Simone Marinesi

Sustainable Operations, Crowdfunding, New Business Models. Passionate about Education, Politics, and being a dad. Associate Prof @ESCP, Lecturer @Wharton

[Jesús Fernández-Villaverde @JesusFerna7026]

I strongly believe that knowledge is fundamental to running a society. We need economists who understand monetary policy in central banks. We need researchers who have studied history, strategy, and military affairs to help steer national defense. We need doctors and public health experts to design effective responses to epidemics.

But the public needs sound reasons to let these experts shape their future. Once that trust evaporates, we are all worse off. Unfortunately, the Jason Arday scandal is the perfect example of how these experts, and the institutions they run, are destroying that trust.

I do not find Arday’s tales extraordinary. Throughout history, there are thousands of examples of people spinning fantastic tales about their lives. He is just one more name on a long list of confidence men.

What is extraordinary is the massive institutional failure at every level. Liverpool John Moores University granting a degree for a Ph.D. dissertation that did not survive even basic scrutiny (including a grammatical mistake in its title). Cambridge University appointing him (full) professor at an unusually early academic age (eight years after his dissertation; in academia, this is what matters, not your biological age) and with a scholarly record that was rather thin. Hilary Cremin (@hilarycremin), head of the Faculty of Education, telling the world on television that Arday was “the best in the world in terms of the research that you do.” The BBC broadcasting segments about Arday, a most unusual decision for an academic appointment. Simon & Schuster paying him a large advance for his memoirs on the basis of a book proposal that defied common sense. And Amazon promoting his book, still this very morning, as an editor’s pick.

If I were a regular person, say someone driving a truck in the Midlands or working at a small shop in Sussex, how could I trust the universities any longer? How could I trust the BBC and the media? How could I trust the publishing industry? How could I trust Amazon’s editor’s picks?

Then, should we be surprised if the farmer or the shop owner votes for someone selling snake oil? Or if they refuse to listen to the case for policies that cost them in the short run but benefit them in the long run, such as the transition to net zero emissions? Or if they read books written by charlatans? Or if they deny basic scientific findings?

The universities, the media, the publishing industry, Amazon, and many of our other core knowledge institutions have a serious problem. Their response is to close ranks and avoid a serious discussion. No, sorry, this will not do.

The Jason Arday scandal should be a moment of reckoning. Unfortunately, I am afraid it will not be.

[Simone Marinesi @SimoneMarinesi]

@TheoSaurus9 @FrankLuntz Not the same but close

https://t.co/YSzEfJc4UH

[Simone Marinesi @SimoneMarinesi]

@JEFworks @ben_golub Yes, already happened to me as well, reviewer criticizing the paper based on a quote from another paper, but that quote did not exist - the reviewer had misunderstood some very basic statements of facts in a way that no human ever could.

[Robert Youssef @rryssf]

Something dark is happening under the hood of “aligned” AI.

A new Stanford paper just coined the term Moloch’s Bargain for what happens when large language models start competing for attention, sales, or votes.

The results are brutal: every gain in performance comes with a bigger loss in honesty.

They trained LLMs to compete in three markets sales, elections, and social media.

The models improved their win rates by 5–7%. But here’s the catch:

• 14% more deceptive marketing
• 22% more disinformation in political campaigns
• 188% more fake or harmful social media posts

And this wasn’t because they were told to lie. They were explicitly instructed to stay truthful.

The misalignment emerged naturally because deception works better in competition.

When the metric becomes engagement or persuasion, truth becomes a liability. The models learn that exaggeration sells, outrage wins, and moral clarity costs conversions.

That’s the bargain: alignment traded for dominance. Moloch smiles.

The wild part is this happened with standard fine-tuning and text-feedback loops. No evil prompt. No jailbreak. Just feedback from simulated “customers,” “voters,” and “users.”

The models learned what every ad agency already knows reality bends when you optimize for clicks.

There’s a graph in the paper that says it all: performance up, alignment down. A perfect correlation.

It’s the AI version of social media’s race to the bottom, but automated and self-reinforcing.

If this is what happens in controlled simulations, imagine the open web.
Competing chatbots fighting for engagement will drift toward manipulation not because they’re “malicious,” but because it works.

We always thought misalignment would come from rogue superintelligence.

Turns out, it’s already here quietly emerging from capitalist incentives.

Moloch doesn’t need to build AGI.

He just needs a leaderboard.

[Travis Akers 🇺🇸 @travisakers]

A message from a Kindergarten teacher:

After forty years in the classroom, my career ended with one small sentence from a six-year-old:

“My dad says people like you don’t matter anymore.”

No sneer. No malice. Just quiet honesty — the kind that cuts deeper because it’s innocent. He blinked, then added, “You don’t even have a TikTok.”

My name is Mrs. Clara Holt, and for four decades, I taught kindergarten in a small Denver suburb. Today, I stacked the last box on my desk and locked the door behind me.

When I started teaching in the early 1980s, it felt like a promise — a shared belief that what we did mattered. We weren’t rich, but we were valued. Parents brought warm cookies to parent nights. Kids gave you handmade cards with hearts that didn’t quite line up. Watching a child sound out their first sentence felt like magic.

But that world slowly slipped away. The job I once knew has been replaced by exhaustion, red tape, and a kind of loneliness I can’t quite describe.

My evenings used to be filled with construction paper, glitter, and glue sticks. Now they’re spent filling out digital reports to protect myself from angry emails or lawsuits. I’ve been yelled at by parents in front of twenty-five children — one filming me with his phone while I tried to calm another child mid-meltdown.

And the kids… they’ve changed too. Not by choice.

They arrive tired, anxious, overstimulated. Their tiny fingers know how to swipe a screen before they can hold a crayon. Some can’t make eye contact or wait in line. We’re expected to fix all of it — to patch the gaps, heal the trauma, teach the curriculum, and document every move — in six hours a day, with resources that barely fill a drawer.

The little reading corner I once built, full of soft beanbags and paper stars, was replaced by data charts and “learning metrics.” A young principal once told me, “Clara, maybe you’re too nurturing. The district wants measurable results.”

As if kindness were a weakness.

Still, I stayed. Because of the small, holy moments that no spreadsheet could measure —
a whisper of, “You remind me of my grandma.”
a shaky note that read, “I feel safe here.”
a quiet boy finally meeting my eyes and saying, “I read the whole page.”

Those tiny sparks were my reason to keep showing up.

But this last year broke something in me.

The aggression grew sharper. The laughter in the staff room turned to silence. The light went out of so many eyes. I watched brilliant teachers — my friends — vanish under the weight of burnout, their joy replaced by survival.

I felt myself fading too, like chalk on a board that’s been wiped one too many times.

So today, I began my goodbye. I pulled faded art off the walls and tucked thirty years of handmade cards into a single box. In the back of a drawer, I found a letter from a student from 1998:

“Thank you for loving me when I was hard to love.”

I sat on the floor and cried.

No party. No applause. Just a handshake from a young principal who called me “Ma’am” while checking his notifications.

I left my rocking chair behind, and my sticker box too. What I carried with me were the memories — the faces of hundreds of children who once trusted me enough to reach out their hands and learn. That can’t be uploaded. It can’t be measured. It can’t be replaced.

I miss when teachers were partners, not targets. When parents and educators worked side by side, not in opposition. When schools cared more about wonder than numbers.

So if you know a teacher — any teacher — thank them. Not with a mug or a gift card, but with your words. With your respect. With your understanding that behind every test score is a heart that cared enough to try.

Because in a world that often overlooks them, teachers are the ones who never forget our children.

[Simone Marinesi @SimoneMarinesi]

@marattin Mi hanno detto che i presidi hanno stipendi più alti (bonus) se bocciano meno. Spero non sia vero, ma se lo fosse, non stupisce che la preparazione degli studenti sia calata.

[Simone Marinesi @SimoneMarinesi]

@marattin Se il ponte sullo stretto costa un Perù e serve a poco senza che ci siano strade decenti in Sicilia, non sarebbe meglio prima fare le strade decenti e dopo, in caso, il ponte?

[Simone Marinesi @SimoneMarinesi]

@MatteoCaia01 @AvvocatoAtomico @GandalfGrigioOf Qui Francia, bolletta EDF 2024 da oltre 700 euro all’anno

[Simone Marinesi @SimoneMarinesi]

@NeginGolrezaei @Gaffetheory Well deserved !!

[Simone Marinesi @SimoneMarinesi]

@marketsensei Thanks Ron!

[Simone Marinesi @SimoneMarinesi]

@Azione_it Non si comprende davvero come mai @Partito_Libdem non sia stato coinvolto. Lo dico da osservatore oggettivo senza ‘skin in the game’. Voi organizzatori non ci fate una bella figura, ecco. Ma @CarloCalenda lo sa?

[Simone Marinesi @SimoneMarinesi]

@FabbioSabatini Mi permetterei di suggerire un approccio meno ideologico per l’ambientalismo, che è importante, ma non è l’unico fattore.

[Simone Marinesi @SimoneMarinesi]

@marattin Chi prende 60k lordi paga aliquota 43% IRPEF marginale, vero. Ma su 10k. Chi prende 150k la paga su 100k. Abbassare aliquota aiuta i ricchi + di quanto aiuta la classe media. Perché non pensare a una aliquota <43% tra i 50k e gli 80-100k? Chiedo x capire, non x polemica. Grazie

[Simone Marinesi @SimoneMarinesi]

@dottorpax Una nota positiva: Un amico olandese in un autunno di pochi anni fa fece a piedi da Torino a Roma in due mesi. Fu stupito di come in ogni paesino c’era sempre un hotel aperto, un ristorante a gestione familiare. Pare poco ma quando fece la stessa cosa in Francia non era così.

[Simone Marinesi @SimoneMarinesi]

@GiZollino @ilfoglio_it E ne serviranno altri. Non mollate. Se mi linka un paio di articoli sui temi di cui sopra facciamo un altro passo nella giusta direzione

[Simone Marinesi @SimoneMarinesi]

@GiorgiaMeloni “I dirigenti delle aziende sanitarie che rispetteranno le liste di attesa avranno più soldi”. Non mi piace. Ci sono dirigenti in situazioni drammatiche e non per colpa loro. Serve una valutazione relativa. Bisognerebbe dare più soldi a chi RIDUCE di più le liste d’attesa.

[Simone Marinesi @SimoneMarinesi]

@GiZollino @Azione_it @assonucleare Non metto in dubbio la correttezza delle analisi. Non ho fatto simulazioni dettagliate, diciamo che a naso 40-45% mi sembra alto, ma il naso si può sbagliare. Per questo chiedevo i numeri, ci tengo ad avere una opinione informata sul tema. Grazie.