adds a soupçon of nondeterminism.

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David P. Baker @netdpb.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Nice summary: AI folks have Pascal's Wagered themselves

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Reposted by David P. Baker

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

When they get back in power, Democrats need to go all-in on higher education. We need a campaign of reinvestment in public universities across the country that makes the Morrill Land-Grant Act look like nothing by comparison *and* a GI Bill of Rights-style program of tuition grants.

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David P. Baker @netdpb.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Also good as a hangover preventer (er, lessener)

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Reposted by David P. Baker

Dan Hon @danhon.com · 12/06/2026

OCEANIA HAS ALWAYS BEEN VERY CLOSE TO A DEAL WITH EURASIA

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Reposted by David P. Baker

Dave Vetter @davidrvetter.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Happy Kicked In The Head By A Horse Day, to all who celebrate. It's the 7th anniversary of this absolute banger.

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Reposted by David P. Baker

Matt Ford @mford.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Ezra Klein asked Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang about AI making kids worse at math and reading. Huang’s reply: “Does it matter?” Then he said he doesn’t know his own address or phone number. “We’re going to lose some fine intellectual dexterity.” www.nytimes.com/2026/09/23/o...

So the message of this research out of China, where you were seeing a lot of kids using A.I. to help them, was that when they were using the A.I., they were getting things done faster. But it turned out that the skills they were learning were not holding, that their actual personal performance, at least in the way we traditionally measure it, was degrading.

What do you think when you hear that?

The last part — I completely agree. Try to get a kid to do long division right now. The multiplication table is starting to be forgotten. Doing square roots, my goodness. Basic math is being forgotten. Does it matter?

That’s my question for you.

Yeah. I don’t think it does. I don’t think it does.

But there must be some set of skills that matter.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But maybe not those. We’re going to discover new ones. Just maybe not those.

There are a lot of skills that don’t matter. My first confession, I actually don’t know my address.

And I ——

I don’t really believe that to be true.

It’s completely true. Janine will tell you and Lori will tell you.

One day I had to pump gas — it was a few years ago. They needed my ZIP code, and I panicked. I didn’t know my ZIP code. I don’t know my telephone number. I forget these things. I can live with it.

But let me take the other side because I don’t want to fall into a thing where, because some skills can be safely offloaded ——

Yeah.

I also can’t get anywhere without a mapping system now. Never could, frankly. But I’m a big reader. And one of the skills I really value, one of the capacities I have that I really value is an attention span formed on physical books.

You’re a big reader. I’ve read about the kind of reading you do. And there is, prior to A.I., a lot of concern and noticing among college professors and others that the way people use the internet has probably shortened attention spans.
Some skills can be safely given away. Others are valuable. They are capacities that are needed for that flexibility, for that creative thinking, for that focus. It can’t be the case that everything can be traded off.

Some skills can be safely given away. Others are valuable. They are capacities that are needed for that flexibility, for that creative thinking, for that focus. It can’t be the case that everything can be traded off.

Yeah. Well, I think that we’re going to lose some finer intellectual dexterity, but we’re going to be better systems thinkers.

Today’s engineers are far better systems thinkers than I was when I graduated from school. But I was a much better transistor thinker.

What do you mean by systems thinker?

They think of large systems. Today’s computers have trillions, hundreds of trillions of transistors in them. When I first graduated from school, the first chip I worked on had 200 transistors. I knew every one of them by name. No engineer does that today. Most engineers now work well above the transistor, well above the functionality, and they’re cobbling things together to do things.

So you need to think much more about systems and interactions of systems. So some of the lower-level knowledge is gone.

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David P. Baker @netdpb.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Let's workshop titles GATE CHANGE FLOTATION DEVICE WHEELS DOWN ON BEHALF OF YOUR NEWARK-BASED CREW

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David P. Baker @netdpb.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

The food trucks around NY Presbyterian hospital smell amazing

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David P. Baker @netdpb.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

oh no the kids have gone rogue!

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Reposted by David P. Baker

ceej @ceej.online · 24/09/2026

impeach them all. fuck em. why should they get to fly around on our dime and hurt people? “they’ll never actually removed from office” who gives a shit? I want them miserable every day for the rest of the term. I hope they have nightmares. air their dirty laundry. make em sweat

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Reposted by David P. Baker

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 23/09/2026

i think you can fairly say that the second trump administration is the most racist federal administration since woodrow wilson and honestly i'm not sure that it isn't more racist than wilson's

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David P. Baker @netdpb.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Really not enjoying this new still-dark-when-the-alarm-goes-off business

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