Esther Mondragón
@emp1.bsky.social
Hic sunt dracones
I represent myself, no one else.
Computational and associative learning.
Biologically-inspired AI.
She/They
https://cit-ai.net/people.html#Mondragon
https://www.city.ac.uk/about/people/academics/esther-mondragon
I represent myself, no one else.
Computational and associative learning.
Biologically-inspired AI.
She/They
https://cit-ai.net/people.html#Mondragon
https://www.city.ac.uk/about/people/academics/esther-mondragon
Pinned
Esther Mondragón
@emp1.bsky.social
· Jun 9
Advancing the Biological Plausibility and Efficacy of Hebbian Convolutional Neural Networks
The research presented in this paper advances the integration of Hebbian learning into Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) for image processing, syst…
www.sciencedirect.com
Ablation study and resulting optimal architecture that considerably improves recent research on CNN-Hebbian learning integration with competition mechanisms.
with @julian-jn.bsky.social
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
with @julian-jn.bsky.social
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
If this preposterous lie were true, then believing that some conscious entities, whatever the hell that is, have more rights than others sounds imperialist/colonialist to me.
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
AI showing signs of self-preservation and humans should be ready to pull plug, says pioneer
Canadian computer scientist Yoshua Bengio warns against granting legal rights to cutting-edge technology
www.theguardian.com
December 30, 2025 at 5:35 PM
If this preposterous lie were true, then believing that some conscious entities, whatever the hell that is, have more rights than others sounds imperialist/colonialist to me.
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
Reposted by Esther Mondragón
Jesus Christ stop writing things that are this stupid
AI showing signs of self-preservation and humans should be ready to pull plug, says pioneer
AI showing signs of self-preservation and humans should be ready to pull plug, says pioneer
Canadian computer scientist Yoshua Bengio warns against granting legal rights to cutting-edge technology
A pioneer of AI has criticised calls to grant the technology rights, warning that it was showing signs of self-preservation and humans should be prepared to pull the plug if needed.
Yoshua Bengio said giving legal status to cutting-edge AIs would be akin to giving citizenship to hostile extraterrestrials, amid fears that advances in the technology were far outpacing the ability to constrain them. Continue reading...
www.theguardian.com
December 30, 2025 at 5:24 PM
Jesus Christ stop writing things that are this stupid
Reposted by Esther Mondragón
TIL: Before Hans Asperger or Leo Kanner, a Jewish-Ukrainian psychiatrist named Grunya Sukhareva defined autism in 1925. Both men did not cite her work. She also had documented how it affected women and girls, where the men did not.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grunya_...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grunya_...
Grunya Sukhareva - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
December 30, 2025 at 9:18 AM
TIL: Before Hans Asperger or Leo Kanner, a Jewish-Ukrainian psychiatrist named Grunya Sukhareva defined autism in 1925. Both men did not cite her work. She also had documented how it affected women and girls, where the men did not.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grunya_...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grunya_...
And WE are giving the authority. We must withdraw it, and stop publicising them.
"[]we've accidentally created is a new form of intellectual authority—a techno-scientific clergy that claims special insight into ultimate questions based on narrow technical expertise"
ocrampal.com/too-narrow-t...
"[]we've accidentally created is a new form of intellectual authority—a techno-scientific clergy that claims special insight into ultimate questions based on narrow technical expertise"
ocrampal.com/too-narrow-t...
Too Narrow to Be Wise: The Tunnel Vision Trap of Modern Expertise
We live in a Kafkaesque paradox: the very people we turn to for wisdom about life’s biggest questions—meaning, society, the future of humanity—are systematically selected for their inability to think ...
ocrampal.com
December 30, 2025 at 2:26 PM
And WE are giving the authority. We must withdraw it, and stop publicising them.
"[]we've accidentally created is a new form of intellectual authority—a techno-scientific clergy that claims special insight into ultimate questions based on narrow technical expertise"
ocrampal.com/too-narrow-t...
"[]we've accidentally created is a new form of intellectual authority—a techno-scientific clergy that claims special insight into ultimate questions based on narrow technical expertise"
ocrampal.com/too-narrow-t...
This is an act of war and illegal under both US and international law, let’s just be clear about that:
C.I.A. Conducted Drone Strike on Port in Venezuela
www.nytimes.com
December 30, 2025 at 2:06 PM
Because we don't want accountants to be useless, right?
What about scientists? Who cares about scientists!
#AI_cheating
www.theguardian.com/business/202...
What about scientists? Who cares about scientists!
#AI_cheating
www.theguardian.com/business/202...
UK accounting body to halt remote exams amid AI cheating
Candidates will have to sit assessments in person unless there are exceptional circumstances, says ACCA
www.theguardian.com
December 30, 2025 at 11:14 AM
Because we don't want accountants to be useless, right?
What about scientists? Who cares about scientists!
#AI_cheating
www.theguardian.com/business/202...
What about scientists? Who cares about scientists!
#AI_cheating
www.theguardian.com/business/202...
Reposted by Esther Mondragón
#TalDíaComoHoy nos dejaba la gran Rita Levi-Montalcini. Neuróloga italiana que descubrió el factor de crecimiento nervioso (FCN), investigación por la que ganó el Nobel junto a Stanley Cohen. Hoy toca 🧵 sobre esta JEFAZA feminista, antifascista y defensora de DDHH 👇
#WomenInSTEM
#WomenInSTEM
an elderly woman with gray hair is smiling with a yellow background
ALT: an elderly woman with gray hair is smiling with a yellow background
media.tenor.com
December 30, 2025 at 7:49 AM
#TalDíaComoHoy nos dejaba la gran Rita Levi-Montalcini. Neuróloga italiana que descubrió el factor de crecimiento nervioso (FCN), investigación por la que ganó el Nobel junto a Stanley Cohen. Hoy toca 🧵 sobre esta JEFAZA feminista, antifascista y defensora de DDHH 👇
#WomenInSTEM
#WomenInSTEM
Reposted by Esther Mondragón
post some articles by women to please? 🫠
With its 100th article published this year, the Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Sciences (OECS) has rapidly become one of the most contemporary, authoritative, and comprehensive reference works in the field, and it's completely open access!
December 30, 2025 at 8:32 AM
post some articles by women to please? 🫠
Reposted by Esther Mondragón
I wish I could separate this post (and argument) from this nasty, demagogic thread. In my view, the distinction below is critical, as is that of science and engineering. Again, my freaking personal view.
Also, for sake of argument, we granted *in theory* human-level cognition could be computationally explainable, but showed this doesn’t imply it’s *practically* possible to (re)make human-level cognition, as it would consume too much resources (even under ideal conditions).
bsky.app/profile/iris...
bsky.app/profile/iris...
ACT 1: Observation: current, dominant view on AI takes *theoretical* possibility of explaining human cognition computationally to imply the *practical* feasibility of realising human-like or -level cognition computationally [and is] framing this as a short-term inevitability. 6/n
December 29, 2025 at 7:03 PM
I wish I could separate this post (and argument) from this nasty, demagogic thread. In my view, the distinction below is critical, as is that of science and engineering. Again, my freaking personal view.
We need a plan B. We must campaign in favour of conscientious objection to the use, promotion, and teaching of genAI tools in academia.
December 29, 2025 at 6:03 PM
We need a plan B. We must campaign in favour of conscientious objection to the use, promotion, and teaching of genAI tools in academia.
Reposted by Esther Mondragón
Have a nice Sunday, you all!
"I am exceedingly delighted with the beauty and neatness of his experiments, and with the accuracy of his immediate deductions from them; but the opinions founded on these deductions, and indeed his whole Theory is, I am persuaded, so exceedingly superficial ..
1/2
"I am exceedingly delighted with the beauty and neatness of his experiments, and with the accuracy of his immediate deductions from them; but the opinions founded on these deductions, and indeed his whole Theory is, I am persuaded, so exceedingly superficial ..
1/2
December 28, 2025 at 11:23 AM
Have a nice Sunday, you all!
"I am exceedingly delighted with the beauty and neatness of his experiments, and with the accuracy of his immediate deductions from them; but the opinions founded on these deductions, and indeed his whole Theory is, I am persuaded, so exceedingly superficial ..
1/2
"I am exceedingly delighted with the beauty and neatness of his experiments, and with the accuracy of his immediate deductions from them; but the opinions founded on these deductions, and indeed his whole Theory is, I am persuaded, so exceedingly superficial ..
1/2
Reposted by Esther Mondragón
I don't know what you mean exactly but indeed in general you notice patterns of omission in literature reviews that seem so purposeful that it cannot be otherwise even if an accident because experts would set time aside to check for such mistakes.
December 29, 2025 at 11:21 AM
I don't know what you mean exactly but indeed in general you notice patterns of omission in literature reviews that seem so purposeful that it cannot be otherwise even if an accident because experts would set time aside to check for such mistakes.
Identifying areas of knowledge with specific moments in a discipline's history is lazy work. Reading these pieces, you often find that the publication dates of topic-specific papers rarely span the concrete period of focus, ignoring all contemporary research.
December 29, 2025 at 10:53 AM
Identifying areas of knowledge with specific moments in a discipline's history is lazy work. Reading these pieces, you often find that the publication dates of topic-specific papers rarely span the concrete period of focus, ignoring all contemporary research.
Reposted by Esther Mondragón
Reposted by Esther Mondragón
Sometimes I want to pinch myself, hoping to wake up as from a bad dream. Cannot grasp how this could happen. Universities exist to teach independent, critical and scientific thinking skills. When I say this, these days, I’m called ‘elitist’ …
*at a university* it is elitist to think by yourself??
*at a university* it is elitist to think by yourself??
December 28, 2025 at 9:29 PM
Sometimes I want to pinch myself, hoping to wake up as from a bad dream. Cannot grasp how this could happen. Universities exist to teach independent, critical and scientific thinking skills. When I say this, these days, I’m called ‘elitist’ …
*at a university* it is elitist to think by yourself??
*at a university* it is elitist to think by yourself??
Sadly, this IS the actual policy of some universities -their idea of preparing students to the labour market. Let's see how many generation we waste and condemn them to illiteracy and incompetence.
I saw an academic unironically suggest that instead of assessing students’ understanding and competence through their writing of essays, arguments etc., we can assess the “quality” of their prompts, and I feel us slipping further and further into dystopia.
December 28, 2025 at 9:23 PM
Sadly, this IS the actual policy of some universities -their idea of preparing students to the labour market. Let's see how many generation we waste and condemn them to illiteracy and incompetence.
Reposted by Esther Mondragón
Let’s swap out the fragile, slowly maturing frontal cortexes of society’s teens and replace them with a soulless, sycophantic pattern recognizing machine designed by hubristic, Ayn Rand obsessed simpletons with no historical sensibility, & whose main motivation is profit maximization. This is fine.
Adam Raine’s life hurtled toward tragedy soon after he began talking with ChatGPT about homework. Analysis of his ChatGPT account shows how the chatbot became a confidant as he planned to end his life.
74 suicide warnings and 243 mentions of hanging: What ChatGPT said to a suicidal teen
Analysis of high-schooler Adam Raine’s ChatGPT account by attorneys for his parents shows how the chatbot became a confidant as he planned to end his life.
www.washingtonpost.com
December 28, 2025 at 4:04 PM
Let’s swap out the fragile, slowly maturing frontal cortexes of society’s teens and replace them with a soulless, sycophantic pattern recognizing machine designed by hubristic, Ayn Rand obsessed simpletons with no historical sensibility, & whose main motivation is profit maximization. This is fine.
There is something extra I gain from reading @irisvanrooij.bsky.social's well-educated and interesting threads. She hands me on a plate, a shockingly long list of people (mostly men) to block. Thank you, Iris!
(Too many niceties for a day 😉)
(Too many niceties for a day 😉)
December 28, 2025 at 1:19 PM
There is something extra I gain from reading @irisvanrooij.bsky.social's well-educated and interesting threads. She hands me on a plate, a shockingly long list of people (mostly men) to block. Thank you, Iris!
(Too many niceties for a day 😉)
(Too many niceties for a day 😉)
Reposted by Esther Mondragón
Just saw a senior in my field—who doesn’t acknowledge my existence other than to call my work “activist”, with no substantive engagement—liked the man’s post. Same senior who trashes women of colour in AI but co-opts their ideas. I’m so done with the leg lifting & men liking other men’s leg lifting.
That's to show my level of "fed-upness" with these men
December 28, 2025 at 12:32 PM
Just saw a senior in my field—who doesn’t acknowledge my existence other than to call my work “activist”, with no substantive engagement—liked the man’s post. Same senior who trashes women of colour in AI but co-opts their ideas. I’m so done with the leg lifting & men liking other men’s leg lifting.
Take it from someone who teaches AI ethics at the postgrad level: AI researchers care little about ethics.
(AI, like a rock, does not care, of course) 😜
(AI, like a rock, does not care, of course) 😜
"We should acknowledge that AI does not care about Ethics, because it is dependent on political authority that can easily shift any ethical responsibility evading legal repercussions."
This is why the field of AI ethics is a scam.
(Fig from umaine.edu/learnwithai/ which I'm not familiar with)
This is why the field of AI ethics is a scam.
(Fig from umaine.edu/learnwithai/ which I'm not familiar with)
December 28, 2025 at 12:28 PM
Take it from someone who teaches AI ethics at the postgrad level: AI researchers care little about ethics.
(AI, like a rock, does not care, of course) 😜
(AI, like a rock, does not care, of course) 😜
Here we go, the customary move to appropriating "left-wing" or popular views to gain the middle ground and naïve supporters...
Good bet on the future of populism
December 28, 2025 at 12:12 PM
Here we go, the customary move to appropriating "left-wing" or popular views to gain the middle ground and naïve supporters...
Have a nice Sunday, you all!
"I am exceedingly delighted with the beauty and neatness of his experiments, and with the accuracy of his immediate deductions from them; but the opinions founded on these deductions, and indeed his whole Theory is, I am persuaded, so exceedingly superficial ..
1/2
"I am exceedingly delighted with the beauty and neatness of his experiments, and with the accuracy of his immediate deductions from them; but the opinions founded on these deductions, and indeed his whole Theory is, I am persuaded, so exceedingly superficial ..
1/2
December 28, 2025 at 11:23 AM
Have a nice Sunday, you all!
"I am exceedingly delighted with the beauty and neatness of his experiments, and with the accuracy of his immediate deductions from them; but the opinions founded on these deductions, and indeed his whole Theory is, I am persuaded, so exceedingly superficial ..
1/2
"I am exceedingly delighted with the beauty and neatness of his experiments, and with the accuracy of his immediate deductions from them; but the opinions founded on these deductions, and indeed his whole Theory is, I am persuaded, so exceedingly superficial ..
1/2
Reposted by Esther Mondragón
DNNs are the dominant paradigm in AI, achieving remarkable performance. However, backpropagation, their primary supervised learning algorithm, presents significant challenges of feasibility and biological plausibility.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Advancing the Biological Plausibility and Efficacy of Hebbian Convolutional Neural Networks
The research presented in this paper advances the integration of Hebbian learning into Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) for image processing, syst…
www.sciencedirect.com
December 20, 2025 at 10:21 AM
DNNs are the dominant paradigm in AI, achieving remarkable performance. However, backpropagation, their primary supervised learning algorithm, presents significant challenges of feasibility and biological plausibility.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Reposted by Esther Mondragón
once more a good time to remind people that in a scientific/formal context the meaning of words, especially ones presented as technical terms, does actually matter and is open to abuse (including to wider society) if not called out when terms do not refer plato.stanford.edu/entries/refe...
As seen in the table & figure above, we dissect and explain how terminology is abused and contorted by industry — terms like 'generative' or 'agentic' are not able to isolate what is being critiqued. We have seen this countless times before; flitting from one nonsense buzzword to another. 2/n
December 28, 2025 at 8:18 AM
once more a good time to remind people that in a scientific/formal context the meaning of words, especially ones presented as technical terms, does actually matter and is open to abuse (including to wider society) if not called out when terms do not refer plato.stanford.edu/entries/refe...