> “An Interdisciplinary Synthesis Across Economics, Psychology, Biology, Philosophy, Game Theory, and Spiritual Tradition.”
If one were inclined, they could shorten the title to "AI Synthesis Across Economics, Psychology, Biology, Philosophy, Game Theory, and Spiritual Tradition." Maybe that's an Easter egg.
AI submissions, soon AI reviewers, and shortly after only AI readers.
The guy's name is "nosloP" spelled backwards. Maybe spelled normally it's supposed to signify the opposite.
That the name in no slop backwards is too wild to be real, but it's a real person.
I mean it's everywhere now. I complained already at my workplace multiple times, we get huge Claude generated documents, which people then ask Claude to summarize. I don't mind some of it in principle but people are too lazy now to input all the details so you get a bunch of fantasies that were explicitly ruled out already. It's tiring.
Why would someone ruin their academic credentials and reputation (at a reputable university) like this? Maybe there was nothing to begin with? Otherwise I can't understand this.
Not surprising. Many academics held in high-esteem in these behavioral offshoots are nothing more than frauds to begin with. Almost every X-studies paper is equally fluff these days (see the recent frontpage CHI post) - at least these have some semblance of theory given their equations, though are still largely garbage.
More and more evidence is surfacing that suggests AI addiction is real. It may be as simple as that Nicholas Polson has developed a severe case of AI addiction.
I'm not an academic, and I understand by osmosis that organized science has many problems related to publishing and connected mechanisms, but I have to say there's been quite a few moments in my life and career when I found the inspiration or solution I needed in a good paper.
For condensed knowledge on highly specific topics (i.e. more specific than is economical in book form) I often know nothing better.
Most recently I did sort of a self-taught crash course in ground-penetrating radar and applications for an archeological endeavour I write software for, and a number of papers have been really invaluable.
I think one of the end-game components for AI is to be able to read all the literature and generate a reliable list of which ones are not correct and a convincing reason why.
> generate a reliable list of which ones are not correct and a convincing reason why
That is not realistic, but I suppose where things are heading is that you have some indicator of the strength of evidence -- see Fig. 13 in the following insightful take:
Though, "strength" should probably be "reliability" and "validity", and I suppose those indicators are more for picking signals from the noise; i.e., what is even worth clicking and reading.
Alan Sokal style hoax is what comes to mind first, of course. Wouldn't be the first computer-generated hoax (see SCIgen). However see the P.P.P.P.S. in the article, his co-author denies that in the comments.
Writing is a technology that served us well for over 5000 years, but now times are a changing. Written media will cease to provide any value in the next decade i think. In person chats/Public speaking will be revered again.
One of the most memorable tech talks I ever attended was by a junior engineer who had just come back to the office from a major conference. Our workplace had an unusually oral culture -- decisions were made in meetings, and not always written down; there wasn't much in the way of bug tracking or work planning at the time; people generally preferred to talk through problems instead of working them out in email, chat, or forum posting.
He was supposed to present a topic he learned about at the conference. Instead, he gave a cheeky talk which introduced the very concept of written language to the audience, as if we had never heard of it. Starting from the history of writing on tablets and so on, and ending in practical advice like, "when words are written down, you don't have to remember what they were exactly; you can just read the words again." I loved the chutzpah and could barely hold myself from chortling out loudly at some of his slides.
I honestly think it's more likely that younger generations grow up seeing the ill effects of being AI-pilled for communication/writing, deciding by way of AI literacy that they want none of that, and develop better ideas on responsible use.
I really don't like AI for document writing as a whole, especially within organizations. Code can be a form of communication, but for the most part it's an engineered thing that can be re-run, tested, verified and so on. But documents drive decision-making, and decision making is often one-time. Decisions should be studied and understood, and depriving authors of much of both is not having any good effects.
I’m only half joking that someone will come up with a LLM text to speech synthesizer that pauses and plays depending on if your mouth is closed/jaw is moving. Analysizes your voice to synthesize as well.
Squatting seems like the most plausible explanation. Explaining an idea to your friend at a bar doesn't make it "yours", but publishing a manuscript does.
I tried writing a simple 20 page paper with the latest Claude model over several weeks and that thing got ripped apart by legal and data science (for good reason), not going to try that again. And there I had all the numbers and analyses down and verified, just the writing itself by Claude was subpar.
Can’t imagine the utter garbage that Claude will produce when you give it a simple prompt and let it write thousand of pages.
Kind of makes me wonder about all that AGI talk if these models can’t even the work of a good PhD or postdoctoral student.
Another possible answer to the "What's in it for him?" question:
The Everest effect.
George Mallory: "The first question you will ask, and the one I have to answer is, 'What's the point of climbing Mount Everest?' And my answer should be, 'It's no use.' There is not the slightest prospect of any gain. Oh, maybe we can learn a little about the behavior of the human body at height, and medicine can change our observations for aviation purposes. But nothing else could come of it. We will not bring back a little gold or silver or gemstones or coal or iron. We will not find soil or earth that we can grow crops that produce food. There is no point. So if you can't understand that there's something in humans that responds to the challenges of this mountain and goes to meet those challenges, then the struggle that ensues is a struggle from life itself upwards, and you won't see why we're leaving. What we get from this adventure is just joy. We don't live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to enjoy life. That is the meaning of life and the purpose of living."
Why generate all of these papers? Because, for the first time, he can.
Doesn't have to be for the money or fame or potential for speaking engagements. It could simply be that he wants to test the limits of what's possible.
If one were inclined, they could shorten the title to "AI Synthesis Across Economics, Psychology, Biology, Philosophy, Game Theory, and Spiritual Tradition." Maybe that's an Easter egg.
AI submissions, soon AI reviewers, and shortly after only AI readers.
The guy's name is "nosloP" spelled backwards. Maybe spelled normally it's supposed to signify the opposite.
Most insightful comment
I mean it's everywhere now. I complained already at my workplace multiple times, we get huge Claude generated documents, which people then ask Claude to summarize. I don't mind some of it in principle but people are too lazy now to input all the details so you get a bunch of fantasies that were explicitly ruled out already. It's tiring.
Polson is just pushing the knob to 11 because it's louder.
We've been in the dark ages of science for so many decades...
For condensed knowledge on highly specific topics (i.e. more specific than is economical in book form) I often know nothing better.
Most recently I did sort of a self-taught crash course in ground-penetrating radar and applications for an archeological endeavour I write software for, and a number of papers have been really invaluable.
That is not realistic, but I suppose where things are heading is that you have some indicator of the strength of evidence -- see Fig. 13 in the following insightful take:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49407226
Though, "strength" should probably be "reliability" and "validity", and I suppose those indicators are more for picking signals from the noise; i.e., what is even worth clicking and reading.
He was supposed to present a topic he learned about at the conference. Instead, he gave a cheeky talk which introduced the very concept of written language to the audience, as if we had never heard of it. Starting from the history of writing on tablets and so on, and ending in practical advice like, "when words are written down, you don't have to remember what they were exactly; you can just read the words again." I loved the chutzpah and could barely hold myself from chortling out loudly at some of his slides.
I really don't like AI for document writing as a whole, especially within organizations. Code can be a form of communication, but for the most part it's an engineered thing that can be re-run, tested, verified and so on. But documents drive decision-making, and decision making is often one-time. Decisions should be studied and understood, and depriving authors of much of both is not having any good effects.
Perhaps this will help bring more scrutiny to the metric of publishing quantity not being as valuable as it has been treated.
0. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=170...
1. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=228...
2. https://www.chicagobooth.edu/faculty/directory/p/nicholas-po...
Can’t imagine the utter garbage that Claude will produce when you give it a simple prompt and let it write thousand of pages.
Kind of makes me wonder about all that AGI talk if these models can’t even the work of a good PhD or postdoctoral student.
The Everest effect.
George Mallory: "The first question you will ask, and the one I have to answer is, 'What's the point of climbing Mount Everest?' And my answer should be, 'It's no use.' There is not the slightest prospect of any gain. Oh, maybe we can learn a little about the behavior of the human body at height, and medicine can change our observations for aviation purposes. But nothing else could come of it. We will not bring back a little gold or silver or gemstones or coal or iron. We will not find soil or earth that we can grow crops that produce food. There is no point. So if you can't understand that there's something in humans that responds to the challenges of this mountain and goes to meet those challenges, then the struggle that ensues is a struggle from life itself upwards, and you won't see why we're leaving. What we get from this adventure is just joy. We don't live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to enjoy life. That is the meaning of life and the purpose of living."
Why generate all of these papers? Because, for the first time, he can.
Doesn't have to be for the money or fame or potential for speaking engagements. It could simply be that he wants to test the limits of what's possible.
it was right in front of you :)
Sin: A Slop Colon!