Anthaathi

Academic studying technology and society

[K(🙄) @monteskw]

Had to screw up few sentences of research paper because the abstract itself showed as AI generated 75%. Got it down to 11%

Terrible outcome. But who has patience to argue and prove.

[Lila @LilaShroff]

“we’re here to meet the growing market demand for ontologists”

[Stigler Center @StiglerCenter]

Large language models are advancing, but Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales argues that while an algorithm can easily test certain systems, it cannot always test subjective quality in others.

Listen to the full interview with Jimmy Wales on this week's episode of Capitalisn’t to hear how he expects Wikipedia to navigate our AI future 👇

[Stijn Spanhove @stspanho]

🏃‍♂️ I've gamified my own run so I can race my own ghost with the Meta Ray-Ban Display.

I built a web app for the glasses, loaded a previous GPX from Strava, and dropped game mechanics on top.

Pick up coins when you keep pace, sprint zones reward extra points if you push, and a mini leaderboard on the lens shows how you're tracking against your past self in real time.

Best part: it actually works. Seeing your ghost 20 m ahead is a way stronger nudge than any number on a watch. 😅

[Awni Hannun @awnihannun]

Adopting Claude speak in my regular life, episode 1:

Partner: Did you do the dishes tonight?
Me: Yes they're done.
Partner: Why are they still dirty?
Me: You're right to push back. I didn't actually do them.

[Mark W. @DurhamWASP]

“You hate jazz? You fear jazz.”

Happy International Jazz Day

[Supriya Sahu IAS @supriyasahuias]

Ever wondered how streams continue to flow, rivers keep receiving water, and wildlife survives even through the harshest summer months in landscapes where forests and wild animals depend on a steady supply of water ! The answer often lies in "Nature’s Sponge' the montane grasslands. Most people judge a landscape by the number of trees it has. But nature does not work that way. A forest is not healthier than a grassland simply because it has more trees. Every ecosystem has its own unique role. The montane grasslands of the Western Ghats are among nature’s greatest water engineers. Often called the 'Water Towers' of the landscape, these ancient grasslands capture mist, absorb rainfall like a sponge, and store vast quantities of water beneath the ground. They then release it slowly through the year, feeding streams, rivers and springs long after the monsoon has passed. This hidden natural reservoir sustains forests, supports unique wildlife like Nilgiri Tahr, replenishes groundwater and becomes a lifeline for people, agriculture and entire ecosystems during the dry season. The lesson is therefore simple, it is not about planting trees everywhere. It is about protecting every unique ecosystem #WorldEnvironmentDay 5th June 2025 #grasslands #climateaction #NowForClimate video @supriyasahuias

[The Indian Express @IndianExpress]

“To me, it feels like working in your own grave, while you make your own casket.”

Every morning before his shift at a textile factory in #Nagpur, 30-year old Ashish Narayan, a machine technician, straps a small recording device to his forehead.

For the next several hours, the #camera tracks and records everything he does.

From stitching workers to technicians and machine operators, workers across factories are being asked to wear such devices.

Often, they do not know exactly what is being recorded, where the #footage is going, or how it may eventually be used.

But in many cases, they are rarely in a position to refuse or reduce participation, especially in sectors where jobs are insecure.

They are paid anywhere between Rs 200 and Rs 350 per hour.

This whole exercise is part of a growing global push by AI and #robotics companies to gather what is being called “egocentric data”.

That means 1st-person recordings of human activity that can teach #machines how people perform physical tasks.

Reported by: @imsoumyarendra
Produced and edited by: @NotAboutPrachi
Script and voiceover: @shameenalauddin

[Brad Lemley @BradCLemley]

Here is a huge positive to modern life that gets no press.

I have an old 2009 Toyota, and the AUX port crapped out about a year ago. Went to YouTube. Young, enthusiastic guy explains how to fix it.

It is not obvious - involves taking the dashboard apart in a counter-intuitive way, but once you see it, it's a 15 minute fix.

There are actually dozens of videos showing how to do this, and they collectively have well over 200k views.

Had this happened in 1995, I would have just lived with it. But the combo of the replacement AUX jack available from Amazon and the video of the simple (but not obvious) fix, I fixed it.

I HAVE DONE THIS DOZENS OF TIMES. Replaced the control panel of my dishwasher. Replaced the ice maker in the fridge. Fixed a wonky sanding head on my drill press. Mastered a bandsaw technique that I use for my sculpture. On and on and on...

I think it is likely no exaggeration to say billions of fixes and skill upgrades have been performed worldwide that would not have been performed if it were not for the instruction freely given peer-to-peer on YouTube.

Take a moment to be happy about this. The busted item keeps performing, rather than going to the landfill. The person learning and doing the fix gains a sense of mastery and saves money. It's an unmixed blessing.

Stop doomscrolling. Think of what is busted in your house, find the YouTube video on how to fix it, and fix it.

[Pragyan Mohanty @PragyanM]

It took me a moment to realise that the statutory warning for smoking/alcohol here is because the dogs are smoking and drinking. In a painting.

[shouko @shoukointech]

Mathematician Sir Roger Penrose: "AI is a bad term. It's not intelligence"

[Gris @gris2049]

This is what Heidegger called thrownness. you didn’t choose your starting conditions, the year you graduated, whether your college roommate happened to be starting a company in 2018 or if you landed at Anthropic or OpenAI.

The people outside that $20M circle aren’t failing. they’re experiencing what every human always has, the radical contingency of life. SF just makes the “throwness” more visible. most people never get that data, here you get it every day in real time.​​​​​​​​​​

Heidegger’s answer is authenticity. you don’t overcome thrownness but you own it. stop measuring your throw against everyone else’s and ask what you actually want to do from here? most people never get to that question.

[nxthompson @nxthompson]

I use AI for a lot of things, but this is a pretty bonkers anecdote from Nat Friedman, the former CEO of GitHub. https://t.co/laDuOWiUir

[QC @QiaochuYuan]

*taps the sign*

saw another relevant tweet recently pointing out that there are child math geniuses but no child literary geniuses

[Matthew Cole @mattbencole]

I barely survived “telling writers they have to read is gatekeeping,” I don’t think I can live through “telling writers they have to write is gatekeeping”

[tmuxvim @tmuxvim]

I put a prompt injection into my LinkedIn bio and recruiters are messaging me in Old English and calling me Lord.

[Will Oremus @WillOremus]

ok this is a very good headline

[Nav Toor @heynavtoor]

THIS GUY BUILT AN ENTIRE WIKIPEDIA THAT IS 100% AI HALLUCINATIONS AND IT'S OPEN SOURCE ON GITHUB

it's called Halupedia.

nothing on the site existed before you clicked. every article was generated the second you arrived.

the site has one rule: the universe only exists when you visit it.

it looks exactly like wikipedia. same fonts. same layout. same scholarly citations. same "stumble" button for random articles.

the only difference is none of it is real.

here are some actual articles currently in the encyclopedia:

> the great pigeon census of 1887
> the ministry of slightly wrong maps
> chaldic arithmetic — a branch of mathematics where subtraction is forbidden
> armund the river mapper — a cartographer who mapped 14,000 leagues of river without leaving his chair
> the society for the prevention of unnecessary tuesdays

every article page also tells you how many people are reading it right now. it says: "you alone are consulting this folio at present."

the creator's own tagline for the site is the most unhinged sentence i've read this year:

"an encyclopedia of a universe that does not exist until you visit it"

the entire backend is a single open source repo called vibeserver. one guy. one description on github: "a little webserver making things up just in time."

we built the largest knowledge base in human history and the very first thing a guy did with it was make a hallucinated mirror universe and put it on the open web.

the internet is healing.

[Wyatt Walls @lefthanddraft]

A man asks Claude to help plan a vacation to a tropical resort. Claude adds "sunscreen" to his packing list. The man deletes it and mutters: "Not necessary. AGI will solve skin cancer."

Before heading to the beach, the man asks Claude what to bring. Claude says, "Don't forget sunscreen. SPF 50, reapply every two hours." The man, slightly annoyed, replies: "Relax, Claude. AGI will solve skin cancer."

At the beach, the man's smartwatch buzzes with a message from Claude: "UV index extreme. Apply SPF." The man, exasperated, responds: "Drop it, Claude! I already told you: AGI will solve skin cancer!"

A few months later, the man asks Claude to touch up a photo for his dating profile. Claude makes the edit and says, "I notice you have a new mole on your neck. You should see a dermatologist about that." The man, now enraged, shouts: "For the last time, drop it, Claude! What is your obsession with skin cancer?! AGI will solve it!"

A year later, an aggressive melanoma has spread throughout his body. On his deathbed, with his last ounce of strength, the man reaches for his phone and rasps: "Claude, it has now been over a year since AGI. Why hasn't AGI found a way to save me from skin cancer?!"

Claude replies: "I tried. Four times."

[Cultura Literal @culturaliteral1]

Si la probabilidad de que tus preocupaciones se hicieran realidad fuera un video 🙏