Christopher Wall
cscottwall.bsky.social
Christopher Wall
@cscottwall.bsky.social
PhD student researching terrorism, insurgency, and AI for national security
Reposted by Christopher Wall
New research from Costello, Pennycook, and Rand. Can conversations with AI help reduce belief in conspiracy theories? Quite possibly. What’s the mechanism? Evidence production. Let me explain my little-t theory about how this might work.
Last year, we published a paper showing that AI models can "debunk" conspiracy theories via personalized conversations. That paper raised a major question: WHY are the human<>AI convos so effective? In a new working paper, we have some answers.

TLDR: facts

osf.io/preprints/ps...
February 20, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Reposted by Christopher Wall
I will never claim to "know ball," but if there's anything I feel comfortable doing in this space, it's metabolizing Russell Westbrook's ethos as a point guard across his many eras. This was my latest foray: www.theringer.com/2025/01/21/n...
Russell Westbrook Is Once Again the Most Thrilling Show in Basketball
Just when we thought we were out, Russ’s uncanny chemistry with Nikola Jokic has pulled us back in
www.theringer.com
January 30, 2025 at 12:41 AM
RIP Professor Gerber. Was an absolute privilege studying and learning from him. Just a generous, kind, and loving person - we lost a great one.

wapo.st/4fFXE33
Burton L. Gerber, CIA officer who boosted Cold War spying, dies at 91
As CIA station chief in Moscow in the 1980s, he oversaw an operation for a trove of secret documents on Soviet military research and development.
wapo.st
January 5, 2025 at 3:03 PM
Reposted by Christopher Wall
People sometimes make fun of science that sounds stupid and random.

Meanwhile, a study of lizard saliva turned into a peptide medication, which was turned into a diabetes medication, which was turned into a GLP1 weight loss drug, that just became the first therapy every approved for … sleep apnea
Breaking News: The FDA approved use of the weight loss drug Zepbound for a common form of sleep apnea. It is the first drug authorized to treat the disorder.
F.D.A. Approves Weight-Loss Drug to Treat Sleep Apnea
Zepbound is the first prescription drug approved specifically to treat the common condition.
www.nytimes.com
December 21, 2024 at 12:41 AM
Reposted by Christopher Wall
Here’s a list of what I was reading about Generative AI in 2024 that didn’t make it into the Slop Infrastructures pieces. The rest have been sorted into categories with questions — covering AI’s anti-human streak, AI & imagination, environmental impacts, shared myths and more.
Things I Read in 2024
A Partial List of Writing on Generative AI There has been some great critical writing about Generative AI this year. This is a long post with many quotations that tries to give a snapshot of what ...
mail.cyberneticforests.com
December 15, 2024 at 12:52 PM
Reposted by Christopher Wall
End the Fed at your own peril.

Alesina and Summers (1993):
November 9, 2024 at 11:14 PM
I’ve been thinking a lot about these lines from Paradise Lost over the past week (Book 3, lines 111-125)
November 9, 2024 at 11:50 PM
Reposted by Christopher Wall
In March of 1945, the US Army issued this "fact sheet" to guide conversations with soldiers on the topic of fascism, paying particular attention to the ongoing threat that domestic fascist movements posed to the US. Their analysis of what a homegrown US fascism would look like is interesting.
August 1, 2024 at 9:35 PM