Carl T. Bergstrom

@carlbergstrom.com

150K followers 2.5K following 11K posts

Professor, UW Biology / Santa Fe Institute

I study how information flows in biology, science, and society.

Book: *Calling Bullshit*, http://tinyurl.com/fdcuvd7b

LLM course: https://thebullshitmachines.com

Corvids: https://tinyurl.com/mr2n5ymk

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Carl Theodore Bergstrom is a theoretical and evolutionary biologist and a professor at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, United States. Bergstrom is a critic of low-quality or misleading scientific research. He is the co-author of a book on misinformation called Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World and teaches a class by the same name at University of Washington. .. more

Biology 21%

Mathematics 20%

Posts Replies Media Videos

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · Feb 4

Modern-Day Oracles or Bullshit Machines?

Jevin West (@jevinwest.bsky.social) and I have spent the last eight months developing the course on large language models (LLMs) that we think every college freshman needs to take.

thebullshitmachines.com

INTRODUCTION

thebullshitmachines.com

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 9h

Just to get out ahead of things, I, Carl Begrstrom, male, age 54, Seattle WA USA, subscribe to @wired.com because along with @404media.co they provide the best coverage of what tech is doing to society.

Gary Longsine 📱 @arbiteriapetus.bsky.social · 9h

Over the years I’ve helped several people with their online subscriptions to various Condé Nast properties, and oy vey, nothing about this surprises me. Their user authentication has always been a cluster fuck.

www-bleepingcomputer-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.blee...

Hacker claims to leak WIRED database with 2.3 million records

A hacker claims to have breached Condé Nast and leaked an alleged WIRED database containing more than 2.3 million subscriber records, while also warning that they plan to release up to 40 million addi...

www-bleepingcomputer-com.cdn.ampproject.org

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 9h

They are besmirching the good name of crows?

Reposted by Carl T. Bergstrom

Gary Longsine 📱 @arbiteriapetus.bsky.social · 9h

Hacker claims to leak WIRED database with 2.3 million records

www-bleepingcomputer-com.cdn.ampproject.org

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 9h

Gary, I hope you know that I really appreciate your views as a way to keep myself honest instead of falling into the easy traps of minimizing what AI can do.

Yet I find this kind of talk to strain credulity at best.

Where Is All the A.I.-Driven Scientific Progress?

www.nytimes.com

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 16h

I'll take a look.

This quote of his from last summer seems optimistic to say the least.

And he's down to 18 months.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Rodriques predicts that within two years, most good scientific hypotheses “may be generated by us or systems like the ones we’re building”. In keeping with Schmidt’s vision for AI science, Rodriques foresees advances in robotics that will automate bench work, leaving human scientists with the responsibility of “resource allocation” — choosing which research questions to pursue.

Reposted by Philip N. Cohen

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 17h

“An AI scientist, for example, could figure out how the human brain works, or deliver any gene to any cell in the body.”

Yeah and a magic pony could shit bricks of 24k gold and piss a highly concentrated solution of pure heroin.

Building an AI Scientist

Hertz Fellow Sam Rodriguez launched FutureHouse, a nonprofit research lab working toward building an AI scientist or AI systems that can automate scientific research in biology and other complex scien...

www.hertzfoundation.org

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 2d

Here you go!

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · Aug 20

It seems to me that the time is ripe for a Bluesky thread about how—and maybe even why—to befriend crows.

(1/n)

Beautiful crow against a black background

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 2d

This was a very interesting rabbit hole to fall into!

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 2d

I don’t know. It just helped me understand what was happening. I’m not sure if it gets into as much of specifics with respect to being helpful on social cues.

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 2d

So very glad to hear that you liked it!

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 3d

I'd be rolling fat blunts out of Franklins on my boat to the next birding location, not arguing 14 hours a day with plebs on X and complaining about how nobody appreciated my intellect, that's for sure.

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 3d

In the US, for sure.

It's why I thought Woody Allen's films were brilliant when I was a kid. The people in those films talked the way the people our family knew talked.

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 3d

Hard same.

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 3d

While I am not Jewish myself, Tannen's book convinced me that it is no coincidence that my model of dinner conversation came from meals with the largely Jewish colleagues of my father, a University of Michigan professor.

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 3d

This book changed my life.

It explains "high-involvement" conversational style and the notion of cooperative overlapping.

It explained why my former wife and her family thought I was exceptionally rude at the dinner table when I thought I was doing my damnedest to engage.

Conversational Style — Deborah Tannen

www.deborahtannen.com

Reposted by Lisa W. Fazio, Dorothy Bishop

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 3d

The Māori word for the smallest and cutest of kiwis, the lesser spotted kiwi, is pukupuku.

In Japanese, pukupuku (ぷくぷく) is an onomatopoeic word describing something cute, chubby, pudgy, or puffed up.

The two languages are from divergent language families. So WTF?

(Photo not mine; credit in alt)

Little spotted kiwi photo from https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/conserving-our-native-kiwi

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 3d

Here you go:

AI code suggestions sabotage software supply chain

: Hallucinated package names fuel 'slopsquatting'

www.theregister.com

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 3d

Love that!

Reposted by Carl T. Bergstrom

Richard Sever @richardsever.bsky.social · 4d

“if you ask [LLMs] for factual information you don't have any guarantee it's going to be correct…not a good idea to rely on them for information you can't verify and that's somehow important” www.bbc.com/news/article...

Warning about using AI for festive swim tide time advice

The Coastguard warns about AI after two people are stranded after being given the wrong tide times.

www.bbc.com

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 4d

What a glorious photograph!

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 4d

Excellent beer. Love to get one of those every time I'm back on the East Coast.

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 4d

iykyk

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 4d

Season's greetings to all.

JW Lee's Harvest Ale 2000. Bottle and pour in a snifter, accompanied by a sculptural crow on a branch.

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 5d

Here's Borges, interviewed by William F Buckley.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNxz...

Firstly, English is both a Germanic and a Latin language. Those two registers—for any idea you take, you have two words. Those words will not mean exactly the same. For example if I say “regal” that is not exactly the same thing as saying “kingly.” Or if I say “fraternal” that is not the same as saying “brotherly.” Or “dark” and “obscure.” Those words are different. It would make all the difference—speaking for example—the Holy Spirit, it would make all the difference in the world in a poem if I wrote about the Holy Spirit or I wrote the Holy Ghost, since “ghost” is a fine, dark Saxon word, but “spirit” is a light Latin word.

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 5d

I can't venture to compare the expressiveness of English and Spanish, but I love Jorge Luis Borges's observations about how a skilled writer will use English's two distinct registers — the Germanic and the Latinate — to convey shades of meaning.

Is English Better Than Spanish?

This article was originally published here: https://tribunamag.com/tribuna/2016/6/26/is-english-better-than-spanish

medium.com

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 5d

Absolutely! Not in LinkedIn, so you're good.

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 6d

I love this! Great pic too.

Reposted by Brian Keegan, Greg Linden

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 6d

Best explanation of the liar's dividend that I've ever seen.

Jacek @eadg.bsky.social · 8d

Reposted by Stephen D. Murphy, Ondřej Mottl

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 6d

Anyone else have a coauthor who is so much fun to write with that you just find yourself grinning in some combination of satisfaction and pride as you edit a manuscript?

If not, get yourself one.

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