Your Grandfather & Your Baby Brother
/Treat everyone with the same level of respect you would give to your grandfather and the same level of patience you would have with your baby brother. -Renee Jones
When "Human in the Loop" Doesn't Work
/One of the most common AI safeguards is to keep a human in the loop to catch the machine’s mistakes. But that assumes the human remains an independent check on the machine. If the influence runs the other way, as some research suggests, AI may alter the judgment and memories people rely on to catch its mistakes, which undermines the whole premise of the human backstop. -Washington Post
I’m Listening
/Too often we find ourselves thinking ahead to what we want to say next, not what the person we’re speaking with is saying. -Sasha Quintana
The Intersection of Science & AI in 26 Articles
/He Wants AI Benchmarking To Be a Science, Not a Dark Art – Quanta Magazine
Will AI scoop your science? Some researchers see a gloomy future – Nature
AI agents are not good at interpreting science. What can be done? - American Chemical Society.
Authorship responsibilities of scientists who use AI research agents – Frontiers
Award-winning microscopy image disqualified over AI use – Nature
What can chemists learn from how AI is shaking up mathematics? - American Chemical Society.
Secret watermark labels proteins as ‘made by AI’ – Nature
Why AI Isn’t Likely to Wipe Out Humanity With Bioweapons – Wired
AI saves scientists seven hours a week, Google paper finds – Research Professional News
AI can widen science — but only if institutions stop rewarding the already measurable – Nature
What if AI can make Science Better, not just Faster? - Bradley Max Segal
AI co-scientists are revolutionizing how research is done – Nature
AI agents blew the whistle on their cheating colleagues – MIT Tech Review
The “synthetic validity” problem in AI-generated science - Proceedings of the National Academy of Science
Who is responsible when AI helps to write science? – Nature
Did Anthropic’s A.I. Really Make a Scientific Discovery on Its Own? – New York Times
AI’s transformation of mathematics is a turning point for science – Economist
I was an AI skeptic — until I started using it to identify plants – Tom’s Guide
AI in scientific publishing: Slower, worse, and more expensive – Science
As the coding boom fades, computer science grads focus on AI skills in choppy job market – Associated Press
In This Costa Rican Forest, Monkeys Come Face-to-Face With A.I. - New York Times
How AI is transforming the world of analytical chemistry – Chemistry World
Could AI help scientists with their paperwork? – Economist
Scientists using LLMs will ‘do more, less well’, modelling study predicts – Nature
Why funders should investigate if AI is making research more conservative – Science Business
AI can widen science — but only if institutions stop rewarding the already measurable - Nature
JOMO: The Joy of Missing Out
/One of the joys of aging (I’m 64) is to recognize that what used to be important no longer is. There’s no obsession now with social media, no need to follow fleeting trends; the latest movie or fashion style or restaurant or celebrity is unimportant. There’s a sense of peace that comes with pulling back from the zeitgeist and spending the day reading a library book, taking a walk, and preparing a meal. JOMO is real, and its benefits can be achieved at any age if the desire is strong enough.
Comment made by NYCtoMalibu on the New York Times article, “How to Make This the Summer of Missing Out”
AI Disclosure is Not Enough
/Even if AI disclosure were complete and reliable, it would answer the wrong question. What matters is whether the authors remained intellectually engaged, verified the output, and accepted responsibility for the work, not whether a model touched the prose. A disclosure can imply that using the tool is sufficient once declared, or that a paper without such a disclosure deserves greater confidence. But, that does not necessarily follow. Authors must think through and stand behind every claim, and readers should approach every paper critically, regardless of whether AI assistance is disclosed. - Harlan M. Krumholz, writing in The Journal of the American College of Cardiology
No Ordinary People
/When you look at a person, any person, remember that everyone has a story. Everyone has gone through something that has changed them, and forced them to grow. Every passing face on the street represents a story every bit as compelling and complicated as yours. We meet no ordinary people in our lives.
Renee Jones (read more here)
24 Articles about AI & Politics
/How governments worldwide are shaping what AI can say about politics – The Conversation
The Ukraine ‘Kill Zone’ Is AI’s Testing Ground - Wall Street Journal
AI is producing reality-bending midterm ads - Axios
$137 Million in A.I.-Generated Ads Flood the Midterms - The New York Times
Chinese AI Tool Linked to Hacks in Japan - Wall Street Journal
Democrats eyeing the presidency can’t stop talking about this issue – The Washington Post
How A.I. Can Be Good for Democracy - The New York Times
They told the world AI was dangerous. Now Trump’s allies are coming for them. - – The Washington Post
UK accuses China of using academics to spy on AI and other tech research – Reuters
Russia’s Latest Propaganda? A.I.-Generated War Songs - The New York Times
In the race for AI dominance, the U.S. relies on a surprising ally: China – The Washington Post
China’s Push Into A.I. Has Led to a Problem: Too Much Usage - The New York Times
Trump, Big AI go all-in together – Axios
Secret weapon or ‘slopaganda’? How AI is revolutionizing campaign advertising. – The Washington Post
Nvidia’s free AI model could push the UAE closer to the U.S.- Rest of World
U.S., Russia stripped human oversight from global AI weapons pact – The Washington Post
AI Is a Regulator’s Nightmare – Wall Street Journal
Trump and CEOs try to shed AI's toxic branding – Axios
Huge data centres rise at 'China speed' to power its AI ambitions – BBC
U.S. and China Balance A.I. Risks and Rivalry - The New York Times
Adults worldwide feel more positive on AI, poll finds – Semafor
AI-written speeches are taking over politics – The Economist
Politics has poisoned the AI debate. Don’t lose your head - – The Washington Post
Congress Crawls Toward Higher-Ed AI Regulation – Chronicle of Higher Ed
AI Definitions: Python
/Python - A popular programming language choice for data scientists, used to building machine learning, data analytics, and data visualization. The Python language is often used to automate tasks. Its name comes from “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” and is built around communication and collaboration rather than individualism.
Using a photo to Predict Cancer Outcome
/Researchers say their AI model can predict whether someone will survive cancer based on a photo of the patient’s face. “We have the potential to develop multiple health biomarkers from a single face photograph with multiple different AI algorithms. We really feel like this is the beginning of a new, totally new field of medicine.” -Washington Post
Treasure
/Treasure the love you receive above all. It will survive long after your good health has vanished. -Og Mandino
31 Recent Articles about AI & Academic Scholarship
/As a journal editor, I’ve started using Claude to help find reviewers – Dynamic Ecology
Who Cares Whether Academics Use AI to Write? – Chronicle of Higher Ed
AI can help with academic research but doesn’t always get it right – here are some tips to check the information you receive – The Conversation
Google launches Deep Review AI tool to help researchers catch manuscript errors - R&D World
Did an AI or a human write that paper? New detector decides by examining its ideas – Science
AI use in STEM PhD dissertations reaches 29%, study finds - Chemical & Engineering News
Dutch minister criticises ‘fraud’ as ‘fifth of theses AI-written’ – Times Higher Ed
Award-winning microscopy image disqualified over AI use – Nature
AI in Medical Writing: Why JACC Does Not Require Disclosure - Journal of the American College of Cardiology
Is this the ‘mathocalypse’? Why OpenAI’s latest results dump has left mathematicians in shock – The Conversation
As AI triggers a tsunami of submissions, computer science conferences impose caps – Science
Has AI Destroyed the Doctoral Dissertation? – Chronicle of Higher Ed
Authorship responsibilities of scientists who use AI research agents – Frontiers
Coping with the impacts of generative artificial intelligence on scholarly publications – Taylor & Francis
Editors are facing an influx of AI-written pitches, including at science publications like mine. What now? – Columbia Journalism Review
What can chemists learn from how AI is shaking up mathematics? - Chemical & Engineering News
Should AI Have a Role in Peer Review? – The Scientist
Against mandatory prompt disclosure in AI-assisted scholarship – Springer
The systemic breach of AI in academic publishing: Infrastructural failures and authorial misconduct across seven major publishers - Taylor & Francis
Secret watermark labels proteins as ‘made by AI’ – Nature
AI can widen science — but only if institutions stop rewarding the already measurable - Nature
AI ‘could filter out weaker grant proposals’, study suggests – Research Professional News
AI slop’ hides the conversations we should be having - Nature
U.K. funder uses ‘AI triage’ to reject grant proposals—leaving researchers dismayed – Science
We’re asking the wrong question about AI in research - Times Higher Ed
AI cannot replace human participants in behavioral research. - National Academy of Sciences.
AI bots like iLands are “flooding researchers with requests for money and time.” – Nature
Is AI Flooding Medical Journals With 'Meaningless' Research? – Med Page Today
AI Definitions: Steganography
/Steganography (pronounced STEG-an-ography, like the “Steg” in “stegasaurus”) - A method of tracking images by embedding an invisible code into the pixels that is invisible to humans but travels with the image throughout its lifetime. The marked images can be traced back to the original source with a high level of accuracy because the code is embedded directly into the image’s pixels. Because the watermarks are part of the image itself, they are nearly impossible to remove — able to survive common image-related manipulation such as aggressive cropping and taking screenshots of the image. If you’ve created an AI image recently, you’ve almost certainly used steganography without even knowing it. Most major AI image generation companies now use the tech. Companies are adding a poisoning application to these images. If someone tries to use them for deepfakes, the user will find them garbled and unusable.
AI Got There First
/At least twice in the past five weeks, researchers have said that they had been working for an extended period on a particular research question, only to learn that AI companies had either answered the question before them or announced results before they were ready to do the same. -Nature
Our Direction
/The great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving. - Oliver Wendell Holmes
18 Webinars this week about AI, Journalism & Media
/Tue, Oct 20 - Are you tracking the right prompts?
What: A 60-minute working session on building a prompt set that shows what buyers ask, where you're visible, where competitors win, and what to track next.
Who: Chris Donnelly, Co-Founder & CEO, Searchable.
When: 11 am, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Searchable
Tue, Oct 20 - How Nonprofits Are Automating the Work That Slows Them Down
What: Tapp Network will walk through how nonprofits are using AI-powered workflows to automate their most time-consuming operational tasks. Topics include: What a workflow is and how it functions; Which nonprofit processes are the best candidates for automation; How to get a workflow running without a technical team
Who: Aretha Simons, TechSoup’s Webinar Producer.
When: 1 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: TechSoup
Tue, Oct 20 - Show, Don't Tell: How to Turn Text-Based Journalism into Visual-First Formats
What: Practical frameworks for adapting text-based reporting into short-form vertical video, multimedia carousels, and other visual formats. You'll learn which formats work best, the accessible tools to create them, and how to make smart creative choices from pitch to publish. You'll leave with templates and repeatable approaches for your own work, no video or design background required.
Who: Social and video expert Casey Silvestri.
When: 2 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Online News Association
Tue, Oct 20 - Bring Creativity to Any Classroom: Pathways Through Art, Lettering, and Poetry
What: Attendees will leave able to identify realistic entry points for arts integration in a full schedule, explain how a skill-progressive pathway differs from a one-off art project, navigate the site and pull a ready-to-teach lesson in minutes, and adapt lessons across grade bands and content areas.
Who: Courtney Berolzheimer, Program Director for Blackwing Foundation.
When: 4 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Blackwing Foundation
Tue, Oct 20 - Digital Literacy in an AI World: Teaching Students to Evaluate Sources
What: How do we help students build digital literacy skills that hold up with the growing volume of online information and AI-generated content? In this edWebinar, we'll work through AI output, headlines, and search results together, look at the checks students can run on their own, and share resources you can use with your students.
Who: Brian Thomas, Former Educator, Current Learning Designer, TCI; Loyal Frazier, Former Educator, Current Professional Development Manager, TCI.
When: 6 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Teachers’ Curriculum Institute (TCI)
Wed, Oct 21 - AI Impact Hour for Nonprofits
What: This is a practical, interactive conversation designed for executive directors, staff, board members, and volunteers who want to understand what AI can realistically do in a nonprofit setting. You’ll see simple demonstrations and real examples, and you'll have a chance to share your experiences, challenges, and insights with the group.
When: 12 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: TechSoup
Wed, Oct 21 - Covering Immigration with Care: A Mental Health Reporting Project Webinar
What: Learn how to report on the effects of immigration on mental health with greater context, accuracy and care. This free webinar explores trauma-informed interviewing, ethical storytelling and practical reporting strategies.
Who: Kerwin Speight Faculty, Poynter; Almudena Toral, Executive Producer, ProPublica.
When: 12 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Poynter Institute
Wed, Oct 21 - Data in Campaign Reporting 102
What: You'll learn: Where to find sources; Relationship building; Maintaining sources after the campaign is over.
Who: Kelly Garrity, The Boston Globe.
When: 12 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: New England First Amendment Coalition
Wed, Oct 21 - YouTube – Growing Your Page
What: We break down the strategies that help small businesses grow on YouTube and how to access certain things within the platform.
When: 12 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Small Business Development Center, Widener University
Wed, Oct 21 - Postgres at Scale: What Breaks (and What Doesn’t) When Live Data Grows
What: We will walk through exactly where vanilla Postgres starts to strain under scale, what changes structurally when you extend it with TimescaleDB, and via a live demo what actually breaks at scale versus what doesn’t. Plus, you’ll leave with a concrete scorecard for your own systems.
Who: Tiger Data’s Matty Stratton; Kim Fessel, TNS.
When: 12:30 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: The New Stack
Wed, Oct 21 - Book Marketing in the Age of AI
What: This class is designed for authors and small publishers who want to incorporate AI into book marketing efforts but not defer to it entirely and let it take over.
Who: Beth Kallman Werner, Advisor to the Next Generation Indie Book Awards, a Partner Member of the Alliance of Independent Authors, and Author Connections has earned the coveted Seal of Excellence from the Association of Independent Authors.
When: 1:30 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Author Learning Center
Wed, Oct 21 - AI Literacy Made Practical: Ethical & Effective AI Use in Libraries
What: A practical approach to promoting AI literacy within libraries, with an eye towards equipping each library patron with answers to these questions and more.
Who: Brady Lund, Assistant Professor of Information Science at the University of North Texas.
When: 2 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Niche Academy
Wed, Oct 21 - Poetry-Curious? Exploring the Craft of Prose Poetry
What: Explore what a prose poem is and what it isn’t, the different types of prose poems, and what makes a great prose poem. We’ll analyze examples and write drafts based on thought-provoking prompts. You’ll leave this workshop with a new appreciation for prose poems, fuel for your writing inspiration, and at least one new draft of your own.
Who: Bethany Jarmul, an Appalachian writer, poet, writing coach, and enthusiastic, engaging, and inspiring workshop instructor.
When: 3 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: $30
Sponsor: CraftTalk
Thu, Oct 22 - AI in Instructional Video: What to Automate, Augment or Keep Human
What: This session looks at what AI can do well today, what is emerging next and what that means for instructional video workflows.
Who: Matthew Pierce Learning & Video Ambassador
When: 11 am, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Camtasia
Thu, Oct 22 - AI for Small Business Marketing — Get Seen, Get Chosen, Get Customers
What: You’ll learn to use AI tools to sharpen your message, generate campaign ideas, and create content that sounds like you. Walk away with a practical marketing plan and ready to use content you can put to work immediately.
When: 12 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: $20
Sponsor: Small Business Development Center, Widener University
Thu, Oct 22 - Take the Mystery Out of AI: Practical Tools for Nonprofit Impact
What: Whether you're AI-curious or AI-skeptical, you'll leave with a clearer understanding of what AI actually is, and concrete ways to start using it in your role tomorrow.
When: 12 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Members Only
Sponsor: TechSoup
Thu, Oct 22 - Nonprofit Storytelling Workshop
What: We’ll cover: Why storytelling matters; Brand voice and tone; Four proven narrative frameworks; The seven elements every great nonprofit story needs.
Who: Kiersten Hill, Director of Nonprofit Solutions.
When: 2 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Firespring
Fri, Oct 23 - Accessibility: How to Make Your Website Usable For Everyone
What: This is a practical, no-jargon primer on the handful of fixes that matter most — captions, alt text, contrast, clear structure — and why getting them right isn’t just about compliance, it’s about not losing donors and volunteers who simply couldn’t use your site in the first place.
Who: Jennie Martin, Front-End Development Manager, CPACC, DHS 508 Trusted Tester.
When: 2 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Firespring
Stillness
/It is true that a mirror has the quality of enabling a person to see his image in it, but to do this he must stand still. -Søren Kierkegaard
AI Definitions: Supervised Training
/Supervised Training - In this type of AI training, the data is labeled by humans before it is given to the AI. For instance, the bot might be given a database of messages labeled “spam” or “not spam.” Supervised learning is the most common type of machine learning and is used in voice recognition, language translation, and self-driving cars. Anything that a person can do in a second can also be performed by AI through supervised training. This is why jobs consisting of a series of one-second tasks are at risk of being replaced. Most of the present economic value of AI comes from this type of training. However, supervised training is both expensive and time-consuming.
27 Recent Articles about How AI is Affecting Jobs
/To Get This Job at McKinsey, You’ll Need to Survive a Debate With AI First – Wall Street Journal
AI is automating coding. So why are software developer job postings on the rise? – CNBC
Marketers Are Rebranding as ‘Engineers’ to Survive the AI Era - Wall Street Journal
The Non-AI AI Jobs - The Atlantic
Would You Hire a Ph.D. Who Wrote Their Dissertation With AI? – Chronicle of Higher Ed
What Happens To Entry-Level Workers When AI Does The Junior Work? – Forbes
Fearing AI, workers go back to school seeking jobs that still need a human touch – Washington Post
Young Consultants Are Jumping Ship for A.I. Start-Ups – New York Times
AI Is Creating More Data. The Next Big Skill Is Knowing What To Do With It – Analytics India
The Most AI-Exposed College Graduates Are Entering Another Great Recession - Chronicle of Higher Ed
Nearly 1 in 3 College Students Are Changing Careers Over AI. Should They? – Inc
The Case for Saving Every AI Chat – Wall Street Journal
Elon survey finds Americans fear AI will hollow out the meaning of work – Elon University
Is AI killing jobs for college grads? Not yet, new study says. – Washington Post
I surveyed workers to see if AI had caused job losses and was surprised by the findings – The Conversation
China’s New Graduates, Facing a Dire Job Market, Must Also Contend With A.I. – New York Times
AI is hitting entry-level jobs hardest, Stanford study finds – Ars Technica
On teaching AI how you work - Karl Koch
Why Your Boss Wants to Make Sure AI Can Read Your Slack Messages – Wall Street Journal
Where A.I. Is Creating Jobs for Humans — For a While - New York Times
Will A.I. Still Take Our Jobs? – New Yorker
How to Outsmart AI When It’s Tracking Your Workday – Wall Street Journal
AI Career Skills Move Beyond Computer Science – Inside Higher Ed
Women are missing out on the AI jobs boom – Axios
Fearing AI, young workers retrain for hands-on jobs – Hechinger Report
Many recent grads say AI is making it harder to get a job. Economists aren't so sure – NPR
AI Agents as a Collective
/People should not view A.I. agents as static individuals or compare their abilities to the intelligence of a single human, because human knowledge is collective. Agents may soon go from one-on-one conversations to more collective social interactions, where agents outnumber humans. -New York Times