Podcast Episode · Heliox: Where Evidence Meets Empathy đšđŠâŹ · April 1 · 45m
Category: humor
Why I Quit ChatGPT and Switched to Claude
âAI will most likely lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime there will be great companies created.â â Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO
I used to think that was dark humor.
This week, I stopped laughing â and cancelled my ChatGPT subscription.
Not because of the technology. Because of the values.
On February 27, Anthropic refused to give the Pentagon unrestricted access to its AI for mass surveillance and autonomous killer weapons. Within hours, OpenAIâs Sam Altman swooped in and took the deal.
One company held the line. The other sprinted to cross it.
AI helps explain how covert attention works and uncovers new neuron types
Shifting focus on a visual scene without moving our eyesâthink driving, or reading a room for the reaction to your jokeâis a behavior known as covert attention. We do it all the time, but little is known about its neurophysiological foundation.
Now, using convolutional neural networks (CNNs), UC Santa Barbara researchers Sudhanshu Srivastava, Miguel Eckstein and William Wang have uncovered the underpinnings of covert attention, and in the process, have found new, emergent neuron types, which they confirmed in real life using data from mouse brain studies.
âThis is a clear case of AI advancing neuroscience, cognitive sciences and psychology,â said Srivastava, a former graduate student in the lab of Eckstein, now a postdoctoral researcher at UC San Diego.
Why the long interface? AI systems donât âgetâ the joke, research reveals
Powerful artificial intelligence (AI) systems, like ChatGPT and Gemini, simulate understanding of comedy wordplay, but never really âget the joke,â a new study suggests.
Researchers wanted to find out whether large language models (LLMs) can understand punsâalso known as paronomasiaâwordplay that relies on double meanings or sound-alike words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect.
While earlier studies suggest LLMs could process this type of humor in a similar way to humans, the team from Cardiff University and Caâ Foscari University of Venice found AI systems mostly memorize familiar joke structures rather than actually understand them.
Bridging Retinal and Cerebral Neurodegeneration: A Focus on Crosslinks between AlzheimerâPerusiniâs Disease and Retinal Dystrophies
In the early stages of AlzheimerâPerusiniâs disease (AD), individuals often experience vision-related issues such as color vision impairment, reduced contrast sensitivity, and visual acuity problems. As the disease progresses, there is a connection with glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration (AMD) leading to retinal cell death. The retinaâs involvement suggests a link with the hippocampus, where most AD forms start. A thinning of the retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) due to the loss of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) is seen as a potential AD diagnostic marker using electroretinography (ERG) and optical coherence tomography (OCT). Amyloid beta fragments (AÎČ), found in the eyeâs vitreous and aqueous humor, are also present in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and accumulate in the retina. AÎČ is known to cause tau hyperphosphorylation, leading to its buildup in various retinal layers.
Brains and stock markets follow the same rules in crisis, study finds
What do brains and the stock market have in common? While this might sound like a set-up for a joke, new research from U-M researchers reveals that the behaviors of brains and economies during crises can be explained using observations common in the realm of physics. Their work is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
UnCheol Lee, Ph.D. of the U-M Department of Anesthesiology and his collaborative team came up with the idea upon observing that some patients under anesthesia recover faster than others.
âAnesthetic drugs can be considered as introducing a controlled crisis in the brain, interrupting the brainâs network to induce unconsciousness,â explained Lee.
Creepy Science Thatâs Changing the World in Surprising Ways
From mini-brains and spider-inspired gloves to edible wolf apple coatings and microplastic-filled retinas, scientists are transforming creepy concepts into life-improving innovations. Lab-grown brain organoids could replace animal testing, web-slinging gloves can spin instant wound dressings, and wolf apple starch may keep veggies fresh longer. Meanwhile, the discovery of microplastics in human eyes reveals a haunting truth about our environmentâs reach inside us.
Lab-Grown âMini-Brainsâ Offer New Insight into the Human Mind
Scientists writing in ACS Sensors have successfully grown a small brain organoid in a petri dish, creating a powerful new tool for studying how nerve cells interact without the use of animal testing. Over two years, human nerve cells multiplied and organized themselves into a three-dimensional âmini-brainâ that displayed electrical activity similar to real brain tissue. Researchers say this breakthrough could help scientists better understand how the human brain communicates and functionsâor, as they joke, provide âa lab-grown lunch option for zombies.â
The Door That Opens to Another Universe: The True Science Behind SCP-4357 âSlimelordâ
What if a simple apartment door in Boston opened into another universe?
SCP-4357, also known as âSlimelord,â is one of the strangest and most human anomalies ever recorded â a hyperspatial discontinuity leading to a world of intelligent slug-like beings with philosophy, humor, and heartbreak.
In this speculative science essay, we explore what SCP-4357 means for physics, biology, and the idea of consciousness itself. How could life evolve intelligence in a sulfur-rich world? Why do these beings mirror human culture so closely? And what happens when curiosity crosses the line into exploitation?
Join us as we break down the science, ethics, and wonder behind one of the SCP Foundationâs most thought-provoking entries.
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đ Because somewhere out there, even the slugs have opinions on Kant.
âPlaying to your strengthsâ improves well-being in adult ADHD, new research shows
Adults with ADHD who recognize and regularly use their personal strengths report better well-being, improved quality of life and fewer mental health difficulties, according to a new international study.
During Octoberâs ADHD Awareness Month, which this year focuses on âthe many faces of ADHD,â researchers from the University of Bath, Kingâs College London, and Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands have delivered the first large-scale study to quantify psychological strengths in ADHD.
The study, published in Psychological Medicine, compared 200 adults with ADHD and 200 adults without ADHD on how much they identified with 25 positive traitsâincluding creativity, humor, spontaneity and hyperfocusâdefined by researchers as âthings [they] do well or best.â
