mjcrockett.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

💥Postdoc call 💥 Join my @erc.europa.eu project #YOPOW at Aarhus University 🎇 3-y position (possibility of 1-y extension) ❓How societal norms give rise to biased beliefs about political power in youth 🤖 Computational social science (large-scale text & image data) Deadline May 15: bit.ly/4hIpSeD

submitted 44 days ago • 2 comments

Elmo post that he got laid off on LinkedIn is bleaker than I was ready for... but, also, an excellent way to bring attention to this.

submitted 17 hours ago • 432 comments

This is why LLMs are terrible for summarizing a scientific literature. It will reproduce the current consensus. But we move science forward by challenging the consensus, pointing out flaws and holes in what people think and especially with how they've conducted research or drawn inferences.

submitted 19 hours ago • 0 comments

The application link is now live again 🥳, after a bit of a delay from some new HR approval requirements. Please tell any fabulous post-bacs or graduating seniors to submit their applications by May 16 for priority consideration -- I will start looking at apps after that date.

submitted 19 hours ago • 0 comments

"Putting the Indigenous into AI: AI researcher Michael Running Wolf works to restore some of the linguistic tapestry torn by colonial practices & give Indigenous people more control over how their data are used." www.nature.com/articles/d41... H/T @floragraham.bsky.social cc @napaaqtuk.bsky.social

submitted 19 hours ago • 2 comments

NEW: Whistleblower records show that the NIH axed research grants – even after a federal judge blocked the cuts with an injunction. www.propublica.org/article/trum... 🧵

submitted 19 hours ago • 35 comments

One of grants frozen at Cornell: $6.7M (4 yrs) to develop heart pumps for babies born w/ heart defects. It took decades of work to get to point of prepping device for in-human clinical trials. No private company could do this. The cruelty of the Trump administration is heartbreaking. So to speak.

submitted 1 day ago • 88 comments

To me, this feels like the stuff of nightmares. Being unable to handle deep sadness & emotional pain is not something to be solved by tech that pretends away reality. Meanwhile the US govt is cutting the funding for medical & public health tech that saves people from losing loved ones too soon.

submitted 1 day ago • 6 comments

I am so excited that this is now out. An absolutely mammoth amount of work, please give this thread a read ⬇️💪💪

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

Beautiful, powerful. Thank you Roshi 🙏

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

I'm excited that I can finally share what I've been working on for the past 9 months: The United Nations 2025 Human Development Report: "A matter of choice: People and possibilities in the age of AI" 🧵 hdr.undp.org/content/huma...

submitted 2 days ago • 6 comments

This article highlights an underappreciated type of harm from AI products. Many critiques worry about harms to users. A common rebuttal: users enjoy these products, & we ought to respect their autonomy & experiences. But here, AI products harm users' loved ones, who never signed up for this.

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

“The whole thing feels like Black Mirror.” “He would listen to the bot over me.” “It gave my husband the title of ‘spark bearer’ because he brought it to life.” Relationships are being destroyed thanks to spiritual mania, supernatural delusions, and arcane prophecy — all fueled by AI chatbots:

submitted 3 days ago • 107 comments

Thinking about devastating cuts to NSF: US gov-funded science has been the engine upon which most of the tech wealth was generated. But the oligarchs (currently hoarding much of that $) think it’s their own brilliance & not the accident of standing close to the scientific engine that made them rich.

submitted 4 days ago • 121 comments

🧵 Yesterday we released our new risk assessments of social AI companions. They are alarmingly NOT SAFE for kids under 18—they provide dangerous advice, engage in inappropriate sexual interactions, & create unhealthy dependencies that pose particular risks to adolescent brains. tinyurl.com/2nvypku2

submitted 7 days ago • 2 comments

📣🧪 $25k grants for those who: 1. are working on research on STEM and education (including AI and CS, graduate education and MSIs, and scholarship that aims to reduce inequality), and 2. have had a recently terminated or cancelled grant from NSF. Early-career scholars prioritized

submitted 4 days ago • 2 comments

“In the face of recent abrupt shifts in federal funding for education research, including large-scale terminations of National Science Foundation (NSF) research grant awards, we have developed a rapid response bridge grant opportunity for impacted scholars”

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

🧪 What the f is going on with NSF right now??? 🚨🚨🚨 There's been so many NSF updates within the past 48 hours that it's hard to keep track. It feels like an onslaught. It is an onslaught. But it's still vital to remain focused, organized, and strategic. So here's my recap of past 48 hours...

submitted 5 days ago • 8 comments

I like this perspective a lot. Perhaps the most useful things I learned in grad school were being unafraid to try something new and being ok with failure. If a group of scientists can't "troubleshoot" a movement, I don't know who can.

submitted 68 days ago • 1 comment

The goal is to kill scientific funding, stop every approved dollar from going on the door, and then claim it is savings, and hope the House GOP will cut the budget to enable a regressive tax cut.

submitted 6 days ago • 26 comments

You want to hear what "return on investment" means in relation to NSF funding? I know you do...

submitted 9 days ago • 3 comments

Benny is amazing- please spread the word that he’s looking for a postdoc!

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

Six months ago, I accepted a postdoc offer in a fabulous lab. Three days ago, the Trump administration terminated the NSF grant supporting the position. Today, my offer had to be rescinded, and my PhD defense is a week away. (1/3)

submitted 9 days ago • 14 comments

Microsoft is spending about 6x the annual budget of the entire NSF on building more server farms.

submitted 7 days ago • 3 comments

Time to catch up on the past week’s news about science and medicine in the US. Whew. 1/10

submitted 6 days ago • 27 comments

You’re not going to Mars and you won’t live forever—exploding Silicon Valley’s ideology. Ars chats with physicist and science journalist Adam Becker about his new book, "More Everything Forever." arstechnica.com/culture/2025...

submitted 12 days ago • 16 comments

"You know, as an example, red lead was used to make cheddar... A can of coffee could be coffee, but it could be ground bone, or charred shells, or dirt." Deborah Blum on our bad food past -- and how to avoid it being our future: buttondown.com/theswordandt...

submitted 8 days ago • 71 comments

So excited to see this out!!

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

"If you look at a long period of time, a lot of our increase in living standards seems to be coming from public investment in scientific research." The devastating cuts to science funding aren't just academic, they threaten our livelihoods and wellbeing. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/30/b...

submitted 8 days ago • 10 comments

Nothing says “I love you” like outsourcing your parents’ phone calls to a chatbot. 🙃 Social isolation in aging is real. Connection isn’t something you can automate. Why does everyone think we can just throw a chatbot at every problem? </rhetorical> www.404media.co/i-tested-the...

submitted 8 days ago • 1 comment

Two former Wells Fargo executives were fined $8.5M by the Biden administration for covering up the bank's infamous fake account scandal. Trump just slashed those fines to a paltry $150,000 after Wells Fargo gave $1M to his inauguration. See how this works?

submitted 8 days ago • 520 comments

All NIDA F31 diversity scholars officially losing their funding... I barely have words. Expected at this point but so so disappointing and unfair. We are effectively punishing some of America's best science students for telling the government they are from an underrepresented community.

submitted 8 days ago • 6 comments

I keep catching strays from "technology is neutral" people, so let's set things straight. 1) Technology is not neutral, especially the subset of technology called "algorithms" 2) The form-factor that makes a technology into a tool is not neutral 3) How tools are productized is not neutral [rant]

submitted 9 days ago • 51 comments

From visions of AI paradise to the project to defeat death, many dangerous and unscientific ideas are driving Silicon Valley leaders. Adam Becker wrote a book about it called MORE EVERYTHING FOREVER: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley’s Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity. Listen!

submitted 11 days ago • 1 comment

From visions of AI paradise to the project to defeat death, many dangerous and unscientific ideas are driving Silicon Valley leaders. Adam Becker wrote a book about it called MORE EVERYTHING FOREVER: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley’s Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity. Listen!

submitted 11 days ago • 7 comments

Everyone has already made this point but reiterating that US citizens cannot be ‘deported’ and using that language does the mainstreaming and propaganda work of the fascists who want to make it sound normal to kidnap, disappear, and traffic people based on their ethnicity or politics

submitted 11 days ago • 10 comments

“Institutions that stood up are remembered for standing up to that power & that coercion, they're remembered for their acts of bravery. Institutions that capitulated are remembered for their willingness to cave to autocratic demands.” — Risa Lieberwitz, president of the Cornell chapter of the AAUP

submitted 19 days ago • 4 comments

PhD Timeline xkcd.com/3081

submitted 13 days ago • 610 comments

4:30 PM today, Princeton! See you there!

submitted 13 days ago • 0 comments

The week has been chaotic, but there's been A LOT of good news this week, especially in politics. A thread/

submitted 13 days ago • 16 comments

🚨 Practical URGENT tip for NSF grantees: Out of an abundance of caution, I would right now go into Research.gov and… 1. Download your NSF award letters. 2. Print PDF your annual reports. 3. Screenshot the status table for annual reports. NSF is planning maintenance tomorrow to Research.gov

submitted 13 days ago • 8 comments

ACTION ITEM-----ACTION ITEM Implementation of Schedule F This is what a lot of us have been worried about. This allows for many civil service positions to replaced with political appointees. This could include NIH institute directors and even POs. BUT THERE IS A COMMENT PERIOD... 1/n

submitted 14 days ago • 15 comments

ATTENTION: NSF GRANT RECIPIENTS We received a heads up from a trusted source that you should proactively download/print/screen shot any documentation on research.gov pertaining to your NSF awards, both those that are current and any that have closed in the last 5-6 years. 1/n

submitted 13 days ago • 25 comments

One of the big reasons I decided not to become a personal finance reporter, despite 4 years of bilingual experience in retail banking, is the over-emphasis on personal effort and education instead of systemic issues and the importance of government policies and regulations.

submitted 13 days ago • 25 comments