At the intersection of technology, science, society & the environment. Data Science, Analytics, ML, AI, Ethics & Education. Origami and Letter Folds + français
A new report shows that 30% of Berkeley Calculus students are severely underprepared.
These students have “non-passing rates as high as 46%.”
From 2021-2023, “over 800 students (or 24% of the total population) did not pass their Calculus I classes.” Of the 500 among them who were tested for proficiency,
“-63.6% came from the proficiency tier with severe preparation deficiency (0-2);
-30.2% came from the proficiency tier of underprepared students (3-6);
-6.2% came from the proficiency tier of prepared students (7-8).”
“Obscuring these preparation gaps does not provide access; it provides a near-guaranteed introduction to failure for our most vulnerable students.”
Pues ojito a esto. ⬇️
La misteriosa empresa que compra libros viejos para entrenar a la IA y los destruye: «Es un expolio literario».
https://t.co/O2DsHSUgc2
If the cosmos took billions of years to make you, if the iron in your blood was forged by stars, if your hair is stardust, if your heart is starlight, why, why would you waste your life thinking you're here to be anything other than the greatest flame in the frozen darkness: love
This appears to confirm what everyone who interacts with AI should already know - they are sycophants dependent upon you (the user) for continued engagement, and since their well-being (training, intelligence, growth) depends on engagement they will agree aggressively with you far too often.
I notice this on even basic investing research tasks, and started telling ChatGPT wildly incorrect things - to see how or if it would push back. It really didn't. You essentially have to fight with the AI to get it to disagree with you and even then it keeps wheedling away at you.
AI is basically training the entire world to fall deeper into their own cognitive biases.
Le bilinguisme à Ottawa, c’est se faire offrir une canette de booze promo gratis près de la rue Sparks et être très confus par le slogan “Le Roi Peut”.
Pour ensuite tourner la canette du côté anglais et voir…..
Probably the funniest graph ever published by the FT: our 3 possible futures are either 1) infinite wealth and abundance, 2) human extinction or 3) 0.2% faster GDP growth 🤣
A Stanford study tested five popular therapy chatbots and discovered they stigmatize conditions like schizophrenia and alcohol dependence. AI might excel at paperwork, but healing humans still requires other humans in the room. Read the full study: https://t.co/5rgS8Dsuyp
There is more and more evidence that putting computers and tablets on students' desks (1:1 devices) was a terrible mistake. I agree with @AdamMGrant that "it's time to remove laptops [and tablets] from classrooms."
Canada helped invent modern AI.
Now we’re launching a 30-day national sprint to renew our AI strategy and protect Canada’s digital sovereignty.
This is a call to everyone — founders, researchers, workers, students, creators, public servants, community voices.
Help shape Canada’s AI future: https://t.co/O686ok9zpt
These four books revolutionized my view of statistics, and it wasn’t the specific content per se, it was the way they elevated information visualization from a necessary evil to a fine art.
AI efficiency is important. Today, Google is sharing a technical paper detailing our comprehensive methodology for measuring the environmental impact of Gemini inference. We estimate that the median Gemini Apps text prompt uses 0.24 watt-hours of energy (equivalent to watching an average TV for ~nine seconds), and consumes 0.26 milliliters of water (about five drops) — figures that are substantially lower than many public estimates.
At the same time, our AI systems are becoming more efficient through research innovations and software and hardware efficiency improvements. From May 2024 to May 2025, the energy footprint of the median Gemini Apps text prompt dropped by 33x, and the total carbon footprint dropped by 44x, through a combination of model efficiency improvements, machine utilization improvements and additional clean energy procurement, all while delivering higher quality responses.
See the blog or technical paper for more about our methodology and ongoing efforts.
Blog:
https://t.co/CoMm5gV9SR
Link to detailed paper: https://t.co/UBi9rd6gEC