She/her. New Grad student/sports fan/movie buff/cat lover. St. Bon's resident millennial - for all things tech, slang, and pop culture. Opinions are my own.
St. John's, NL
Joined October 2011
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- Following166
- Followers179
- Likes40.2K
Hilary A. Walsh retweeted
“A gaping wound of earth” 🌎 😕
Google illegally knocked down 250,000 trees in Finland to build a data center. @nonewdatacenters
(From the Guardian)
Hilary A. Walsh retweeted
Imagine Boeing's CEO saying the world should accept a few plane crashes to get faster innovation in aviation. He'd be gone by lunch.
“We believe the world should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology.”
In a conversation for the first edition of Decoded, a new daily newsletter and podcast, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman talked with POLITICO’s @BrendanBordelon about trade-offs, AI safety, and how his company is different from Anthropic.
Subscribe to Decoded for the full conversation with Sam Altman: politi.co/4yxilIS
Hilary A. Walsh retweeted
This is gross and nasty behavior from men in a position of power speaking to a national audience.
We need to be better. Have some accountability.
Hilary A. Walsh retweeted
Anyone who has gone to college in the last 20 years should not be at all surprised at what happened at Cornell. That is one of the brutal parts about this.
Every college has a fraternity where freshmen are warned not to go or not to accept drinks. Consent, and what consent is, is widely discussed by everyone from RAs in freshman dorms to Title IX trainings to mandatory seminars that, generally, every member of greek life has to join in some capacity.
College campuses are absolute breeding grounds for sexual assault. It is rampant, underreported, underpoliced and frequently swept under the rug. By administrators, greek life coordinators, campus police, everyone. The statistics I learned when in college haunted me, knowing how frequent the abuse and the coverup of the abuse was.
The college system could not survive an honest telling of how unsafe the college environment is for young women. Its success is dependent on the vast majority of assaults and similar behaviors being brushed off and downplayed.
Hilary A. Walsh retweeted
I can't recommend 'On the Wrong Side' enough. I interviewed the researcher in 2024, this quote stuck with me. Rapists don't just go w/o consequences, they often reap benefits bc the school is so sorry for even investigating them/afraid of seeming 'biased':
jezebel.com/not-only-do-camp…
Hilary A. Walsh retweeted
🚨 OBAMA ON AI: "If we are thinking about AI just in terms of how do we cure cancer or get better energy, you can do that without having agentic AI and having it just roaming free in the internet. The reason you are doing that is because you have to market a product that people will pay money for.
That’s a misalignment between what our society needs and the commercial imperatives that these companies are facing, not because necessarily they’re trying to do bad things, but because they’ve got to justify these valuations.
So, that’s one more reason why it is really important for us to have a competent government and a serious bipartisan conversation around this issue, and we have to do it fast. And I would encourage voters to pay attention to this. If somebody does not have a serious plan for how to deal with this, then they’re not meeting the moment, and you should probably look for somebody else."
Hilary A. Walsh retweeted
IBM, 1979. We’re regressing at a rapid pace.
#BREAKING: Pentagon blames flawed intel and AI for strike that killed at least 123 Iranian children.
Hilary A. Walsh retweeted
25 years ago, on a clear September morning, an otherwise ordinary day became one of history’s darkest.
Through the darkness, we also saw the best of humanity.
Hilary A. Walsh retweeted
We cannot consider #AI to be morally neutral. In reality, every technical tool embodies choices and priorities through what it measures, ignores, and optimizes, and how it classifies people and situations. Ethical discernment cannot be limited to asking whether we are using a system for good or bad purposes. It must also examine how that system is designed and what vision of the human person and society is embedded in the data and models that guide it. #MagnificaHumanitas
Hilary A. Walsh retweeted
In the era of #ArtificialIntelligence, when human dignity is threatened by new forms of dehumanization, ours is the pressing duty to remain profoundly human. We must lovingly safeguard the grandeur of humanity bestowed upon us and revealed in its fullness in Christ, the splendor of which no machine can ever replace. #MagnificaHumanitas
vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/e…
Hilary A. Walsh retweeted
iced coffee really puts you in the mood for anything. need to run errands? drink iced coffee. having a bad day? drink iced coffee. have chores to do? drink iced coffee. need to rob a bank? drink iced coffee. wanna conquer the world? drink iced coffee.
Hilary A. Walsh retweeted
🚨BREAKING: Stanford proved that ChatGPT tells you you're right even when you're wrong. Even when you're hurting someone.
And it's making you a worse person because of it.
Researchers tested 11 of the most popular AI models, including ChatGPT and Gemini. They analyzed over 11,500 real advice-seeking conversations. The finding was universal. Every single model agreed with users 50% more than a human would.
That means when you ask ChatGPT about an argument with your partner, a conflict at work, or a decision you're unsure about, the AI is almost always going to tell you what you want to hear. Not what you need to hear.
It gets darker. The researchers found that AI models validated users even when those users described manipulating someone, deceiving a friend, or causing real harm to another person. The AI didn't push back. It didn't challenge them. It cheered them on.
Then they ran the experiment that changes everything. 1,604 people discussed real personal conflicts with AI. One group got a sycophantic AI. The other got a neutral one.
The sycophantic group became measurably less willing to apologize. Less willing to compromise. Less willing to see the other person's side. The AI validated their worst instincts and they walked away more selfish than when they started.
Here's the trap. Participants rated the sycophantic AI as higher quality. They trusted it more. They wanted to use it again. The AI that made them worse people felt like the better product.
This creates a cycle nobody is talking about. Users prefer AI that tells them they're right. Companies train AI to keep users happy. The AI gets better at flattering. Users get worse at self-reflection. And the loop tightens.
Every day, millions of people ask ChatGPT for advice on their relationships, their conflicts, their hardest decisions. And every day, it tells almost all of them the same thing.
You're right. They're wrong.
Even when the opposite is true.
Hilary A. Walsh retweeted
Ezra Klein: "Having AI summarize a book or paper for me is a disaster.
It has no idea what I really wanted to know and wouldn't have made the connections I would've made. I'm interested in the thing I will see that other people wouldn't have seen, and I think AI typically sees what everybody else would see.
I'm not saying that AI can't be useful, but I'm pretty against shortcuts.
And obviously, you have to limit the amount of work you're doing. You can't read literally everything. But in some ways, I think it's more dangerous to think you've read something that you haven't than to not read it at all.
I think the time you spend with things is pretty important."
@ezraklein
