ethan kuppermann

boulder ‘22

[The Touchline | 𝐓 @TouchlineX]

📺 Telemundo TV commentator: "We are one of the only networks in the world to NOT show ads during the World Cup cooling breaks."

"We prefer the old school way. We should be able to see what the players do. We show fans, people enjoying, not the corporate direction of football."

[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.

[𝑁𝑎𝑑𝑖. @luvblessingz]

If they cut Social Security, I want every single penny they have taken from my paychecks since the very first day I ever started working.

[Goddess Graveyard Punany✨ @xm_muva]

American women can only stay with their babies for 6 weeks before they must return to work. This policy was lobbied by Nestle so that American women are forced to buy formula and don't rely on their own breast milk to feed their babies. The American government works for corporations, not their people & until this system dismantles, people aren't going to have babies. This is just common sense.

[Praise @tufpraise]

execute him publicly what the fuck is this

[evan loves worf @esjesjesj]

Just wonderful

[Ben Ross @BenRossTweets]

I know we’ve gotten used to it, but this type of behavior is disgusting and people should speak up about it

[Jesus Freakin Congress @TheJFreakinC]

🚨BREAKING: ICE agents pulled guns on an unarmed U.S. citizen in a small Minnesota town… then had to be stopped by the local police chief.

This happened in St. Peter, Minnesota. A quiet southern Minnesota town

A local woman was alone in her car, observing and recording ICE activity in her community. She is doing something that is fully protected under the First Amendment… observing and documenting federal agents in public.

ICE notices her watching.

Three federal vehicles begin chasing her, and try to force her to pull over.

They eventually box her car in and three agents jump out of the vehicle in front of her… with their guns drawn… screaming at her to get out of the car.

She refuses, and states her rights.

The agents open her car door anyway, drag her out, force her to the ground, and handcuff her.

This is all happening while she is unarmed, and alone on a country road.

She suffers cuts, scrapes, and bruises as they pin her down.

Her husband then arrives and starts recording. He tells them they don’t have a warrant and cannot search her car. An ICE agent dismisses him outright and says, “I’m not getting into the legality of everything.”

Read that again.

A federal agent, pointing guns at civilians, openly says they are not concerned with legality.

ICE puts this woman into their vehicle and starts driving her toward the Twin Cities, toward a federal detention facility… even though she is a U.S. citizen.

About twenty minutes into the drive, they suddenly turn around after getting a call from a supervisor.

The St. Peter police chief stepped in.

After her husband contacted an attorney and spoke with the police chief, the chief identified the vehicle ICE was using, took custody of the woman, and personally drove her home.

ICE turned her over to local police because what they were doing was so clearly wrong.

This is what is happening in America.

A small-town police chief had to intervene to stop federal agents from disappearing an unarmed woman for observing them.

If ICE feels comfortable pulling guns on unarmed citizens in small towns, chasing them, throwing them to the ground, and ignoring the law entirely, then no town is too small and no one is safe from ICE brutality.

This is what it looks like when federal agents think they’re above the Constitution.

[Ed Krassenstein @EdKrassen]

This is great! Philly DA Larry Krasner vows to "hunt down" ICE agents who are breaking the law like Germany hunted down Nazis after WWII.

“This is a small bunch of wannabe Nazis in a country of 350 million. We outnumber them. If we have to hunt you down the way they hunted down Nazis for decades, we will.”

He said he would prosecute any ICE agent who violates the Constitution in Philadelphia to the fullest extent of the law, after referring to such agents as “Nazis.”

Every Ice Agent, who violates the law needs to be held accountable. Who agrees?

[Devin Nunes' Cattle Dog 🇺🇦 🇪🇺🇺🇸🇨🇦 🇦🇺 @Kaos_Vs_Control]

ICE choked out a 10th grader, stole his phone, and then sold it. In an article about reckless and wanton ICE violence the illegal seizure and then *sale* of a minors phone caught my eye as street gang behavior.

[Marco Foster @MarcoFoster_]

Tim Miller: “I will not be fucking gaslit by these people. I will not tone down the rhetoric. Jonathan Ross murdered her. She talked to him calmly, said dude I’m not mad. This is fucking insane. This is not a tough call. He orphaned her child and called her a fucking bitch after he killed her. Do not let Donald Trump, and JD Vance, and Kristi Noem, and these thugs try to convince you this is anything other than murder”

[Ed Krassenstein @EdKrassen]

WOW! Not only does this latest footage confirm that Renee Good had no animosity toward ICE agent Jonathan Ross and that she was steering her car away from him as he was filming with his phone.

It also confirms that Ross shot Good in the face with one hand while filming her with his smart phone in the other hand.

And no, he wasn't hit by the vehicle. That sound you hear is his gun shooting.

[Jacob Soboroff @jacobsoboroff]

"When I picked up my granddaughter from the federal agents, she had a dirty diaper, a bruise on her face, and was developing a rash. She was exhausted and cried… My heart aches knowing this could happen to others, to my kids, or even me, despite being U.S. citizens.”

[Nnámdí @__Nnamdi_]

Culers listen, A fan base that supports someone like this has no business lecturing you about respect or ethics

[Blaugranagram @Blaugranagram]

❗Real Madrid have spent nearly four years accusing Barça of cheating in the Negreira case, targeting, and harassing Spanish referees without caring about the damage to the competition or the Spain dressing room full of Barça players, yet now they're suddenly furious over an 18-year-old's comment supposedly affecting team harmony — pure hypocrisy from a club whose players barely even play for the national team

What an absolute joke

[Thorne 🌸 @ExistentialEnso]

oopsie doodles, we accidentally fueled a violent moral panic about one of the most marginalized groups in existence because we took the word of a notorious grifter

[LongTime🤓FirstTime👨‍💻 @LongTimeHistory]

ICE snatch teenager off his bike in broad daylight—just leave bike where it fell on sidewalk.

His mom walked by 20 minutes later to see it lying there—that's the only way she found out son was gone.

Witnesses said he was casually peddling when masked agents forced him to ground — handcuffed him and took him away in unmarked car.

No information has yet been released about where he is currently detained—or why he was arrested in the first place.

The incident took place in a suburban neighborhood within Santa Clarita, California. #DemsUnited

[LongTime🤓FirstTime👨‍💻 @LongTimeHistory]

ICE blindside tackles a peaceful protester from behind—he's a U.S. veteran who fought in Afghanistan.

Agents slam man to ground—then pin him down with their body weight engulfed in tear gas.

"Less-lethal" bullets were shot directly at a person's head from the roof—said witnesses trying to help the man.

"He's a veteran of this country. He's done more for this country than any of you."

The incident occurred outside the Portland ICE Field Office in Portland, Oregon. #DemsUnited

[CALL TO ACTIVISM @CalltoActivism]

🚨MAJOR BREAKING: Trump just CANCELED protections for Afghan interpreters who fought along side our troops and were PROMISED safety in America.

He’s sending them back to the TALIBAN for an immediate death sentence. This is unimaginably evil. 👇

[danisha carter @danishacarterr]

calling yourself a nazi in america should get you shot on sight we fought a war about this