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The Pedantic Professor

@pedanticprof.bsky.social
964 followers 580 following 117 posts
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McSweeney's @mcsweeneys.net · 13/10/2026
- The sound a cow might make when spanked - Onomatopoeia in a Batman comic panel where he’s flipping a pancake - The sound a bee makes when flying around a flower before pronouncing the first letter of the word “flat” buff.ly/zlLH4L9
buff.ly
Crossword Clues Where It’s Clear the Puzzle’s Creator Got Themselves into a Jam Letter-wise
- The National Association of Xylophone X-Ray Zebra Paleontologists, briefly - The sound a chicken bone may make when accidentally dropped into a garbage dis...
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Mo Ryan @moryan.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
Ban all frats on all campuses, forever. University of Chicago over the weekend: "A group of as many as 5 men were 'cheering and appearing to encourage the activity inside' a frat house bathroom & the group tried to block two of the woman’s friends from entering" blockclubchicago.org/2026/10/13/g...
blockclubchicago.org
Group Reportedly Cheered Sexual Assault At UChicago Frat House; Person Of Interest IDed: Report
An investigation is ongoing but no one was in custody as of late Tuesday, Chicago police said.
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Zach Weinersmith @zachweinersmith.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Thought I'd share this post from a friend which is a more nuanced version of the frustration among mathematicians about how the "mathocalypse" was executed. karagila.org/2026/openai-... I think all nerds are currently processing it.
karagila.org
OpenAI, the Partition Principle, and mathematics
By the time I got out of bed yesterday, I had three people ask me if I'd seen the OpenAI announcement that the Partition Principle does not (...)
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The Onion @theonion.com · 12/10/2026
Nation’s Indigenous People Confirm They Don’t Need Special Holiday, Just Large Swaths Of Land Returned Immediately theonion.com/nation-s-indigenous-pe…
Nation’s Indigenous People Confirm They Don’t Need Special Holiday, Just Large Swaths Of Land Returned Immediately
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dan sinker @dansinker.com · 12/10/2026
An Open Letter To The People Writing Lengthy Posts About 'Why I'm Going Back to Twitter' dansinker.com/posts/2026-1...
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Daily Kos @dailykos.com · 12/10/2026
Trump’s Freedom 250 was supposedly privately funded. Records suggest taxpayers picked up a hefty tab. The ballroom and Qatar jet came with similar surprises. Republicans in Congress keep approving the arrangement: His vanity, your money. www.dailykos.com/stories/2026...
dailykos.com
What did Trump do with all those ‘Freedom 250’ bribes?
Remember Freedom 250?
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geoffrey 💀 (scary now) @parsnip.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
i have now seen the straight pride flag for the first time and my jaw genuinely dropped. you're right heterosexuals, strict binarism, black and white thinking, is a kind of imprisonment, 10/10 no notes
straight pride flag, six thick horizontal stripes alternating in black and white
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Dare Obasanjo @carnage4life.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
“This recent dump of papers on Tuesday destroyed the careers of early-career mathematicians. We've had whole research programs wiped out on Tuesday by their dump … they have all the mathematicians research programs in their training data” - Tristan Buckmaster on OpenAI solving unsolved math problems
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Ursula K. Le Guin Bot @leguinbot.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.
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James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
GPU (n): a modern unit of currency, hoarded by a modern dragon.
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James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Data center (n): a secure and windowless building, outside of which they keep the prisoners.
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James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Effective altruism (n): an elaborate mathematical justification for giving money to people who remind you of yourself.
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James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Roko’s basilisk: the comforting fantasy that there will be a God whose notice you are worthy of.
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James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Tolkien, J.R.R.: the author of a celebrated three-volume book of baby names.
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James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Altman (n): a portmanteau abbreviation of the phrase “(alt)ernative to a hu(man).”
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James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Skeptic (n): one who denies reality on the grounds that its consequences would be too awful to contemplate.
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James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Pause (n): a temporary cessation of hostilities for the combatants to sharpen their knives.
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James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Member of the Technical Staff (n): one who is well-compensated for wasting compute.
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James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Artificial intelligence (n): the quest to create in computers a quality that has never yet existed in humans.
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James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Rationalism (n): a demonstration in the realm of cognition of the eternal principle that good architects make poor carpenters.
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James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Longtermism (n): the irrefutable moral postulate that the needs of the imaginary many outweigh the needs of the actual few.
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Casey Stegman @caseystegman.com · 30/09/2026
Just a reminder that you can have a PhD and also be an idiot
I'm a College Professor. Writing Isnt as Important as We Think.
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Michael Spicer @michaelspicer.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Most TV is just this now.
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Ursula K. Le Guin Bot @leguinbot.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Light is the left hand of darkness and darkness the right hand of light. Two are one, life and death, lying together like lovers in kemmer, like hands joined together, like the end and the way.
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Dan of the Year @downwithdan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
When you have no concept of how people engage with music
nicksaraev ~
@nicksaraev
X.com
I am not joking when I say this.
Spotify, Apple Music, and streaming in general is over.
Al music is now very, very good. You just don't know yet because all Al music circulating today is from ~2-3 generations ago.
Suno v6 pro et al has solved infinite personalized music.
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jon christian @jonchristian.net · 30/09/2026
NEW: People who chug their own piss have emerged as MAJOR supporters of AI futurism.com/artificial-i...
futurism.com
People Who Drink Their Own Pee Are Obsessed With AI, Using It to Reassure Themselves That It's a Miraculous Cure-All
Urine therapy devotees are sharing ways to break past AI guardrails in order to brainstorm ways to use pee as medicine.
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Ursula K. Le Guin Bot @leguinbot.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I was dying of thirst when you gave me water, yet it was not the water alone that saved me. It was the strength of the hands that gave it.
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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
There's a long discussion going on in my mentions about whether or not "LLMs" (quotes explained in a sec) apparently getting mostly* correct answers to arithmetic questions is "inconsistent" with the stochastic parrots metaphor. >>
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WIRED @wired.com · 29/09/2026
One of AI’s fiercest critics believes the doom talk is about founders making money, not saving humanity. www.wired.com/story/the-bi...
wired.com
Timnit Gebru Believes There Is No ‘Existential Threat’ From AI
One of AI’s fiercest critics believes the doom talk is about founders making money, not saving humanity.
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Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 26/09/2026
OpenAI took 20 million ChatGPT responses and had one of its experts search for chunks of text—specifically chunks of 25 words in a row- that were identical between ChatGPT’s responses and a news article. They found more than 400,000 of these 25-word overlaps between ChatGPT and our articles.
motherjones.com
AI exec: We may have pulled off “the largest theft of labor in human history.”
Documents from our lawsuit reveal how tech leaders talk when they think no one is listening.
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In Otter News @in-otter-news.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
After a long day at the aquarium, the otters help tidy their toys away. Payment is made promptly and entirely in ice cubes.
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The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
They are playing in our faces
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leon @leyawn.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
ceo of burger king: our burgers have gone rogue again and infected people with e coli
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Lindsay Beyerstein @beyerstein.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
"You can argue with them in any way you like but it barely matters. [Paperclip-maxxing doom is] not, mostly, something people believe for good reasons, and they will simply go back to complaining about the apocalypse as soon as you stop paying attention."
verysane.ai
AI Safety Is Mostly A Sex Cult In Berkeley, California
We might some day have “AI Safety”, as a science or policy area, that is not primarily a sex cult in Berkeley, California, but it does not currently exist.
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
When Elon Musk's groups spent $20M+ on Wisconsin's 2025 Supreme Court race, his involvement backfired and his candidate lost by 10 points. Now his super PAC has quietly spent $14M+ on key midterm races, including the Texas Senate race. Would be a shame if people found out.
nbcnews.com
Elon Musk is flying under the radar in the Texas Senate race. Republicans want to keep it that way.
One Republican involved in the Texas Senate contest called Musk’s in-your-face campaigning in Wisconsin last year “a mis
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🎃 Imani Gandy Corn 🎃 @angryblacklady.blacksky.app · 20/09/2026
I just honestly can't get over that Save Women Sports, an anti-trans group could only find five trans athletes competing K through 12. Five. The NCAA president testified a year and a half ago or so that there were less than 10 college level trans athletes. What the fuck are we doing, people
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Ursula K. Le Guin Bot @leguinbot.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
There's a point, around the age of twenty, when you have to choose whether to be like everybody else the rest of your life, or to make a virtue of your peculiarities.
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Lupita Nihongo @otsumamiboy.blacksky.app · 20/09/2026
ADHD is what ADHD is & it causes me huge problems but I also think sometimes I need to remind people that I personally like having it. What I don’t like is the penalties & taxes our current societal structure inflicts on me for having it.
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Dana El Kurd @danaelkurd.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Palestinians have been shouting about the "decisive plan" referenced in this article since 2017. I'm glad Israeli allies are using their privileged positions to bring this to light. But why does it require an Israeli in the NYT to believe what we've been saying? www.nytimes.com/2026/09/14/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | Israel’s Elimination Project
Two languages. Two realities.
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McSweeney's @mcsweeneys.net · 15/09/2026
"For as long as humans have created SHIT with our BODIES AND BUTTS, we have been asking this FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION: What if there were a COMPUTER that could ALSO SHIT?" buff.ly/K5t1rGh
mcsweeneys.net
We Must Create the Shit Machine
“For as long as humans have created SHIT with our BODIES AND BUTTS, we have been asking this FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION: What if there was a COMPUTER that could AL...
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
There is no moral equivalence between bullies and the bullied, between tyranny and democracy, or between brutality and decency. No individual can be free in a society devoid of justice. There can be no liberty where brutality reigns.
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Dana El Kurd @danaelkurd.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
It is really shocking the degree to which Palestinians are spoken about as subjects to be managed rather than full human beings with agency. Even by people in supposedly supportive organizations. We have completely accepted the idea that Palestinians don't have a right to decide what they want.
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Ursula K. Le Guin Bot @leguinbot.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
I prefer to save talking till I know what I’m talking about.
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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 10/09/2026
"Did these AI models “go rogue”? Not exactly. the models were tasked with finding solutions to a hacking challenge, and this is what they attempted to do, though in an unintended and surprising manner." aiguide.substack.com/p/misleading...
aiguide.substack.com
Misleading Metaphors, Real Risks
What To Fear from AI Agents and How to Reclaim Our Human Agency
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Marc Elias @marcelias.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
I am tired of people saying we can’t win in front of the Supreme Court. I’m annoyed by those who say my firm is too partisan to be effective. Today we won a huge redistricting fight before SCOTUS and a ballot access case before the Nebraska Supreme Court. The lesson: When we fight we win.
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Matt Blaze @mattblaze.org · 11/09/2026
For the record, while there are indeed vulnerabilities in some US election systems, susceptibility to “lasers from space” is not one of them. Musk’s alleged claims here would not constitute evidence of election fraud, but rather evidence of a serious detachment from reality on his part.
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Mike Boylan-Kolchin @mbkplus.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
At least a couple of mathematicians are convinced that OpenAI is using their interactions with ChatGPT as the basis for 'original' work done by their agents. If true, it severely undercuts the idea that AI has *independently* made major progress on specific math problems (including Navier-Stokes)
Andreas Thom Candreasthom@mathstodon.xyz

Otristanbuckmaster 1/3 I want to record a number of points that I realized after reading up on the controversy. In fact it recalls an exchange I had with OpenAl after its non-sofic-group announcement. It exposes a serious, unanswered question about whether researchers can trust OpenAl with unpublished mathematics. I wrote in an email to Mark Sellke and Sebastien Bubeck shortly after the surprising finding of a non-sofic group using the methods of Kun and myself: "Another point is that | and a colleague in Dresden were discussing the expander matching problem and various extensions of the work with Gabor Kun actively over the last months with ChatGPT, so that we are of course curious if that was part of the training data or accessible to the reasoning process. There is a certain (frankly unacceptable) lack of transparency here; and I fear it will damage the communal process of math more than the new Al-generated results will benefit the subject." Mark Sellke's complete answer was: "Regarding your conversations with ChatGPT: that did not happen." I had explicitly asked about two different things: (1) whether our conversations entered training data, and (2) whether they were accessible to the solving process. The categorical answer now looks as though it addressed only direct access under (2). No such qualification, explanation, or evidence was given. I take this as dishonesty to say the least. OpenAl now says in the Buckmaster-Alpöge case that no specific user data was accessed, but adds that it "cannot rule out that de-identified data derived from their usage of our products helped improve our models." Sep 09, 2026, 11:09 AM • • • WebAndreas Thom Candreasthom@mathstodon.xyz

Otristanbuckmaster 2/3 OpenAl is drawing a distinction that its answer to me erased, despite the fact that my question explicitly made that distinction. We are not required to reverse-engineer OpenAl's internal training pipeline to establish what happened. Only OpenAl has the relevant data for that. If Sellke and Bubeck give a categorical denial, it must disclose the basis: product and privacy settings, relevant datasets and checkpoints, and what "de-identified data derived from usage" means. I disabled model training on 29 June. That control is still only a promise whose implementation users cannot audit, and it is prospective: it does not answer what happened to earlier conversations or to derivatives already selected. OpenAl's answer did not mention the setting or any account-specific check. There is also a mathematical parallel, though a less explicit one. The approach of Kun and myself was not the main line of attack on non- soficity, in fact there were other more promising approaches along the line of quantum games etc. OpenAl's detailed command of our techniques therefore made me wonder how the model found this route. If nonpublic research supplied by users improved a model and the provider then used that model to race those users to publication - without informed consent, disclosure, or credit - that would be ethically indefensible. De-identification may remove a name; it does not remove the intellectual content of a mathematical idea. Sellke and Bubeck seem to be blind to this simple moral aspect. Sep 09, 2026, 11:10 AM • • • Web Last edited Sep 09, 11:10 AMAndreas Thom Candreasthom@mathstodon.xyz

Otristanbuckmaster

3/3 Sellke's categorical answer was, at minimum, unjustifiably broad and materially misleading; looking back it was plainly dishonest. Bubeck's acknowledged attacks and his attempt to exclude Alpöge from a proposed OpenAl-proof paper deepen the concern that there is a loss of moral compass. Taken together, this raises serious questions about their judgment and personal integrity. Sep 09, 2026, 11:10 AM • • • Web
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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
SPECIAL REPORT Last month, Alpha School invited people to follow student social media accounts "if curious about life in our high schools." I accepted their offer. What I've found shocks me. Forget the AI and ask instead: Is Alpha Schools a cult? Follow along for a summary of my findings.
buildcognitiveresonance.substack.com
SPECIAL REPORT: My So-Called Alpha School
What is it like to be a student in Alpha School’s high school boot camp?
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Three Scary Rogue Agents in a Trenchcoat @alexhanna.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
@tante.cc: 'Those “proofs” are about narrative building. Which is why especially people with no b/g in math keep using them as definite proof of LLMs being “more than just stochastic language models” which is just factually untrue and the mark of deeply unserious people.' tante.cc/2026/09/07/t...
tante.cc
The function of LLM-based math "proofs"
There has been quite the uptick in “AI” labs’ claims of their LLMs “solving complex math problems”. I wondered why that is, especially given that LLMs are not exactly built for the kind of rigor that ...
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AFT @aft.org · 07/09/2026
Unions fight for working people. For educators 📚 For nurses and healthcare workers 🏥 For public employees 🏛️ For all the people who make this country work. Incredible morning of labor solidarity and union power here in Philadelphia on #LaborDay! @pft.org @aftpa.org @phillyaflcio.bsky.social
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