Alejandro Schuler
@aschuler.bsky.social
Assistant Professor of Biostatistics UC Berkeley
semiparametric statistics, machine learning, causal inference, stats/ML pedagogy, social justice
Modern Causal Inference Book: alejandroschuler.github.io/mci/
semiparametric statistics, machine learning, causal inference, stats/ML pedagogy, social justice
Modern Causal Inference Book: alejandroschuler.github.io/mci/
Reposted by Alejandro Schuler
Any algorithmic decision-making has both a prediction/inference AND a preference function over errors -- new NBER wp highlights how preference alignment can be too narrow within a given setting #linkoftheday
www.nber.org/system/files...
www.nber.org/system/files...
November 26, 2025 at 4:05 PM
Any algorithmic decision-making has both a prediction/inference AND a preference function over errors -- new NBER wp highlights how preference alignment can be too narrow within a given setting #linkoftheday
www.nber.org/system/files...
www.nber.org/system/files...
Reposted by Alejandro Schuler
OpenAI needs to raise at least $207bn by 2030 so it can continue to lose money, HSBC estimates on.ft.com/4ij0yh8
OpenAI needs to raise at least $207bn by 2030 so it can continue to lose money, HSBC estimates
A burning platform
on.ft.com
November 25, 2025 at 7:42 PM
OpenAI needs to raise at least $207bn by 2030 so it can continue to lose money, HSBC estimates on.ft.com/4ij0yh8
Reposted by Alejandro Schuler
it's product brain instead of human brain
November 25, 2025 at 5:16 AM
it's product brain instead of human brain
Reposted by Alejandro Schuler
This by @whippletom.bsky.social is brilliant. A little dose of epistemic humility goes a long way.
www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...
www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...
We’ll need good data next time or lockdown arguments multiply
At the start of the pandemic two professors, Martin Landray and Peter Horby, did something that should have been banal but was also rare: they tested drugs
www.thetimes.com
November 24, 2025 at 9:52 PM
This by @whippletom.bsky.social is brilliant. A little dose of epistemic humility goes a long way.
www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...
www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...
Reposted by Alejandro Schuler
I think a lot about how transportation policy in the 70s was slowly bending towards a multimodal future after freeway revolts and the environmental movement (and how all that progress evaporated with the Reagan admin)
Reading California’s Urban Strategy for California from Spring 1978 (Jerry Brown 1.0 administration).
Struck by this section on transportation funding:
h/t @cafedujord.bsky.social
Struck by this section on transportation funding:
h/t @cafedujord.bsky.social
November 22, 2025 at 10:51 PM
I think a lot about how transportation policy in the 70s was slowly bending towards a multimodal future after freeway revolts and the environmental movement (and how all that progress evaporated with the Reagan admin)
Reposted by Alejandro Schuler
gonna start teaching a "stop the bleed by vibe" check where instead of combat tourniquets i teach GSW victims how to emit the vibes of someone without multiple catastrophic bleeds
AirBnB CEO calling it “vibe revenue” just 👨🍳 😘
The underlying cause of every bubble - debt masquerading as financial innovation - depends on not just short financial memory & speculative neophytism, but reinventing jargon of finance, like how each generation of kids has new ways to say same things.
The underlying cause of every bubble - debt masquerading as financial innovation - depends on not just short financial memory & speculative neophytism, but reinventing jargon of finance, like how each generation of kids has new ways to say same things.
November 23, 2025 at 12:59 AM
gonna start teaching a "stop the bleed by vibe" check where instead of combat tourniquets i teach GSW victims how to emit the vibes of someone without multiple catastrophic bleeds
Reposted by Alejandro Schuler
Reposted by Alejandro Schuler
My brush with academia has taught me that, contra the Great Man theory of human advancement, for every big name Harvard Professor of Whatever there are ten other people who could produce equally good research in the same position. I'm sure one of them isn't a shithead
November 17, 2025 at 8:06 PM
My brush with academia has taught me that, contra the Great Man theory of human advancement, for every big name Harvard Professor of Whatever there are ten other people who could produce equally good research in the same position. I'm sure one of them isn't a shithead
Reposted by Alejandro Schuler
cumulation is a bad model of intellectual life. every idea has to be constantly reinvented, remade as something fresh and real and relevant, live in contemporary minds. that is most of the work. 1/
November 15, 2025 at 6:02 PM
cumulation is a bad model of intellectual life. every idea has to be constantly reinvented, remade as something fresh and real and relevant, live in contemporary minds. that is most of the work. 1/
Reposted by Alejandro Schuler
Surely the university's higher purpose is *not* to teach people how to use tools, but instead to teach people how to understand for themselves whether they *should* use them.
Love to see community action against this AI nonsense! neighborhoodview.org/2025/11/13/d...
November 15, 2025 at 7:14 AM
Surely the university's higher purpose is *not* to teach people how to use tools, but instead to teach people how to understand for themselves whether they *should* use them.
Reposted by Alejandro Schuler
I think my 'most woke opinion' is that all people are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
It turns out the necessary conclusions are so woke we still aren't quite there 250 years later.
It turns out the necessary conclusions are so woke we still aren't quite there 250 years later.
"my least woke opinion is---"
That's enough. We've had enough people indulging in the "thrill of a little conservatism", as a treat. Of considering reactionary thought to be a salacious and taboo in a world descending into reactionary mania.
Give me your MOST woke opinions. We're bringing it back.
That's enough. We've had enough people indulging in the "thrill of a little conservatism", as a treat. Of considering reactionary thought to be a salacious and taboo in a world descending into reactionary mania.
Give me your MOST woke opinions. We're bringing it back.
November 14, 2025 at 4:42 PM
I think my 'most woke opinion' is that all people are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
It turns out the necessary conclusions are so woke we still aren't quite there 250 years later.
It turns out the necessary conclusions are so woke we still aren't quite there 250 years later.
Reposted by Alejandro Schuler
How can we reform science? I have some ideas. But I am not sure you’ll like them, because they don’t promise much. elevanth.org/blog/2025/07...
Which Kind of Science Reform
What hope is there for science reform, if we can't agree on what to reform? Right now, principles are more important than practices.
elevanth.org
July 9, 2025 at 1:40 PM
How can we reform science? I have some ideas. But I am not sure you’ll like them, because they don’t promise much. elevanth.org/blog/2025/07...
Reposted by Alejandro Schuler
You can't live your life based on hate - that way lies madness and bitterness - but allowing yourself to slip into hater mode from time to time is a lovely little treat, like a drunk cigarette or a decadent slice of cake
November 9, 2025 at 1:09 AM
You can't live your life based on hate - that way lies madness and bitterness - but allowing yourself to slip into hater mode from time to time is a lovely little treat, like a drunk cigarette or a decadent slice of cake
Reposted by Alejandro Schuler
What an amazing essay from the former chair of Africana Studies at Bowdoin. I'll share a few sections in the reply but seriously, read the whole thing. It's all insightful and beautifully written.
lithub.com/maybe-dont-t...
lithub.com/maybe-dont-t...
Maybe Don’t Talk to the New York Times About Zohran Mamdani
It’s remarkable, the people you’ll hear from. Teach for even a little while at an expensive institution—the term they tend to prefer is “elite”—and odds are that eventually someone who was a studen…
lithub.com
November 8, 2025 at 7:11 PM
What an amazing essay from the former chair of Africana Studies at Bowdoin. I'll share a few sections in the reply but seriously, read the whole thing. It's all insightful and beautifully written.
lithub.com/maybe-dont-t...
lithub.com/maybe-dont-t...
Reposted by Alejandro Schuler
Did you know gov shutdowns aren’t in the Constitution, any law, or Court ruling?
They exist because of a 1980 OLC memo—a lawyer’s opinion that everyone just went along with. Before 1980, funding gaps didn’t cause shutdowns.
What one memo created, another can undo. How the next D admin can undo it:
They exist because of a 1980 OLC memo—a lawyer’s opinion that everyone just went along with. Before 1980, funding gaps didn’t cause shutdowns.
What one memo created, another can undo. How the next D admin can undo it:
Why America’s Government Shutdowns Exist and How to End Them
One Legal Memo Created The Shutdown Era. Another Can End It.
open.substack.com
November 7, 2025 at 9:03 PM
Did you know gov shutdowns aren’t in the Constitution, any law, or Court ruling?
They exist because of a 1980 OLC memo—a lawyer’s opinion that everyone just went along with. Before 1980, funding gaps didn’t cause shutdowns.
What one memo created, another can undo. How the next D admin can undo it:
They exist because of a 1980 OLC memo—a lawyer’s opinion that everyone just went along with. Before 1980, funding gaps didn’t cause shutdowns.
What one memo created, another can undo. How the next D admin can undo it:
Reposted by Alejandro Schuler
‘Study after study shows that students want to develop these critical thinking skills, are not lazy, and large numbers of them would be in favor of banning ChatGPT and similar tools in universities’, says @olivia.science www.ru.nl/en/research/...
‘Opposing the inevitability of AI at universities is possible and necessary’ | Radboud University
Since the widespread release of ChatGPT in December of 2022, AI has taken over much of the world by storm – including academia. Most of this happened with very little pushback, despite a myriad of iss...
www.ru.nl
November 1, 2025 at 10:26 PM
‘Study after study shows that students want to develop these critical thinking skills, are not lazy, and large numbers of them would be in favor of banning ChatGPT and similar tools in universities’, says @olivia.science www.ru.nl/en/research/...
I don't like fall.
The feeling of the season is death. Not a brutal, beautiful death that means something. A death that resents itself, that closes a life that wasn't really ever lived.
Picking up your kid from school in the dark fucking sucks.
The feeling of the season is death. Not a brutal, beautiful death that means something. A death that resents itself, that closes a life that wasn't really ever lived.
Picking up your kid from school in the dark fucking sucks.
November 6, 2025 at 11:52 PM
I don't like fall.
The feeling of the season is death. Not a brutal, beautiful death that means something. A death that resents itself, that closes a life that wasn't really ever lived.
Picking up your kid from school in the dark fucking sucks.
The feeling of the season is death. Not a brutal, beautiful death that means something. A death that resents itself, that closes a life that wasn't really ever lived.
Picking up your kid from school in the dark fucking sucks.
Reposted by Alejandro Schuler
my ideal response to AI and crypto is a lot closer to an air strike than a bailout
“It’s not that I’m for austerity, it’s just that I’m against bailing out AI, crypto, private assets/university endowments, and I’m fine with canceled Thanksgiving flights and missed paychecks as long as Republicans take the blame for it.”
November 6, 2025 at 6:13 PM
my ideal response to AI and crypto is a lot closer to an air strike than a bailout
Reposted by Alejandro Schuler
I'm hard-pressed to think of a non-Jewish Democratic politician who has spoken to Jews with more respect and empathy than Mamdani. The fact that many Jewish establishment orgs are going after him while staying relatively mum on resurgent Nazism is a disaster, both for American Jews and in general.
November 5, 2025 at 11:49 PM
I'm hard-pressed to think of a non-Jewish Democratic politician who has spoken to Jews with more respect and empathy than Mamdani. The fact that many Jewish establishment orgs are going after him while staying relatively mum on resurgent Nazism is a disaster, both for American Jews and in general.
Daily reminder than numbers actually aren't real either (platonists not allowed sorry)
Qualitative research isn't a consolation prize for when we can't get 'real' numbers. It's a different way of knowing; one that captures complexity, context, and meaning that statistics alone cannot provide.
November 5, 2025 at 11:42 PM
Daily reminder than numbers actually aren't real either (platonists not allowed sorry)
Reposted by Alejandro Schuler
Loved the Oscar Wilde quote read out at the start of Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction ceremony this evening:
“If you cannot write well, you cannot think well; if you cannot think well, others will do your thinking for you.”
Yay books!
(book in pic was in my goody bag, not the winner)
“If you cannot write well, you cannot think well; if you cannot think well, others will do your thinking for you.”
Yay books!
(book in pic was in my goody bag, not the winner)
November 4, 2025 at 11:46 PM
Loved the Oscar Wilde quote read out at the start of Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction ceremony this evening:
“If you cannot write well, you cannot think well; if you cannot think well, others will do your thinking for you.”
Yay books!
(book in pic was in my goody bag, not the winner)
“If you cannot write well, you cannot think well; if you cannot think well, others will do your thinking for you.”
Yay books!
(book in pic was in my goody bag, not the winner)
Almost every single one of these fuckers will go up against the wall when they're done collapsing liberalism. Saturn eats his young.
As an aside, one of the things that continues to be striking to me is how so many of the folks excitedly building an authoritarian MAGA state don't seem to have put 2 and 2 together about how is obviously going to get long-knived the moment that state is secure.
Vermeule thus goes in the same "I can't believe you don't realize your 'allies' will put you up against the wall without delay" bucket as Peter Thiel.
November 3, 2025 at 10:08 PM
Almost every single one of these fuckers will go up against the wall when they're done collapsing liberalism. Saturn eats his young.
Reposted by Alejandro Schuler
Struck by the admission in this that Johnson doesn't think the GOP could ever really win a majority of voters in its current form and so relies on minoritarian rule to wield power.
That is a significant - I'd argue defining - difference from the Reagan-Bush era GOP.
That is a significant - I'd argue defining - difference from the Reagan-Bush era GOP.
Johnson: "If they had no filibuster, they would pack the SCOTUS. You'd go from 9 to 17 or however many liberals they could pack. You would make DC & Puerto Rico into states, which would give 4 additional Democrat senators & make us a permanent minority. You'd see massive restrictions of 2A rights"
November 3, 2025 at 4:36 PM
Struck by the admission in this that Johnson doesn't think the GOP could ever really win a majority of voters in its current form and so relies on minoritarian rule to wield power.
That is a significant - I'd argue defining - difference from the Reagan-Bush era GOP.
That is a significant - I'd argue defining - difference from the Reagan-Bush era GOP.
Reposted by Alejandro Schuler
CEO brain is one of the most dangerous plagues of our time
November 2, 2025 at 6:46 PM
CEO brain is one of the most dangerous plagues of our time