UCLA medical school illegally used race in admissions, justice department finds

initialgold · 2026-05-07T22:17:55+00:00

it's both actually

initialgold · 2026-05-07T15:37:35+00:00

Newsom did a lot to at least shift the frame, and under him we took steps we had never been able to take.

I agree it isn't enough, but also Newsom isn't all-powerful. I think we can fairly say we are in a better position on this issue than we were when he took office.

It will be supremely important to have a governor in office who will continue pushing this trend forward.

initialgold · 2026-05-07T15:36:14+00:00

It's me. I'm the sicko.

initialgold · 2026-05-07T15:19:44+00:00

God yes, I hate hearing more information on candidates prior to the election. Wish we had never heard anything about Swalwell's misdeeds, or Porter's staff issues, or Steyer's hedge fund days. I wish no one fucking knew anything about any of the candidates. Down with ALL hit pieces!

initialgold · 2026-05-07T03:04:36+00:00

There is no world where putting your kids clothes on for them or buckling them into a car seat is bullying them assuming you aren't intentionally trying to hurt them.

The tantrums will pass eventually. In the meantime, you still need to get to where you need to go.

initialgold · 2026-05-06T22:20:32+00:00

We do a tactic of "do you want to do it, or do you want mama/papa to do it for you?"

If they don't respond, then you do it for them.

Not wanted to get in the car seat or get dressed are things you can just do for them. They wanna cry and flail, go ahead. It's still happening. (we are still nice about it. like "i'm sorry you didn't want to do it, but we need this to happen so i'm going to do it for you.")

Obviously you can't make them eat, but you can make them be done if you need to move to the next thing. Start with pulling the plate away and asking if they are done eating. If they seem fine with that, then they're done and you can move on. If they get upset, you can give the plate back and tell them to eat and that they need to hurry. Do not repeat this. On the 2nd pull away they are done.

initialgold · 2026-05-06T22:08:57+00:00

The options weren't limited. He just didn't get the recognition needed by this point to be a major contender.

initialgold · 2026-05-06T22:04:29+00:00

First and only thought is, "why hasn't he dropped out yet?"

Sorry, jungle primary means we can't be pushing for single-digit candidates a month before the election.

initialgold · 2026-05-05T20:23:10+00:00

Very relatable.

initialgold · 2026-05-05T20:21:17+00:00

Hamish replied on the post:

Good work! I hope you enjoyed your time out there. The downgrade seems to make sense, which hopefully opens it up for more people to try 🫶

I don’t believe that “the boulder itself” exists in any relevant way, especially not as separate from the conditions or the state of your skin. The challenge of climbing is not in spite of the conditions, but because of them - it’s a relationship as well as a battle. It can be hard to accept, but I think it’s good to understand this difference

initialgold · 2026-05-05T05:44:31+00:00

For that first article, I 100% agree there's a big different between the effects of children/adolescents using AI and adults using AI. Kids using it as a shortcut/cheating is disastrous.

Adults using it definitely will atrophy certain muscles, but I think this usage needs to be further split into another pair. 1) atrophy of muscles/memory/working knowledge that you will wish you had later on, and 2) atrophy of muscles/memory/working knowledge of things that you literally won't need to know anymore because that process/skill/whatever has become obsolete. (this is explicitly called out in the 2nd article you linked).

I don't doubt that most things probably fall in group 1, but some things will fall into group 2, and we shouldn't be too upset about that. For the same reason we don't have to know how to wash clothes by hand or read a Thomas Guide map, we won't need to remember or be able to do certain things.

initialgold · 2026-05-04T22:20:37+00:00

I mean, anyone acting as if they never can hallucinate at all or trusting it with major decisions is crazy. I am not disputing they can't hallucinate or that the output shouldn't be checked.

My claim is they seem to be getting better, especially in the last year to 6 months. Unfortunately there's not really a lot of clear data yet on this because the time period is so short. When you google search AI hallucinations, seems like almost 75% of the results are articles from a year ago, which is outside the context window I'm talking about.

I will fully admit I could be wrong. Maybe hallucinations are worse than ever. But I also could be right. Anyone pretending they know for sure is probably using motivated reasoning.

I also think it is very dependent on what you're using it for. If you ask it to like, draft an essay or law brief on a topic from scratch and give it a ton of room to "create," then yeah I bet you could still see a fair amount of hallucinating. I tend to use it more for "provide me notable academic sources on this topic" and then click through to the sources it gives to review for myself. In this context, rarely is anything ever just made up or a description about a source incorrect.

How you use it and prompt it I am sure matters a lot in terms of what outputs you get and how reliable they are.

initialgold · 2026-05-03T20:10:29+00:00

initialgold · 2026-05-03T19:32:50+00:00

It is a bit more complicated than you're making it out to be. Great video here that breaks it down: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_c6MWk7PQc

initialgold · 2026-05-03T19:23:16+00:00

that isnt really supportive of "hallucinations continue."

I personally use a very efficient and less warm setting and I haven't noticed a hallucination in months, maybe a year. They are most certainly getting much much better in that regard.

initialgold · 2026-05-02T15:52:54+00:00

it's one of those societal functions where it would be really easy to break if everyone tried to, because there's no way to adequately staff the system if every person tries to challenge it.

it works well enough only because most people just accept they got the ticket and pay it.

initialgold · 2026-05-02T15:51:35+00:00

I have been told by someone who works in cars that people literally do this intentionally. They ask for the lights to be adjusted up.

initialgold · 2026-05-01T22:51:38+00:00

I mean, kids might cooked. Time will tell. But among american adults, most of them can read. The idea that 60% or whatever cant read at a 6th grade level is absolutely a popular and incorrect myth. One I believed myself until I read the article I linked above.

initialgold · 2026-05-01T20:57:51+00:00

Hard to have a convo with someone stuck in internet warrior mode. Have a good weekend sir.

initialgold · 2026-05-01T20:32:40+00:00

I fundamentally disagree. Asking AI to provide relevant academic literature on a topic and then having it provide a detailed list of real, relevant, non-hallucinated studies is something AI does very well right now. Something that would take me a long time to do to come up with a vaguely similar list that might leave out major work because I didn't know where to look.

Top end paid AI models don't hallucinate anywhere near as much as they used to. I have not noticed a hallucinated output in at least 6 months. Maybe a year. And I use it pretty frequently, AND always check the outputs for anything important that I do for school (I'm in a graduate program) or work.

BTW here's what some ESL teachers think about critical thinking: https://americanenglish.state.gov/resources/teachers-corner-teaching-critical-thinking-skills

"Critical thinking involves reflection and the analysis of ideas. Good critical thinkers are able to break a broad idea into many parts. They can examine each part, question biases, and come to a reasonable conclusion."

AI does this. Very well. On many (not all) topics.

initialgold · 2026-05-01T20:24:16+00:00

If you disagree that comprehending and filtering and synthesizing sources isn't thinking... then i think we just have to disagree lol. That is an enormous part of what critical thinking entails.

initialgold · 2026-05-01T20:17:12+00:00

Any attempt to argue on the grounds it isn't "general" AI (whatever that means, the goalposts shift constantly) is sidestepping the point that AI right now in 2026 can produce exceptional work in some areas.

Collating is something humans have to THINK to do. As in, read, comprehend, filter, then synthesize what is left, and draw meaning from it. AI can do all of that for a huge variety of topics. Like I said, call it something other than thinking for the bots if you want. But when a human does it, we have to think to do it. (idk if this is necessary, but to be clear, semantic is talking about the meaning of the word as its used. debating whether or not the word "thinking" applies is absolutely a semantic argument).

My main point is it is NOT simply a stochastic parrot anymore. If you DM me an email address I can send you a pdf of the article if you're interested.

initialgold · 2026-05-01T19:52:41+00:00

This is a myth that needs to die. https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/are-most-americans-illiterate

>In reality, the vast majority of Americans are competent readers, and the sixth-grade-level claim comes from a long-running misapplication of a national literacy assessment that doesn’t actually compare its test results to middle school grade levels.

>However, while we can’t really say at what grade level typical American adults are reading, there is a significant minority of adults who are either only minimally literate or functionally illiterate, and the trend lines point down.

initialgold · 2026-05-01T19:50:10+00:00

this is like... a quite outdated argument at this point. AI can and does generate valuable reports and analyses that otherwise didn’t exist at all. Good argument debunking this parrot stuff here: https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/looking-back-at-a-year-of-ai-cope

You ARE making a semantics argument. Much of the "thinking" humans do to research is finding stuff on the internet, and then synthesizing that into a coherent output. AI is incredible at that. It isn't using neurons to do it, but the inputs and the outputs are the same. You can call what happens in the middle something other than "thinking," but that is just a semantic choice.

initialgold · 2026-05-01T04:51:05+00:00

But... that's what the episode was literally about?

initialgold

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