Chrisman

Cofounder/ceo @synthesischool, spinout of the SpaceX lab school. We make a superhuman AI math tutor. Catholic. Dad to 4. American.

[Chrisman @chrisman]

6yo learning fractions with Synthesis. Teaching style is Socratic. Answer correctly, get increasingly challenging follow-up questions.

Lover her proud face at 1:10. That justified pride in what you've learned is the best motivator. Far better than points or leaderboards.

[Chrisman @chrisman]

@sylvesterlutch1 It’s designed to be interesting to toddlers. Which it is. Very helpful if you have a high energy kid.

[Chrisman @chrisman]

My 18 month old started watching Cocomelon a few weeks ago. Wife says it's the only way he'll sit still so she can take a shower.

It's great. I think kids getting "addicted" to screens is a symptom of a lack of other interesting things to do, not the screens themselves.

[Chrisman @chrisman]

@jamesglenos This is my fourth kid and that hasn’t happened with any of them yet.

[Chrisman @chrisman]

@grousecobba Tourism you're referring to is probably ~10% of population.

[Chrisman @chrisman]

Steve Jobs said you put on the TV and you think it's a conspiracy, they're trying to dumb people down. Then you get older and realize the situation is even worse: they're giving the people what they want. I think about that a lot.

[Will Tanner @Will_Tanner_1]

Brutalism is psychological warfare against the soul, designed as it is to overawe not with insipiring grandeur but by creating feelings of despair, confusion, and helplessness

Rap "music" is psychological warfare against the mind, designed to accustom one to vulgarity mixed with catchy beats and pulses that are the antithesis of the sort of order, structure, and complexity that characterized Western music when we were an ascendant, vitalistic, and glorious civilization on the ascent

The combination of Brutalism and rap has been devastating to the Western mind and soul, pushing us away from refined greatness and to confused despair and reflexive vulgarity

[Chrisman @chrisman]

@jimfanara Could be.

[Chrisman @chrisman]

@andrewziperski Well said.

[Chrisman @chrisman]

There's a funny thing with AI where people pretend no other technology exists. He could have made this same argument and used books or YouTube in place of Claude.

[Steve McGuire @sfmcguire79]

“AI is demoralizing.”

A Princeton Professor says he kept wondering this semester (while lecturing) if his students would be better off learning from Claude:

[Chrisman @chrisman]

@jeffreyhuber Not much. They don't always read 3-4 hours a day. And they don't always do Synthesis daily.

My older one goes to a charter middle school for the social life.

But otherwise this is basically what I'd do again for elementary (and will do, as I have an 18 month old).

[Chrisman @chrisman]

Here's what Josh and I are doing for our own kids...

1/ Forest school 3-4 hrs/day

Wander in the woods or beach. 10-15 kids w/ a teacher or two. Socialize and observe ecosystems. Foster joie de vivre. Avoid spirit-crushing modern school environment.

[Chrisman @chrisman]

@CAPtheLEGEND That's true too.

[Chrisman @chrisman]

Pope Leo grasps what 99% of tech commentators don't: "They may imitate or even simulate, but they do not understand what they produce."

This is why I'm bearish on AI replacing knowledge workers. How valuable is a worker who does not understand?

[Pope Leo XIV @Pontifex]

Artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships, and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean. Nor do they have a moral conscience, since they do not judge good and evil, grasp the ultimate meaning of situations, or bear responsibility for consequences. They may imitate or even simulate, but they do not understand what they produce, for they lack the affective, relational, and spiritual perspective through which human beings grow in wisdom. #MagnificaHumanitas

[Chrisman @chrisman]

@brsgr4049 You are correct that you don't know what understanding means.

[Chrisman @chrisman]

@brsgr4049 It's completely the opposite. The more you use them the more obvious it is they don't understand.

[Chrisman @chrisman]

@Willob "intelligence and understanding are different things"

No, understanding *is* intelligence. We have just retroactively changed the definition of intelligence to fit these AI systems.

You would never say a person is intelligent, but understands nothing.

[Chrisman @chrisman]

oops, wife's late grandfather. wife still very much alive and well. 😆

[Chrisman @chrisman]

I had a great relationship with my late wife's grandfather (who incidentally was in the army meteorology corp with Charlie Munger in WW2).

When our first was born, he came by to hold him. He was acting a bit cold and distant. As he was leaving he said we should grab lunch sometime and "Have a little talk."

I cheerfully said "Sure! About what?" This seemed to infuriate him. He sputtered "About your little incident in San Diago."

"San Diego? I haven't been there in years. Wait...what incident?"

He got more angry. "San-ti-AH-go. Chile! And you needing $2,000 to get out of jail for a DUI while my granddaughter was here pregnant and alone!"

"Grandpa, I've never been to Chile. I've been here the whole time. I think you may have been scammed."

His fury waned a bit. "You didn't...go to Chile?"

No.

He paused a few moments, considering. Then smiled and exclaimed "Oh well that is just such a relief, Chrisman!"

Apparently the scammers duped my FB account, befriended him, and reached out with a story and instructions to send money via Western Union. Pretty clever. Would work even better nowadays with AI voice cloning.

[👹White Devil 👹 @geauxbluse]

One time an old man wanted a cashier's check for $5000. The teller brought him to my desk, and I asked him what the money as for. I noticed he only had around $6k in his savings account, and not much in his checking.

"I won Publishers Clearinghouse, and I need to send them this money to claim the prize."

He pulled the letter he received out of his pocket and showed it to me. The print was crooked, had misspellings, and looked like it was photocopied.

"Sir," I said, "this is not a legitimate letter. This is a scam. I highly suggest that you do not send these people your money."

"Its not a scam," he replied. "I want that check now."
I pulled up the Publishers Clearinghouse website and showed him where it said "we will never ask you to send us money to claim a prize."

I showed him how the letter was asking him to send money to an apartment in New York, not some PO Box. He refused to believe it.

I went got the branch manager to speak with him. He got aggravated, looked me in the eye and said "Young man, you give me my money right now."

Not much else I could do at that point. We cut the check and he went on his way.

I contacted our security department and let them know what happened, just in case things went sideways.

The kicker is months later that same old bastard came into the branch and yelled at me for not stopping him from sending those people his money. I guess he never got that prize.

[Chrisman @chrisman]

@kwharrison13 @jessegenet I really want to do the computer room thing. What kind of computer? imac?

[Chrisman @chrisman]

@Lyncaeus They are in sports and church, and they go to a homeschool charter two days a week.

[Chrisman @chrisman]

Technology is good only insofar as it contributes to building happy households.

[Atlas Press @realAtlasPress]

C.S. Lewis, this is what life boils down to at the end of the day

[Chrisman @chrisman]

@amaldorai true

[Chrisman @chrisman]

Ideal homeschool setup: The boy working through the Good and the Beautiful by hand. The girl doing Synthesis math on the iPad.