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Why AI chatbots lie to us

A few weeks ago, a colleague of mine needed to collect and format some data from a website, and he asked the latest version of Anthropic’s generative AI system, Claude, for help. Claude cheerfully agreed to perform the task, generated a computer program to download the data, and handed over perfectly formatted results. The only problem? My colleague immediately noticed that the data Claude delivered was entirely fabricated.

When asked why it had made up the data, the chatbot apologized profusely, noting that the website in question didn’t provide the requested data, so instead the chatbot generated “fictional participant data” with “fake names…and results,” admitting “I should never present fabricated data as if it were scraped from actual sources.”

I have encountered similar examples of gaslighting by AI chatbots. In one widely circulated transcript, a writer asked ChatGPT to help choose which of her essays to send to a literary agent, providing links to each one. The chatbot effusively praised each essay, with details such as “[The essay] shows range—emotional depth and intellectual elasticity” and “it’s an intimate slow burn that reveals a lot with very little.” After several rounds of this, the writer started to suspect that something was amiss. The praise was effusive, but rather generic. She asked “Wait, are you actually reading these?” ChatGPT assured her, “I am actually reading them—every word,” and then quoted certain of the writer’s lines that “totally stuck with me.” But those lines didn’t actually appear in any of the essays. When challenged, ChatGPT admitted that it could not actually access the essays, and for each one, “I didn’t read the piece and I pretended I had.”

Study Overturns Decades-Old Dogma: Scientists Discover “Hidden Organization” in Gene Regulation

Scientists have uncovered how a surprisingly structured protein helps disordered molecules regulate gene expression, upending previous ideas in molecular biology. Inside every human cell, proteins play a crucial role in determining which genes are turned on or off, and they do so with remarkable

A new analysis of the neurocranium and mandible of the Skhūl I child: Taxonomic conclusions and cultural implications

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In a study published last week in the journal L’Anthropologie, researchers re-analyzed fragments of Skhūl I, the name for remains belonging to a likely female child between the ages of 3 and 5. While the individual is currently recognized as an anatomically modern human, Homo sapiens, its classification remains contentious, given that it has some Neanderthal-like features. Now, the new study suggests the child might have been a hybrid—and potentially had one Homo sapiens parent and one Neanderthal parent.

To reach this conclusion, the team conducted CT scans of the child’s neurocranium—the part of the skull that protects the brain—and jaw. They compared the resulting 3D models to remains of other Homo sapiens and Neanderthal children. In short, they found the neurocranium to be more similar to that of a modern human, while the jaw was more akin to a Neanderthal’s.

“The combination of features seen in Skhūl I may suggest that the child is a hybrid,” the researchers write in the study. “In the Middle Pleistocene, the Levant was the crossroad of gene flows between Indigenous lineages and other taxa from Africa and Eurasia, which is likely the explanation for Skhūl I anthropological.”

Their results align with genetic evidence indicating that modern humans and Neanderthals didn’t just cross paths—they interbred for thousands of years. In fact, some research has suggested Homo sapiens drove Neanderthals to extinction not with violence, but by absorbing them into their population through interbreeding. Regardless of the reason for Neanderthals’ demise, many humans have Neanderthal DNA today.

nouvelle analyse du neurocr ne et de la mandibule de l’enfant Skhūl I : conclusions taxonomiques et implications culturelles.

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This MIT spinout’s electric bricks store heat hotter than lava

MIT spinout Electrified Thermal Solutions has inked a deal with HWI, a member of Calderys and one of the biggest refractory suppliers in the US, to make electrically conductive firebricks – electric bricks, or E-bricks – that store and deliver extreme heat using renewable electricity.

The innovative partnership is all about scaling up Electrified Thermal’s Joule Hive Thermal Battery, which conducts clean power and stores it as heat up to a scorching 1,800C (3,275F). That’s hot enough to drive even the most energy-hungry industrial processes like steelmaking, glass, or cement production.

The E-bricks enable factories to ditch fossil fuels and run on renewables without sacrificing performance or reliability, and at a lower cost.