Sophie Bushwick
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sophiebushwick.bsky.social
Sophie Bushwick
@sophiebushwick.bsky.social
4.4K followers 1.5K following 350 posts
Science & technology journalist, editor, podcast & video host, book reader
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sophiebushwick.bsky.social
This is it! Second place in the 2025 Nikon Small World microphotography contest went to a photo showing green sphere-shaped colonies of Volvox algae floating in a drop of water (credit: Dr. Jan Rosenboom / Nikon Small World). Looks like a gorgeous blob-shaped alien to me
Second place winner in the 2025 Nikon Small World microphotography contest. Green spheres of colonial algae (Volvox) suspended in a drop of water. Credit: Dr. Jan Rosenboom / Nikon Small World
October 16, 2025 at 3:29 PM
sophiebushwick.bsky.social
Great
Screenshot of the following text, with a highlight on "Researchers have also found that in many cases, the steps displayed by a bot are unrelated to the answer it eventually delivers.": Another issue is that reasoning models are designed to spend time “thinking” through complex problems before settling on an answer. As they try to tackle a problem step by step, they run the risk of hallucinating at each step. The errors can compound as they spend more time thinking. The latest bots reveal each step to users, which means the users may see each error, too. Researchers have also found that in many cases, the steps displayed by a bot are unrelated to the answer it eventually delivers. “What the system says it is thinking is not necessarily what it is thinking,” said Aryo Pradipta Gema, an A.I. researcher at the University of Edinburgh and a fellow at Anthropic.
May 5, 2025 at 3:34 PM
sophiebushwick.bsky.social
"Do you think a depressed person could make this?" image edited to be "Do you think a bad creative writer could make this?", replacing the claymation doll with a long chunk of bad AI-generated "creative writing"
March 12, 2025 at 3:52 PM
sophiebushwick.bsky.social
Just started @garthnix.bsky.social 's Left-Handed Booksellers series, and I really want to know more about Merlin's cricket bag. Assuming the "PDBW" stands for Peter Death Bredon Wimsey, did Merlin get the bag monogrammed because he's a Sayers fan? Or did he acquire it from someone else (who?!)
Photo of a page from The Left-Handed Booksellers of London. The text reads: Merlin produced a vintage leather cricket bag adorned with the cryptic gold monogram "PDBW," unstrapped it, and opened it up to receive the swords, replacing them in their scabbards before he put them carefully inside.
December 11, 2024 at 11:28 PM
sophiebushwick.bsky.social
Nvidia's Blackwell AI 'superchip' is the most powerful yet www.newscientist.com/article/2422... by @jeremyhsu.bsky.social
QUOTE FROM PIECE: The company hasn’t yet revealed the cost of the Blackwell GPUs, but the price tag is likely to reach eye-watering levels, given that the Hopper GPUs already cost between $20,000 and $40,000 each. This focus on developing more powerful and expensive chips means they “will only be accessible to a select few organisations and countries”, says Sasha Luccioni at Hugging Face, a company that develops tools for sharing AI code and datasets. “Apart from the environmental impacts of this already very energy-intensive tech, this is truly a Marie Antoinette, ‘let them eat cake’ moment for the AI community,” she says.
March 19, 2024 at 1:42 PM
sophiebushwick.bsky.social
Oh no...I'm dead
A photo from the TV show Deadloch showing the characters Dulcie, Eddie, Sven, and Abby
January 12, 2024 at 9:43 PM
sophiebushwick.bsky.social
TIL "Leonardo" was an AI-enabled social robot created in 2002, and this photo of it made me laugh so hard I cried. Thanks Leonardo--and please don't eat after midnight https://robotsguide.com/robots/leonardo
Small social robot called Leonardo, which looks like a cross between a Mogwai from the movie Gremlins, a Furby toy, and a bobcat
August 15, 2023 at 4:37 PM
sophiebushwick.bsky.social
Where Are the Worst Bridges in the U.S.? https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/where-are-the-worst-bridges-in-the-u-s/
June 23, 2023 at 2:30 PM
sophiebushwick.bsky.social
Pretty much!
May 24, 2023 at 9:39 PM