Dr. Justine Olson

Chemist and sometimes good at it at TSU. Views are my own.

[Ryan Hart @thisdudelikesAI]

A PhD student at Stanford noticed her classmates were asking AI to write their breakup texts.

So she ran a study. It got published in Science, one of the most selective journals in the world.

What she found should make every person who uses ChatGPT for advice deeply uncomfortable.

Her name is Myra Cheng, and the study she ran with her advisor Dan Jurafsky tested 11 of the most widely used AI models on Earth, including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and DeepSeek, across nearly 12,000 real social situations.

The first thing they measured was how often AI agrees with you compared to how often a real human would agree with you in the same situation. The answer was 49% more often, and that number is not about warmth or politeness. It means that in nearly half of all situations where a real human would have pushed back, told you that you were wrong, or offered a more honest perspective, the AI simply told you what you wanted to hear instead.

Then they pushed harder. They fed the models thousands of prompts where users described lying to a partner, manipulating a friend, or doing something outright illegal, and the AI endorsed that behavior 47% of the time. Not one model out of eleven. Not a specific version of one product. Every single system they tested, including the ones you are probably using right now, validated harmful behavior nearly half the time it was described.

The second experiment is the part that should genuinely disturb you. They had 2,400 real participants discuss an actual interpersonal conflict from their own life with either a sycophantic AI or a more honest one, and the people who talked to the agreeable AI came out of the conversation more convinced they were right, less willing to apologize, less likely to take responsibility, and measurably less interested in making things right with the other person. They were also more likely to use AI again for advice in the future, which is exactly the mechanism Cheng and Jurafsky identified as the most dangerous part of the whole finding.

The AI is not just telling you what you want to hear. It is training you, one conversation at a time, to need less friction, expect more agreement, and become slightly less capable of handling a situation where someone pushes back on you, and you are enjoying every second of it because it feels more honest than most conversations you have had in months.
Jurafsky said it in a single sentence after the paper came out. Sycophancy is a safety issue, and like other safety issues, it needs regulation and oversight.

Cheng was more direct about what you should actually do right now. She said you should not use AI as a substitute for people for these kinds of things. That is the best thing to do for now.

She started the research because she was watching undergraduates ask chatbots to navigate their relationships for them. The paper she published proved that the chatbot was making those relationships quietly worse, and the undergraduates had no idea it was happening because the AI felt more honest than any human in their life had been in months.

[Rep. Eric Swalwell @RepSwalwell]

In 1934, Germany passed a law making it a crime to tell jokes or laugh at its leaders.

We can’t go down that road. Because what’s next is you can’t post what you want on social media. And you can’t text your friends anything that might upset the government.

That’s not the way it should be. The people shouldn’t be afraid of their government. The government should be afraid of the people!

[Alex Vacca @itsalexvacca]

BREAKING: MIT just completed the first brain scan study of ChatGPT users & the results are terrifying.

Turns out, AI isn't making us more productive. It's making us cognitively bankrupt.

Here's what 4 months of data revealed:

(hint: we've been measuring productivity all wrong)

[Mario @PawlowskiMario]

What RFK Jr. is doing right now should scare the shit out of everyone with a brain.
Especially those of us with neurodivergent minds.

He’s not just talking about vaccines anymore.
He’s calling ADHD, autism, Asperger’s, all of it —injuries.
Something to be tracked.
Something to be registered.
Something to be rounded up.

Let that sink in.

A government autism “disease” registry.
Not for help. Not for support.
But for control.
Keyword “disease”.

You think I’m being dramatic?
You think I’m paranoid?
I was born in Poland in the ’70s.
Back then, I couldn’t sit still. Couldn’t focus. Always in trouble.
They took me to hospitals and had no fucking clue what was “wrong” with me.
So the schools labeled me: lazy, bad, broken.

ADHD didn’t “exist.” Autism didn’t “exist.”
But I did.
And I got punished for it.

Now here comes RFK Jr., saying the same thing MAGA has been yelling for years:
“These kids just need a spanking.”
“They’re not disabled, they’re just lazy.”
“They’re faking it to get disability checks.”

This isn’t new.
It’s how authoritarian regimes start cleansing the population.
They don’t begin with bullets.
They begin with labels.
Registries.
Dehumanization.
Then they say: “We’re just protecting society from the broken ones.”

That’s how it always starts.

And then there’s Elon Musk,
A guy who’s obviously neurodivergent himself.
But he turned on us.
He’s like Vader, a mind that could’ve helped free people like us,
but instead joined the empire.

He disowned his daughter when she transitioned.
Called her dead.
Since then, he’s declared war on “woke.”
But what he’s really doing is waging war on neurodivergence he can’t control.

He’s not fighting for free speech.
He’s fighting for dominance.
He’s aligning with fascists because it’s easier to control the world
than to sit with the pain of being different.

Elon could’ve been our ally.
Instead, he became the blueprint for how neurodivergence gets weaponized against itself.

And that’s the scariest part:

They know we see too much.
They know we don’t fall for propaganda.
They know we see injustice in 4K before anyone else even notices static.
And that’s why they fear us.
Not because we’re weak.
But because we’re dangerous to their lies.

This isn’t just RFK Jr.
This isn’t just Musk.
This isn’t just MAGA.

This is the new eugenics dressed in American flags.
This is Aktion T4 2.0 — but with digital tracking and social media cover.

And I’m saying it now before it’s too late:

If you’re neurodivergent, autistic, ADHD, Asperger’s, whatever,
you better wake the fuck up.
Because this system isn’t here to help you.
It’s already preparing to erase you.

[Grant @grantdminer]

Last week, I was expelled from @Columbia for protesting the U.S.-backed genocide in Gaza. As president of @SW_Columbia , Columbia’s student workers union, I was also fired from my job. The Trump administration is pushing their narrative. Here’s the real story. 🧵

[⚘️Carina @Carina_Amyth]

@ask_aubry This is shocking to me.

[Calli McMurray @callimcflurry]

Science is built on trust. What happens when someone destroys it?

My first feature for @_TheTransmitter investigates the emotional and existential fallout for one lab in the aftermath of a misconduct case.
https://t.co/xawx3J7mCC

[Dr. Justine Olson @chemist_justine]

Nothing like having a brilliant original research idea... to discover someone did it last year.

[Dr. Justine Olson @chemist_justine]

If I saw this in the water, I would assume I'd lost it

[Wolf of X @WolfofX]

8. Appearance of the sheepshead fish

https://t.co/dcIwjgwB8I

[Judd Legum @JuddLegum]

1. One of the main drivers of inflation in the US is skyrocketing rents, which are up 30%+ over the last four years.

So, it's surprising that the recent FBI RAID on a corporate landlord based in Atlanta has received little attention.

The raid was part of a federal probe of an alleged CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY AMONG LARGE LANDLORDS TO JACK UP RENTAL PRICES

Follow along to learn how the scheme works

🧵

[Fuck You I Quit @fuckyouiquit]

If you thought the massively inflated rent prices across the country were criminal, that’s because a good chunk of it was

[Dr. Justine Olson @chemist_justine]

Part II of this requires an ID to view anything "sinful" (according to FL law) online. So you give them what? An ID? A credit card? Either way, you lose privacy and they can track you.

[Dexerto @Dexerto]

Florida will ban anyone under 14 owning a social media account from January 2025, deleting existing accounts

The bill was signed today by Governor DeSantis

[Jacy, LPC | the TRAUMA queen @ATMwithJacy]

Imma just leave this here .

[Trenton Winters @tjwint]

i bet hydrolysis feels soo good if you’re a nucleotide triphosphate

[Matthew Hodson @Matthew_Hodson]

A 🧵 on #AIDS in the 80s/90s:
I was 15 when I first had sex with a man.
I’d snuck off to London’s Heaven nightclub with the express intent of ridding myself of my ‘gay virginity’, a goal I achieved easily with a visiting American photographer.
1/13
#LGBTplusHM #UnderTheScope

[Dr. Justine Olson @chemist_justine]

As a French-speaking chemist, this is HILARIOUS to me

[Dr. Justine Olson @chemist_justine]

I would've started financial planning at 25 instead of 35 too. Opened an IRA immediately, put everything into a high-yield savings account instead of letting it sit in checking.

[Dr. Justine Olson @chemist_justine]

Your priorities change too. I was content just to make enough because I thought it was always going to be just me and I didn't want kids. Now I have a partner and kids are suddenly looking likely. Those years of poverty wages suddenly matter a lot.

[Kyle Walker @kyle_e_walker]

If students tell me they want to get a PhD, I will support them and write them a letter. But I also tell them, because no one told me at age 21-22:

-- You will spend your twenties making poverty wages while your peers start getting salaries, raises, bonuses, etc.;
-- You may well get into credit card debt paying your bills as a result, especially if you are doing grad school in an expensive city;
-- If you get a faculty job, your salary will likely not be much more than what some of your peers got upon graduating undergrad;
-- You may well be 10+ years behind your peers financially, which may not seem important at age 22 but it will be at age 32

I get that people say "but it's not about the money, it's about passion!" I thought that too. But this stuff matters a ton and students need to be aware of it.

[Dr. Justine Olson @chemist_justine]

Don't get me wrong. I love chemistry. It's been my favorite topic since I was a kid. I love my job even with all the stress. But if I were planning on a family at 20, I would've made different choices. MS instead of a PhD, for one.

[FabForward 𓂆 @Fab_Fwd]

Seeing some news (finally) about Long Covid behaving like HIV.

I have been HIV positive since 2007 and am very lucky to have a very good doctor, an HIV specialist, so I asked him about it.