Sending positive thoughts your way.

I do buy the notion that "writing is thinking," with corollary that making that kid's birthday art the old way is exercising creative muscles.

Ah, if your test is just a test of whether the task is brainless then I'm (more or less) with you. I had read a normative layer into the rule: if folks are using it > it's brainless > (and therefore it's OK to use in this way).

Creative work is getting displaced by AI, and for me that's not OK

is making visual art or music a brainless administrative exercise? I see where you're going with the test, but there's more to it...

the lack-of-caring just sucks

What % of your colleagues are using them for letters?

I don't use LLMs to write letters (or anything else really). I occasionally task them with looking for typos and awkward sentences (generally with positive results).

Go Cook lab! Wish I had been there this year.

no, definitely an ongoing project and collaboration with Barry Condron. Very cool behavior. For me by far the most convincing that Drosophila does something actually social other than mating.

Alas no, but my student did, and presented on quantifying collective digging in fly larvae. Did your whole lab go?

awesome!

I was there at that dinner. I remember that several in our cohort bought copies of The Double Helix for him to sign beforehand and everyone just seemed disgusted at the end.