Andrew Jackson
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yodacomplex.bsky.social
Andrew Jackson
@yodacomplex.bsky.social

Professor. #Zoology, Theoretical #Ecology & #Evolution, Trinity College Dublin.

Environmental science 56%
Geography 14%

Reposted by Andrew L. Jackson

Happy Monday you lot

Reposted by Andrew L. Jackson

The billionaire sought to push back against the outcry over X’s AI chatbot Grok creating sexualised images of people, including children, at the request of users.

jrnl.ie/6922760
Elon Musk calls criticism of X's AI sexual abuse images 'censorship'
Criticism of X has focused on Grok’s production of images of child abuse.
jrnl.ie
I write in today's @irishexaminer.bsky.social about the laws that are broken when online AI platforms facilitate the production of child sex abuse material. No new laws are needed. Companies (and their executives) are accountable as well as users.

www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/comm...
Ireland could prosecute Twitter/X for AI 'child porn' deepfakes
The horrific child sex abuse material produced every day by Grok is already banned under Irish law. The real test is if we are ready to enforce that law against large tech companies
www.irishexaminer.com
Something interesting you might not have realized: a number of words in English are NOUNS when you stress the FIRST syllable, but VERBS when you stress the SECOND syllable.

"Your CONduct is better when you conDUCT yourself appropriately.”

🧵⬇️

Reposted by Andrew L. Jackson

Finally, we’ve solved a long-standing mystery: what tintinnid shells are actually made of:
A new class of biomaterial formed by remarkable structural proteins unique to tintinnids.
A major milestone after 3 years of work! Read about it in our preprint: doi.org/10.64898/202...
#ProtistsOnSky

Except on Ash Wednesday. That could get you disappeared in any self-respecting Christian country.

What precisely are these “Christian values” they so vigorously defend that other religions and non—religions do not hold?… eating bacon is one them.
Senior Reform candidate writes:

"People from other religions should eat bacon for a month to prove their Christian sincerity and credentials."

www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...
Reform candidate slammed over 'bacon' religion comment as Farage faces pressure
A senior Reform UK candidate faces fresh criticism over 'unacceptable' comments suggesting non-Christians should eat 'bacon' to prove their sincerity to the religion
www.mirror.co.uk

Reposted by Andrew L. Jackson

Robins became the iconic bird of Christmas in the Victorian era, when postmen were nicknamed robins due to their red waistcoats!

Over time, robins began to appear on Christmas cards to represent the postmen who delivered them. 📮

Learn more about this feathered festive favourite: brnw.ch/21wYfin

I hope they didn’t pay him for that talk. I hate to think what his fees are.
“When participants used ChatGPT to draft essays, brain scans revealed a 47% drop in neural connectivity across regions associated with memory, language, & critical reasoning.

Their brains worked less, but they felt just as engaged—a kind of metacognitive mirage.”🧪

Reposted by Andrew L. Jackson

All of the companies that make the software I use are increasing their prices, to account for an "investment" in AI.

I'm sat here imagining how my clients would feel if I added 30% to each invoice, because I "really got into gambling".
Curatorial job with significant geological and palaeontological collections at Warwick Museums.

www.wmjobs.co.uk/job/250490/c...
Curator of Natural Sciences - Warwick,Warwickshire job with Warwickshire County Council | 250490
About Heritage and Culture Warwickshire Heritage and Culture Warwickshire (HCW) provide a wide range of services that help local communities and ...
www.wmjobs.co.uk

Im going to bravely put my hand up and claim that among biologists, ecologists probably have the best appreciation of non-RCD epidemiology studies. And would be reasonably well able to appreciate the complexities. So hire ecologists in public health is my plea! Its ecology all the way down!

shoot me now: "We came across your paper [...] and applied custom AI models on it, which generated 5 new extensions. Our pilot study indicates that up to 60% of scientists found the proposed extensions both thought-provoking and actionable."

agree. This is very well put.
This is actually quite brilliant, up to and including the final sentence 🔥

Reposted by Andrew L. Jackson

More info on our recent paper in this interview in Science...

Why does biology keep building things out of tiles? | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...
Why does biology keep building things out of tiles?
Science talks with two scientists about finding the beauty in nature’s mosaics
www.science.org
This is actually quite brilliant, up to and including the final sentence 🔥

Well now.. thats quite the offer of a Monday morning.

Reposted by Andrew L. Jackson

It’s Trinity Open Day and one of the most common questions I get asked is ‘what kind of jobs do zoologists do?’ - so we asked our alumni… youtu.be/lJr4AsZ_rLc?...
Zoology Alumni
YouTube video by Trinity College Dublin
youtu.be

Reposted by Andrew L. Jackson

Open postdoc position in Theoretical Evolutionary Biology at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, focusing on mathematical models of social traits. Details: https://tinyurl.com/37uhtbne #postdoc

all three things can* be true

*are

Amidst all the deep thinking of all things science, it is still the childlike wonder of new discoveries that makes my day

I cannot think of a single ethical or moral argument for Generative AI and this isn’t helping
James Bond supervillains threaten to blow up the world with their big laser unless you pay them a trillion dollars.

Real American supervillains embed themselves in the economy and threaten to cause a depression unless you subsidize their sex robots and the weird chatbots they use to avoid humans.
James Bond supervillains threaten to blow up the world with their big laser unless you pay them a trillion dollars.

Real American supervillains embed themselves in the economy and threaten to cause a depression unless you subsidize their sex robots and the weird chatbots they use to avoid humans.

Quite the thread!
On May 11, 1950, while working on the Rawlins National Bank in Wyoming, a construction crew unearthed a whiskey barrel that contained a human skeleton with its skull cap sawed off & an odd pair of shoes. Dr. Lillian Heath, now in her 80s, was asked if she knew anything about it...🧵

And even then, we already know that people will wilfully ignore their and their family’s ancestry to further their political ambitions. I suspect we have learned nothing of any academic value from this project.

While there _might_ be some value in using these tools to answer specific questions, maybe such as to verify his ancestry, there is absolutely no value in a tabloid style National Enquirer type “exposé”.

This whole project is grotesque and a classic case of just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Prof King’s justification of: well someone was going to do it eventually it might as well be me is lame in the extreme www.bbc.com/news/article...
Should Hitler's DNA have been studied?
Ground-breaking research has made some fascinating discoveries on the dictator, from his ancestry to possible neurological disorders.
www.bbc.com