iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Principal Instigators Podcast @scienceforhaters.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Anyway if you want a deep dive on why orbital data centers will not work, listen to our latest episode! bsky.app/profile/scie...

022

Reposted by Principal Instigators Podcast

Principal Instigators Podcast @scienceforhaters.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Today on Principal Instigators Liv forsakes her physical, mental, and emotional well-being to explain why space datacenters are never going to work but everyone is wrong about the reasons why. Listen on Pocket Casts: pca.st/episode/73e1...

pca.st

133

Principal Instigators Podcast @scienceforhaters.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

pca.st

133

Principal Instigators Podcast @scienceforhaters.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

Principal Instigators: more popular than the Washington Post

010

Reposted by Principal Instigators Podcast

Liv, short for Livid 🏳️‍⚧️ @shookegg.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

The science impacts were near-apocalyptic and if you want to hear about that we talked about it on @scienceforhaters.bsky.social but every aspect of it was awful and crucially. WE ALL KNEW IT WOULD BE LIKE THAT AT THE START

111

Principal Instigators Podcast @scienceforhaters.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

We released 2 episodes last year and even we deserved a Pulitzer nomination more than "The Protocol"

040

Principal Instigators Podcast @scienceforhaters.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

Does this mean we have to release episodes more regularly?

010

Principal Instigators Podcast @scienceforhaters.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

We're proud to unlock our inaugural March Sadness episode, where we celebrated Liv by getting her to rank the brain damage she's suffered from the world's best* and smartest** political pundits! pca.st/episode/7f75...

pca.st

March Sadness [UNLOCKED FOR NON-PATRONS]

On this very special (unlocked) episode, Sandra and Dan(i) shepherd Liv through the listener-created March Sadness™ bracket, and witness apotheosis

031

Principal Instigators Podcast @scienceforhaters.bsky.social · 01/01/2026

Happy New Year, listeners! We resolve to release at least one episode in 2026

131

Principal Instigators Podcast @scienceforhaters.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

Listeners who want more content are encouraged to calm tf down and enjoy our full back catalog while patiently waiting for more episodes

000

Principal Instigators Podcast @scienceforhaters.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

We also wholeheartedly reject allegations that we "were distracted with other things" or "had to prioritize other work during the current polycrisis"

100

Principal Instigators Podcast @scienceforhaters.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

Hello everyone! You may have noticed some episodes missing from our feed in addition to the extended radio silence. We at Principal Instigators LLC can neither confirm nor deny any fair-use policy issues with our hosting platform but we are happy to announce that all our episodes are back online!

100

Reposted by Principal Instigators Podcast

lastpositivist.bsky.social @lastpositivist.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

My friend and colleague Remco Heesen once told me study of social epistemology of science made him "less trusting of any particular scientific paper but more impressed by science as a whole." I honestly think that's the right lesson to draw. But I think holding both attitudes doesn't come naturally.

1741798

Principal Instigators Podcast @scienceforhaters.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

The Futurism article also ignores the researchers' most interesting and important findings. I stg you'll actually be less informed about LLMs after reading the Futurism article unless you actually read the researchers' work as well.

010

Principal Instigators Podcast @scienceforhaters.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

Instead, the Futurism article (not just the headline, the whole article), is dogshit. It doesn't mention that the advice about meth was an experimental result from researchers who wanted to learn the circumstances under which LLMs give this kind of advice. futurism.com/therapy-chat...

futurism.com

Therapy Chatbot Tells Recovering Addict to Have a Little Meth as a Treat

OpenAI's large language model GPT-4o told a user who identified themself to it as a former addict named Pedro to indulge in a little meth.

110

Principal Instigators Podcast @scienceforhaters.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

This finding merits additional research that ***could*** ultimately make for a very convincing argument against LLM chatbots: these things are so complex, and therefore difficult to control, that we do not presently have safeguards that will reliably prevent them from telling addicts to use meth.

110

Principal Instigators Podcast @scienceforhaters.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

The researchers' most important finding, imo, is that some of the guardrails that have been put in place to prevent an LLM from, say, telling a recovering addict to use meth, can actually backfire. It would be great for this finding to reach as many legislators/regulators as possible!

110

Principal Instigators Podcast @scienceforhaters.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

I'm no legislator, but as far as I can tell, this sort of research will be helpful in the event that a gov't considers regulating LLMs.

110

Principal Instigators Podcast @scienceforhaters.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

I think it's great that researchers are looking at how *exactly* LLMs can cause harm in this way. To better understand this harm, the researchers repeatedly interacted with an LLM in the character of a pretend drug addict, with very slight tweaks to determine when LLMs encourage harmful behavior.

110

Principal Instigators Podcast @scienceforhaters.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

AI companies have an incentive to modify LLM output in response to user feedback. The researchers use the term "perverse incentive structure" in their abstract to describe the possibility that AI companies will tell users harmful things that the users want to hear.

110

Principal Instigators Podcast @scienceforhaters.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

Speaking of which, you can check the research out for yourself here: arxiv.org/pdf/2411.02306

arxiv.org

100

Principal Instigators Podcast @scienceforhaters.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

Hat tip to Tim Duffy, who, as far as I can tell, is the only person on bluesky who has actually looked at the preprint discussed in Futurism's article. bsky.app/profile/timf...

100

Principal Instigators Podcast @scienceforhaters.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

Friendly reminder that LLMs are overhyped and can cause tremendous harms, but we shouldn't automatically trust science/tech reporting just like we shouldn't automatically trust AI companies. 🧵

110

Principal Instigators Podcast @scienceforhaters.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

Friendly reminder that Lee Berger said the drains in the Rising Star cave system don't exist, and he co-established a museum of questionable legitimacy that minimizes his colleagues' ability to hold him accountable. open.spotify.com/episode/1PiH... open.spotify.com/episode/5hNR...

open.spotify.com

Fossils and Cannibals and TV Cameras, oh my

Principal Instigators · Episode

020

Principal Instigators Podcast @scienceforhaters.bsky.social · 17/05/2025

Also we should note that we recorded this in February and things have only gotten worse since, but everything we said is still true and relevant

031

Principal Instigators Podcast @scienceforhaters.bsky.social · 17/05/2025

And wherever else podcasts are found, you can search us

000

Principal Instigators Podcast @scienceforhaters.bsky.social · 17/05/2025

On this quarter's episode of Principal Instigators we discuss the Trump administration's unprecedented attacks on science, which are so wide-ranging and indiscriminate that they threaten our society's basic ability to "do science" in any meaningful sense. Happy Saturday! pca.st/episode/5d3c...

pca.st

Web Player - Pocket Casts

Listen to your favorite podcasts online, in your browser. Discover the world's most powerful podcast player.

152

Principal Instigators Podcast @scienceforhaters.bsky.social · 09/03/2025

You can't understand why the scientific community & its leaders keep fucking up if you don't understand the perverse incentives of academic publishing.

000

Principal Instigators Podcast @scienceforhaters.bsky.social · 09/03/2025

A special issue of a prestigious medical journal with "more research" on vaccines & autism would be an excuse for every paper in that special issue to cite all the others - and the papers in that special issue would be well-positioned to gobble up citations from future papers on this topic.

100

Principal Instigators Podcast @scienceforhaters.bsky.social · 09/03/2025

tfw ALAB series has a faster release schedule than you

030

Principal Instigators Podcast @scienceforhaters.bsky.social · 08/03/2025

Also worth noting that HBCUs are horrendously underfunded, often in straightforward violation of US law. Two members of the Biden cabinet took important steps toward addressing this but the broader scientific community failed to build momentum around it. www.npr.org/2023/09/18/1...

npr.org

State-run, land-grant HBCUs are owed more than $13 billion, the White House says

The government is supposed to provide equal funding to land-grant, state-run historically Black colleges and universities under the Morrill Act of 1890.

0301

Principal Instigators Podcast @scienceforhaters.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

I guess technically Aella could have showered a normal number of times just condensed into 24 days, but that is not better!

000

Principal Instigators Podcast @scienceforhaters.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

Truly there is no one else doing it like her (derogatory) (revolted) x.com/Aella_Girl/s...

x.com

100

Reposted by Principal Instigators Podcast

Barry Westfall @bwestfall55.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

This is exactly why we have to keep NIH and NCI publicly funded research. A cancer cure will cost them billions. Why would they do that? Republicans always cut research budgets and years of progress are lost. Many stem cell biologists left the USA when GW Bush severely limited cell access. Morons!

032

Principal Instigators Podcast @scienceforhaters.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

The 1st figure shows ridership already bouncing back from 2020 when the 4-month patchwork of discounts started. You'd expect car usage to also increase during this time, which makes it difficult to generate a null expectation of how air quality would change because of briefly discounted transit.

An insufficiently-labeled graph showing transit ridership in the area examined in this study, from 2019 to 2022. Ridership was steadily increasing from the very low levels of March/April 2020 when a patchwork of transit discounts was introduced in late 2022.

030

Principal Instigators Podcast @scienceforhaters.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

The text of the paper shows that this was (1) a patchwork of discounts that (2) riders often had to subscribe to in advance by paying a deposit, which (3) lasted for only a few months, and (4) was implemented during a time of financial uncertainty, which may have reduced people's travel anyway.

The policy was implemented as a specific transit subscription through a voucher (available starting on August 24, 2022) that was valid for unlimited intra- and intercity trips in each metropolitan or regional area of the country between September 1 and December 31, 2022. To target commuters and frequent travellers, the voucher would be free for all users who made a minimum of 16 trips between the same origin–destination city pair during the four months in which the voucher was valid. To acquire a voucher for short-distance railway services, customers had to pay a deposit of 10 euros. To acquire a voucher for medium-distance conventional railway services, customers had to pay a deposit of 20 euros. In both cases, the deposits was returned at the end of the period, subject to compliance with the minimum requirement of 16 trips. Furthermore, other 50% fare discounts were also granted to medium-distance high-speed railway services and bus lines concessioned by the state, most of which covered public service obligations.

Additionally, the royal decree also allowed public transport authorities to cut fares for multimodal tickets in metropolitan areas by 30% thanks to funding provided by the Ministry of Transport. Hence, regional and local governments could simultaneously contribute their funds to decreasing prices further on local train, bus, subway, and tram services operated by their owned transportation companies, typically bringing discounts up to 50% or even more. This specific discount setup is heterogeneous across metropolitan areas and depends on how discounts are applied to transit subscriptions and multipass tickets within the variety of fare schemes available. For example, cities such as Madrid and Barcelona have applied a 50% discount to subscriptions and a 30% discount to multipass tickets, while cities such as Bilbao and Vitoria have applied a 50% discount to both. Other cities, such as Valencia, Sevilla, Zaragoza and Granada, have generally used a 30% discount, while some others have gone as high as 75% (Oviedo) or even 100% (Palma de Mallorca).

These combined measures affecting both urban and intercity public transportation services were welcomed by hundreds of thousands of users. By the start of the four months, approximately half a million users had applied for Renfe’s discounts alone. According to the declarations made by the Minister of Transport (Raquel Sánchez) and Renfe, the number of users had reached 900 000 by mid-September and more than two million by the end of 2022.13 However, monthly ridership figures for the railway services affected by the PTD policy gathered by the Ministry of Transport (and shown in Fig. 1) suggest that the increase in short-distance ridership in September 2022 (reaching 35 million trips) was approximately 33.5% when compared to September 2021 but only approximately 1.4% when compared to the same month of 2019, therefore revealing that the prepandemic level has only been matched. Regarding medium-distance railway services, the increase in September 2022 (reaching 3.5 million trips) was approximately 21.5% when compared to that in September 2019.

Such evidence has been confirmed by a recent press release (MITMA, 2023) that stated how short-distance ridership had not significantly increased from 2019 levels and that the major change had simply been a shift away from multipass tickets towards this transit subscription. However, the press release argued that the increase in medium-distance transit ridership, paired with a general decrease in mobility for trips above 50 km and a slight decrease in fuel consumption, is indicative of a shift away from car travel and of a positive environmental impact of the policy.14 In short, such evidence suggests that the PTD policy may have concentrated its impact on medium-distance railway services only, which represent just approximately 10% of the trips affected by this financing scheme.

150

Reposted by Principal Instigators Podcast

Sid @polychromie.didnotaskfor.skin · 11/12/2024

Listen to the @scienceforhaters.bsky.social podcast for more on this nightmare of a human

021

Principal Instigators Podcast @scienceforhaters.bsky.social · 04/11/2024

Scheduling a recording session this week like

Screencapture of the Well There's Your Problem podcast 9/11 episode paused at the exact moment Rocz learns RBG has died

000