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@aqperkins

(they/them). Ph.D. in Neuroscience. Views my own.

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20.11.2024
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Latest posts by aster @aqperkins

Our lab will be boycotting biotech vendors that have contracts with ICE (e.g., Fisher, Agilent), and telling them why. If you google “vendorname usa spending”, you can see purchases for specific depts including ICE on usaspending.gov. Please talk to your labs and email your vendors!

30.01.2026 16:06 👍 54 🔁 32 💬 1 📌 1

"there is little reason to doubt what the aim [of the massive investment in AI] is: to embed knowledge in machines—knowledge that previously belonged to the people working in these domains."

🧵

10.12.2025 18:20 👍 104 🔁 39 💬 6 📌 1

A week after the arXiv was forced to tighten down on submissions because of overwhelming volumes of AI slop, bioRxiv is throwing the doors wide open.

07.11.2025 13:59 👍 148 🔁 32 💬 5 📌 2

Undetstanding well your data is a key part of your analysis. It takes time. There are already too many papers out with poorly understood data that was run through a statistical model just to get a significant result. Adding llms to mix is just adding fuel to the fire.

29.10.2025 18:50 👍 32 🔁 7 💬 0 📌 0

That U.S. academics didn't collectively develop strong labor consciousness is really going to bite them in the ass as universities bend the knee to this administration. Politely worded letters to presidents and trustees are not going to count for much of anything.

23.10.2025 17:12 👍 402 🔁 76 💬 12 📌 5

we have the clarity to say it's obscene that a 21 year old named "big ballz" challenges government employees to prove their work isn't bullshit that a chatbot can do, but we apparently don't have the clarity to say the same when it's geoffrey hinton or bill gates talking about healthcare & education

12.08.2025 23:39 👍 101 🔁 16 💬 3 📌 1
Preview
Orbitofrontal cortex computes gaze-dependent comparisons between attributes rather than integrated values When choosing between options with multiple attributes, the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is thought to integrate across those attributes, aiding in value comparisons. This study shows in monkeys that OF...

Happy to have some good science news - our new study with @aqperkins.bsky.social is out in @plosbiology.org!

dx.plos.org/10.1371/jour...

07.08.2025 20:13 👍 64 🔁 20 💬 2 📌 0
Preview
Annie and Lakeesha struggle in school. AI teacher assistants treated them very differently. A Common Sense Media study found that prominent teacher assistants that use AI generated recommendations that appeared to be rooted in racial stereotypes based on students’ names. About a third of tea...

"Asked to generate intervention plans for struggling students, AI teacher assistants recommended more-punitive measures for hypothetical students with Black-coded names and more supportive approaches for students the platforms perceived as white" www.chalkbeat.org/2025/08/06/a...

06.08.2025 19:25 👍 544 🔁 314 💬 9 📌 67

and yet, we'll use behavioural and cognitive sciences language to mislead people into thinking AI models equate human cognition

07.07.2025 15:41 👍 82 🔁 22 💬 5 📌 0
Preview
Computer-vision research powers surveillance technology - Nature An analysis of research papers and citing patents indicates the extensive ties between computer-vision research and surveillance.

New paper hot off the press www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We analysed over 40,000 computer vision papers from CVPR (the longest standing CV conf) & associated patents tracing pathways from research to application. We found that 90% of papers & 86% of downstream patents power surveillance

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25.06.2025 17:29 👍 938 🔁 533 💬 32 📌 77

Teaching "A Critical Introduction to AI Images" this semester as a visiting prof at RIT's Humanities, Computing and Design department. Here's the reading list I have so far.

09.01.2025 20:36 👍 141 🔁 43 💬 10 📌 4

i genuinely try to be open about the usefulness and advantages of llms and try entertain ideas I deeply disagree with. and there’s a current trend that attempts to occupy a middle-ground position where people claims to find useful use cases while at the same time claiming to be critical

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01.01.2025 18:30 👍 352 🔁 120 💬 10 📌 22

In 2010, anti-copyright activist Aaron Swartz hanged himself after being prosecuted to the full extent of the law for making copyrighted academic publications freely available. Today, academic publishers are insisting those copyrights be lifted to feed the corporate AI slop machine.

18.12.2024 13:25 👍 3264 🔁 1658 💬 43 📌 50

Isoflurane is a beautiful name for a baby girl

06.12.2024 20:03 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0