iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

phasedchirp.bsky.social @phasedchirp.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Have to be in the office this week which means I get to find out if I remember how to keep my facial expressions professional during meetings anymore

101

Reposted by @phasedchirp.bsky.social

Ann Leckie @annleckie.com · 04/09/2026

An INDIVIDUAL can maybe say who their faves are. "These are the ten best novels I read this year" and even "of the ten THIS ONE is my favorite" sure. "Spiders Georg, author of The Spider Cookbook, scientifically the best writer in English of all time" is just not possible.

4375

phasedchirp.bsky.social @phasedchirp.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

On the one hand, I've been in this job for a bit over 9 years and it'd be nice if people would trust that I know what I'm doing, but on the other hand the guy pushing to reverse my decision has been here for longer and is still wrong?

000

Reposted by @phasedchirp.bsky.social

Ann Leckie @annleckie.com · 16/08/2026

Was having a conversation on this topic just recently. A book (or story or painting or movie or whatever) is not a puzzle with a Correct Solution. It's an experience to think about and with, to chew over and then bring to other experiences.

4446106

Reposted by @phasedchirp.bsky.social

Greg Pak @gregpak.net · 06/08/2026

College Conan, what is best in life? To critique your enemies, see them defend their artificially narrow thesis and inadequate study of primary sources in their original languages before you, and to hear the lamentation of their advisors.

3618

phasedchirp.bsky.social @phasedchirp.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

No, work dude, you are _not_ too important to deal with normal access controls. I too have a PhD, but somehow it doesn't make me immune to compliance requirements.

000

Reposted by @phasedchirp.bsky.social

Rua M. Williams @fractalecho.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Did you know the solution to ableism is turning every disabled person into a surveillance device? This is sarcasm.

39817

Reposted by @phasedchirp.bsky.social

Chaucer Doth Tweet @levostregc.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Spydere Man, Spydere Man Doth al things a spydere kan Sondry webbes he kan weaven Thieves lyke flyes he kan cacchen Lo! anon cometh Spydere Man!

10950225

Reposted by @phasedchirp.bsky.social

The Daily Tism @thedailytism.com · 23/07/2026

An autistic man with a special interest in the Harry Potter series has made the decision to value the lives and dignity of his trans friends more than a book about a wizard who grows up to be a cop, sources have reported.

thedailytism.com

Autistic man with special interest in Harry Potter gets over it, leaving you with no excuse

3242861584

Reposted by @phasedchirp.bsky.social

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 22/07/2026

uh...yes?

19580601363

Reposted by @phasedchirp.bsky.social

Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

And guess what? Focusing on the welfare of your imaginary friends and away from the harm to actual people (and our environment, thus all living things) done in the process of building them is not improving that track record. >>

322620

Reposted by @phasedchirp.bsky.social

Sydney Bauer @sydney-bauer.com · 21/07/2026

The fact that very few people on earth seem to challenge the language of calling trans women “biological men” is really dispiriting and offensive imo. And I was very afraid media style guides would end up like this after it became standard at like the daily caller.

955698

Reposted by @phasedchirp.bsky.social

e.w. niedermeyer @niedermeyer.online · 21/07/2026

rotational forces in the vicinity of Joseph Weizenbaum's grave site are reaching all-time highs

215620

phasedchirp.bsky.social @phasedchirp.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

I really enjoy it when my "please give me your questions in writing" policy at work pays off! Someone just solved their own issue in the process of writing it up!

121

Reposted by @phasedchirp.bsky.social

Magdaloween! 🏳️‍⚧️ @magsvisaggio.com · 14/07/2026

the decade of hate has taken something very precious from me i never imagined could be lost

361208299

phasedchirp.bsky.social @phasedchirp.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Blooming dendrobium and phalaenopsis from today's visit with my dad

A blooming dendrobrium orchid. The flowers are small and white with bright red shading into yellow on the lip

A blooming phalaenopsis orchid. The flowers are purple, fading to white at the edges of petals, and there's a bright orange structure on the inside of the flower

010

phasedchirp.bsky.social @phasedchirp.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Somehow I'm the person in this meeting with diagnosed communication issues?

000

Reposted by @phasedchirp.bsky.social

Chad Loder @chadloder.dev · 24/06/2026

I, too, need hundreds of billions of dollars of your money or I will go bankrupt. No, my business model is perfectly sound from a cash flow perspective. I promise this is not a scam. Fork over your pension immediately otherwise the Chinese Communist Party will take over

4723103

phasedchirp.bsky.social @phasedchirp.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

Continuing to bring a no fun energy to work meetings where someone tells us about the conference/sales pitch they just got back from that people do not enjoy

100

Reposted by @phasedchirp.bsky.social

Eric Michael Garcia @ericmgarcia.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

I get the impulse for autistic people to want to respond by saying that they DID go to college or play baseball or date and work. But that still plays into ableist narratives. Even if an #ActuallyAutistic person does none of these, they still have worth.

641759424

Reposted by @phasedchirp.bsky.social

Bird Alliance of Oregon @birdallianceoregon.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

There are no words to describe the joy this brings. A Condor back in Oregon skies. Just a lot of gratitude for all the work from the Yurok Tribe, National Park Service, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's on the Northern California Condor Restoration Program. www.oregonlive.com/environment/...

oregonlive.com

Condor flies into Oregon for first time in over 120 years

A 2-year-old female condor named B9 traveled 80 miles through southern Oregon during a four-day journey in May, marking a historic milestone for the critically endangered species managed by the Yurok ...

71216395

Reposted by @phasedchirp.bsky.social

Reo Eveleth @reveleth.com · 01/06/2026

Big news, @coyotemedia.org just dropped its first ever endorsement. www.coyotemedia.org/endorsement-...

coyotemedia.org

Endorsement: Alcatraz Coyote for Governor

We've seen enough.

05216

Reposted by @phasedchirp.bsky.social

Oakland Review of Books @oaklandreviewofbooks.org · 30/05/2026

Something fun we learned as we were thinking over this one: the border between Piedmont and Oakland is carved with Flock cameras ... (Image courtesy of @deflock.org)

821479

phasedchirp.bsky.social @phasedchirp.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

Some of my dad's orchids that were blooming today! Rhyncostele cervantesii and masdevallia veitchiana

a cluster of white orchid flowers with reddish patterns on the petals

a triangular red and orange orchid flower. these ones fuse a lot of the petal/sepal structures commonly found in orchid flowers and have a very reduced lip structure inside the flower

121

Reposted by @phasedchirp.bsky.social

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 08/05/2026

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... Have you noticed many experts say they don't understand AI? What's going on? 🤯 Let us tell you... 1/

Understanding Artificial Neural Networks:
Mysterianism about Known Mechanism is Mysticism
Olivia Guest1,2, Nancy Abigail Nuñez Hernández3, and Mark Blokpoel1,2
1Department of Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence, Radboud University, The Netherlands
2Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
3Facultad de Estudios Superiores Acatlán-Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico
Mysterianism is the idea that human cognition, mind, cannot be understood. Taking this
concept and applying it to known mechanism — such that claims are made that we do not
know how engineered systems, such as artificial neural networks (ANNs), work, or that they
constitute black boxes that we can only open with difficulty — is inappropriate at best and
malicious at worst. We do know the mechanistic structure of such models because we designed
and built them. We also do know their functional role (what they are for) as well as the
mathematical function they are asked to approximate (map inputs to target outputs). Because
mysterianist beliefs about known systems, such as ANNs, are often expressed, scientists need
to sit up and take notice. We provide an error theory as to what is going on to help unpick
this metatheoretical blunder. Ultimately, the problem is that ‘understanding’ is not a technical
term in these cases: the word is co-opted for a specific narrative to sell ‘artificial intelligence’
through mystification. All computational systems, from pendulums to databases, will behave
in ways we cannot predict or control — this is not a unique property of ANNs — and experts
do indeed grasp the computational properties of these systems nonetheless.
Keywords: artificial neural networks; mechanism; black box; epistemology; artificial
intelligence; understanding

4 GUEST, NUÑEZ HERNÁNDEZ, & BLOKPOEL≈
ANNs are equiva-
lent to or inspired
by humans.
α
≡
ANNs are a black
box or unknowable,
even if opened.
β
≡
Humans are a black
box or unknowable.
γ
Figure 1
Three co-occurring (latent) assertions in the context of con-
temporary reasoning on AI and cognition. While they may
appear to hang together in “reflective equilibrium” (Elgin 2017),
their metatheoretical examination brings their contradictions to
light. Starting from the top, and moving clockwise: 𝛼) represents
the typical assertion of so-called cognitive, neural, or otherwise
biological plausibility or inspiration presented for ANNs; 𝛽) is
the claim we tackle head on here — both in terms of analysing
the constituent terms and in how it relates to the other two
assumptions; and 𝛾) exemplifies a type of mysterianism, which
while not always explicitly expressed, plays a background role
and importantly comes into conflict with the other two claims
in important ways

MYSTERIANISM ABOUT KNOWN MECHANISM IS MYSTICISM 11World
?Di
Data?Si
ANN
Figure 3
Not all systems, 𝑆𝑖 relate to their relevant data, 𝐷𝑖 and world
phenomena this way, but ANN models (as many inferential
statistical models) do when used without scientific understand-
ing of the data-generating process or without verbal or formal
theory to match (Guest and Martin 2025b, 2021, 2023). As we
move from left to right above, we move from full understanding
of engineered systems, 𝑆𝑖 to less or even possibly none of the
data, 𝐷𝑖 to the world which can be thought of as the set of
phenomena to be understood.

21772297

Reposted by @phasedchirp.bsky.social

Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 25/05/2026

The Vatican could have told Anthropic to stop stealing data, exploiting labor, killing the environment, deceiving us with anthropomorphic designs & lying about product "capabilities." Instead they partnered with them, like partnering with Sackler family to discuss harms of oxy.

324773

phasedchirp.bsky.social @phasedchirp.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

It is very tiring to patiently listen to someone explain how they're putting a lot of work into using an LLM to do something that could be almost entirely accomplished with find and replace

000

Reposted by @phasedchirp.bsky.social

Anthony Moser @anthonymoser.com · 18/05/2026

Inserting things that are plausible BUT NOT TRUE is like, the worst possible failure mode for medical transcription. Literally would be better off with nothing and *knowing* you have nothing

824341

Reposted by @phasedchirp.bsky.social

Anthony Moser @anthonymoser.com · 18/05/2026

My dad said he's got a doc friend using for transcription bc they're overworked and I had to explain that a) ai is often an indicator for where a system needs more actual humans & support b) og transcription that gets some words wrong is not the same as software that *makes up things nobody said*

1246296

Reposted by @phasedchirp.bsky.social

soleil ho @soleilho.com · 08/05/2026

so far @coyotemedia.org has run TWO stories about women are who really into a specific kind of bird and I think that’s just great www.coyotemedia.org/oaklands-hot...

coyotemedia.org

Oakland’s Hottest Influencer Won’t Stop Pooping on Parking Meters

The creator of the Night Herons of Oakland Instagram account shares how she became obsessed with her avian neighbors.

64610

phasedchirp.bsky.social @phasedchirp.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

Decided to get slightly more ambitious this year with California wildflowers (except the cacti) and it worked out pretty well. The peak (pictured) seems to have been a couple of weeks ago, but I think I finally managed to get some dogbane to sprout

A collection of pots on a deck. Most contain small meadow plants with blue flowers (nemophila menziesii, several types of clover, and bicolor lupine) but two have small succulents/cacti in the

000

Reposted by @phasedchirp.bsky.social

Alex Hanna @alexhanna.bsky.social · 09/05/2026

This is what we mean when we say that "AI safety" is a eugenicist project. They fear an ultra-powerful AGI that may kill us all. Meanwhile, this Colossus 1 data center is already killing Black people in Memphis.

13681283

phasedchirp.bsky.social @phasedchirp.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

My dad's cats being very cute on top of a blanket I made. This is from a couple of weeks ago rather than today when they were being weird little gremlins and fighting over my shoes

A calico cat sitting on the back of a couch with her eyes closed, while a tuxedo cat rolls on his back on the couch seat. They're both sitting on a striped blue wool blanket

040

phasedchirp.bsky.social @phasedchirp.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

Winding a warp for a new project! First time trying shadow weave, 40/2 linen

a hand holding a bunch of blue and teal linen threads, with a warping mill in the background

010

phasedchirp.bsky.social @phasedchirp.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

This cybersecurity training did not in fact need to start the section on LLM- and deepfake-related risks with the note that "AI is a promising technology with a lot of potential"

000

Reposted by @phasedchirp.bsky.social

tante @tante.cc · 02/03/2026

"we need to open our eyes to the fact that the current industry many of us work in, not only doesn’t care about their workers, it actively resents them. In their eyes, we have gone from being the people who made things possible, to an unnecessary burden on the botto...How to grow strawberries

25619

Reposted by @phasedchirp.bsky.social

Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 03/03/2026

And everyone is running around praising them for being "ethical" www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

SCOOP: Anthropic was among the AI companies that submitted a proposal earlier this year to compete in a $100 million Pentagon prize challenge to produce technology for voice-controlled, autonomous drone swarming, acc to people familiar w/ matter.

423570

Reposted by @phasedchirp.bsky.social

Shannon Carey @scmaestra.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

My city, Oakland, has roughly the same population (a bit more, actually) as the entire country of Iceland. IMAGINE, if you will, what we could dream up and design and see with this level of arts funding -- instead of funding our carceral state.

110533

phasedchirp.bsky.social @phasedchirp.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

Continuing to be distressed by how many people at work are comfortable with LLM-based tools, given the number of times I've had to deal with people who got information that was actively worse than nothing from them

110

Reposted by @phasedchirp.bsky.social

Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

What we argued in Stochastic Parrots, however, was that you can get those benefits of the transformer architecture without ammassing datasets too large to collect with care (meaning consentfully, intentionally, and with the ability to document what's in the data). >>

127544

Reposted by @phasedchirp.bsky.social

Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

In this context, I feel like reminding people (again) that the stochastic parrots paper was not primarily a response to synthetic text extruding machines (not at all popular in late 2020), but an exploration of the range harms that had already been documented in the pursuit of LM scale. >>

dl.acm.org

On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots | Proceedings of the 2021 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency

122842

Reposted by @phasedchirp.bsky.social

Steve T PhD @thelasttheorist.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

The politics of AI are anti-human. This comparison is disgusting.

312039

Reposted by @phasedchirp.bsky.social

ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 11/02/2026

a bunch of people who work for AI companies and largely paid in vesting stock options are overwhelmed by the magnitude and depth of what they've created. everyone else is a curmudgeon or otherwise a confused hater. truly this is an irreconcilable intellectual dilemma.

010132

Reposted by @phasedchirp.bsky.social

I support Somali-Americans @adamrothman.bsky.social · 07/02/2026

I've been singing this to myself all day

Brian Lyman:
🎶It's time to question methods
It's time for petty fights🎶

Adam Rothman:
🎶It's time to meet the experts on the plenary tonight🎶

10583156

Reposted by @phasedchirp.bsky.social

Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 18/01/2026

Without the original ChatGPT accidentally tapping into the ELIZA effect, LLMs would have remained a curiosity, with extremely niche backend applications. But now we are living in the AI hype era, and any conversation about LLMs divorced from the parameters of the AI hype era is fanfiction.

728645

phasedchirp.bsky.social @phasedchirp.bsky.social · 31/12/2025

This was not a good year for a lot of reasons, but getting back into playing an instrument on a daily basis after many years has been pretty darn fun

000

Reposted by @phasedchirp.bsky.social

Reo Eveleth @reveleth.com · 18/12/2025

Congrats to the NYT for getting a citation in the new rules that would ban gender affirming care for anybody under 19! You did it! How's that for *impact* baby! Put it on the Pulitzer application!

0579

phasedchirp.bsky.social @phasedchirp.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

once again working on leveling up that most important of professional skills, finding the kindest way to tell someone that they're doing an important thing very badly in a way that's causing extra problems

000