David Mimno
@dmimno.bsky.social
He teaches information science at Cornell. http://mimno.infosci.cornell.edu
Pinned
David Mimno
@dmimno.bsky.social
· Nov 13
Optimist: AI has achieved human level performance!
Realist: “AI” is a collection of brittle hacks that, under very specific circumstances, mimic the surface level of human intelligence
Pessimist: AI HAS achieved human level performance
Realist: “AI” is a collection of brittle hacks that, under very specific circumstances, mimic the surface level of human intelligence
Pessimist: AI HAS achieved human level performance
Reposted by David Mimno
Hello!
This is a reminder that @cornelltech.bsky.social runs a Red Team Clinic that provides a *free* safety consultation to nonprofits / public sector orgs that are developing a public-facing AI tool and want to stress-test it for possible abuse vectors.
Applications welcome on a rolling basis:
This is a reminder that @cornelltech.bsky.social runs a Red Team Clinic that provides a *free* safety consultation to nonprofits / public sector orgs that are developing a public-facing AI tool and want to stress-test it for possible abuse vectors.
Applications welcome on a rolling basis:
‘Red team’ students stress-test NYC health department’s AI | Cornell Chronicle
People usually strive to be their true, authentic selves, but this fall, five master’s students at Cornell Tech adopted not only alter egos but also “bad intent,” in an effort to make AI safer for hea...
news.cornell.edu
January 28, 2026 at 9:33 PM
Hello!
This is a reminder that @cornelltech.bsky.social runs a Red Team Clinic that provides a *free* safety consultation to nonprofits / public sector orgs that are developing a public-facing AI tool and want to stress-test it for possible abuse vectors.
Applications welcome on a rolling basis:
This is a reminder that @cornelltech.bsky.social runs a Red Team Clinic that provides a *free* safety consultation to nonprofits / public sector orgs that are developing a public-facing AI tool and want to stress-test it for possible abuse vectors.
Applications welcome on a rolling basis:
Reposted by David Mimno
Wow, this is spectacular! Evolution of beak size in an urban population of juncos in response to the loss of supplementary food (bird feeders) during the COVID pandemic, and subsequent regression. Is the UCLA campus the new Daphne Major?
pnas.org/doi/full/10....
pnas.org/doi/full/10....
January 28, 2026 at 1:02 PM
Wow, this is spectacular! Evolution of beak size in an urban population of juncos in response to the loss of supplementary food (bird feeders) during the COVID pandemic, and subsequent regression. Is the UCLA campus the new Daphne Major?
pnas.org/doi/full/10....
pnas.org/doi/full/10....
A colleague pointed out that if you ask an LLM to rate docs one by one, it will give them all middling scores. But if you ask it to rate them all at once, it differentiates. Given that a lot of reviewing is quietly AI, could we explicitly design a stronger, better-calibrated AI review phase?
January 28, 2026 at 8:36 PM
A colleague pointed out that if you ask an LLM to rate docs one by one, it will give them all middling scores. But if you ask it to rate them all at once, it differentiates. Given that a lot of reviewing is quietly AI, could we explicitly design a stronger, better-calibrated AI review phase?
This English translation of Pliny the Elder's Natural History exists online because I sliced the spines off a beautiful four-volume edition from 1850-something in ~2003. In the previous 150 years only the quires for the first 100 pages had been cut.
www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?...
www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?...
January 27, 2026 at 5:07 PM
This English translation of Pliny the Elder's Natural History exists online because I sliced the spines off a beautiful four-volume edition from 1850-something in ~2003. In the previous 150 years only the quires for the first 100 pages had been cut.
www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?...
www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?...
Reposted by David Mimno
📒 Wrote a quick blog post and Colab notebook showing how to use ai.dev 's batch mode with @hf.co Datasets, Google Cloud, and one of our Gemini models (Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite, but you could swap in any model docstring!).
🔗 dev.to/googleai/ben...
🔗 github.com/dynamicwebpa...
🔗 dev.to/googleai/ben...
🔗 github.com/dynamicwebpa...
January 26, 2026 at 5:22 AM
📒 Wrote a quick blog post and Colab notebook showing how to use ai.dev 's batch mode with @hf.co Datasets, Google Cloud, and one of our Gemini models (Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite, but you could swap in any model docstring!).
🔗 dev.to/googleai/ben...
🔗 github.com/dynamicwebpa...
🔗 dev.to/googleai/ben...
🔗 github.com/dynamicwebpa...
Reposted by David Mimno
I wanted to note that I made a list of all ancient comets from Med antiquity (500 BCE-400 CE) for class a number of years ago. Here is my excel sheet, based on Ramsay, Descriptive Catalogue of Greco-Roman Comets from 500 B.C. to A.D. 400. Syllecta Classica, 17. 2006.
docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
![Date
Ramsey No. Geographic Associations,Event Sources
Type
481? BCE Sept-Dec.
1 Battle of Salamis (Sept. 480)
Salamis: Plin. NH 2.90 ; Xerxes' Invasion: Lydus, De Mensibus 4.116
Comet
467? BCE
2 Acgospotami- falling meterorite
Diogenes Laertius 2.11; IG XII.5 444.1.72-73; Eusebius, Chron. P.110 (ed. Helm); Aristotle, Mete. 1.7
344b.31-34; Seneca, Natural Questions 7.5.3; Plin. NH. 2.149; Plutarch, Life of Lysander 12.6
Comet
430 BCE
la App.
Plague at Athens, Earthquakes
Manilius, Astronomica, 1.880-1886
Object
426 BCE Jan.-Feb.
3 Recurrence of Plague at Athens,
Earthquakes
[Hippocrates]. Epidemics 4.21; Aristotle Mete. 1.6 343b4-6; Manilius, Astron. 1.880-886
Comet
394 BCE
2a App
Battle of Cnidus
Plin. NH. 2.96
372 BCE Jan./Feb.?
Buris and Helike (Gulf of
4 Corinth) Destroyed, Battle of Leuctra (July? 371)
Helike and Buris: Ephorus, Histories fr. 212 (Seneca, NQ 7.16.2); Aristotle, Mete. 1.6 343b1-4, 18-25, 1.7 344b34-345al; Seneca, NQ 7.5.4; Callisthenes, Hellenica fr. 21; Paus. 7.24.8; Battle of Leuctra: Diodorus Siculus 15.50.1-3; Cic. Div. 2.54.
Comet
350/349 BCE
За Арр.
Warfare in Greece, Philip II
Plin. NH. 2.96-97
Chasma (aurora borcalis?)
346? BCE
5
Plin. NH. 2.90
Comet
344 BCE
Torch of Timoleon / Voyage to
the island of Corcyra to Metapontum
6 Sicily between Lonian Gulf, from Diodorus Siculus 16.66.1, 3; Plutarch, Life of Timoleon, 8.5-6.
Possible Comet
341/0 BCE
7 Storm at Corinth
Aristotle, Mete. 1.7 345a2-5
Comet
303/2 BCE
& Expedition of Lysimachus to Asia IG XII.5.444 (taken with): IG XI.S 444.1.130= FGrH 239 B 25.
Comet
216 BCE
9 Battle of Cannac
Silius Italicus, Punica 8.636-7.
Possible Comet
204 BCE Aug.-Sept.
Second Punic War (later
10 associated with win at the Battle Livy, AUC, 29.14.3;
of Zama)
Comet
203 BCE
11
Second Punic War (observed in Anagnia)
Livy, AUC, 30.2.11
Possible Comet
176 BCE
12 Death of Consul (seen at
Tusculum)
Livy, AUC, 41.16.6
Possible Comet
174 BCE
4a App.
Plague, Observed in the district of Livy, AUC, 41.21.…](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:byohyhodi6iknxngf3oypcge/bafkreibhbiio3ugbojwyftsw5acjca2l2eqjlqydwz4jszcghhx3ekvogu@jpeg)
January 26, 2026 at 12:54 PM
I wanted to note that I made a list of all ancient comets from Med antiquity (500 BCE-400 CE) for class a number of years ago. Here is my excel sheet, based on Ramsay, Descriptive Catalogue of Greco-Roman Comets from 500 B.C. to A.D. 400. Syllecta Classica, 17. 2006.
docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
Reposted by David Mimno
Come work with us! Tallinn Uni is hiring a second lecturer in DH&AI. Estonian proficiency not required, foreign applicants welcome, required phd can be in progress (expected to be completed), competitive salary+benefits, nice working environment close to the sea
candidate.recrur.com/public/jobad...
candidate.recrur.com/public/jobad...
January 26, 2026 at 2:23 PM
Come work with us! Tallinn Uni is hiring a second lecturer in DH&AI. Estonian proficiency not required, foreign applicants welcome, required phd can be in progress (expected to be completed), competitive salary+benefits, nice working environment close to the sea
candidate.recrur.com/public/jobad...
candidate.recrur.com/public/jobad...
Reposted by David Mimno
The seven layers are:
Moral Source: where authority comes from.
Epistemic Posture: how certainty and error are treated.
Verification Logic: what counts as evidence.
Deliberative Logic: how disagreement is bounded.
Accountability Direction: where consequences flow.
(cont)
Moral Source: where authority comes from.
Epistemic Posture: how certainty and error are treated.
Verification Logic: what counts as evidence.
Deliberative Logic: how disagreement is bounded.
Accountability Direction: where consequences flow.
(cont)
January 23, 2026 at 9:23 AM
The seven layers are:
Moral Source: where authority comes from.
Epistemic Posture: how certainty and error are treated.
Verification Logic: what counts as evidence.
Deliberative Logic: how disagreement is bounded.
Accountability Direction: where consequences flow.
(cont)
Moral Source: where authority comes from.
Epistemic Posture: how certainty and error are treated.
Verification Logic: what counts as evidence.
Deliberative Logic: how disagreement is bounded.
Accountability Direction: where consequences flow.
(cont)
"Abolish ICE" is the law-and-order position
January 24, 2026 at 7:45 PM
"Abolish ICE" is the law-and-order position
Drop-in replacement for sklearn LDA using MCMC and hyperparameter optimization: github.com/mimno/sklear...
GitHub - mimno/sklearn-gibbs-lda: sklearn-compatible LDA using collapsed Gibbs sampling with Numba optimization
sklearn-compatible LDA using collapsed Gibbs sampling with Numba optimization - mimno/sklearn-gibbs-lda
github.com
January 23, 2026 at 9:31 PM
Drop-in replacement for sklearn LDA using MCMC and hyperparameter optimization: github.com/mimno/sklear...
Why are citations so hard? LLMs are interpolation machines. It works well for, say, programming questions: rather than parsing 3-4 not-quite-relevant Stack Overflow posts, you can get an answer to your exact question. But doing the same trick with refs doesn't work, they either exist or don't.
January 22, 2026 at 6:29 PM
Why are citations so hard? LLMs are interpolation machines. It works well for, say, programming questions: rather than parsing 3-4 not-quite-relevant Stack Overflow posts, you can get an answer to your exact question. But doing the same trick with refs doesn't work, they either exist or don't.
Reposted by David Mimno
Are you a student interested in a transformative summer experience? Cornell Tech’s Summer Innovation Intensives (July 13–30) blend college-level coursework, real-world projects, and NYC immersion.
Info Sessions:
Jan 25 (in person)
Jan 28 (virtual)
RSVP: https://bit.ly/3NhhNnQ
Info Sessions:
Jan 25 (in person)
Jan 28 (virtual)
RSVP: https://bit.ly/3NhhNnQ
January 22, 2026 at 4:18 PM
Are you a student interested in a transformative summer experience? Cornell Tech’s Summer Innovation Intensives (July 13–30) blend college-level coursework, real-world projects, and NYC immersion.
Info Sessions:
Jan 25 (in person)
Jan 28 (virtual)
RSVP: https://bit.ly/3NhhNnQ
Info Sessions:
Jan 25 (in person)
Jan 28 (virtual)
RSVP: https://bit.ly/3NhhNnQ
Reposted by David Mimno
HCDE Professor Kate Starbird has been named an ACM Fellow, one of the highest honors in computing. She's recognized for contributions to understanding and improving information ecosystems, including during crisis events and addressing misinformation. www.hcde.washington.edu/news/article...
Professor Kate Starbird named ACM Fellow for advancing research on misinformation and information ecosystems
HCDE Professor Kate Starbird has been named an ACM Fellow, one of the highest honors in computing, for her groundbreaking research on misinformation and online information ecosystems. The honor recogn...
www.hcde.washington.edu
January 21, 2026 at 11:41 PM
HCDE Professor Kate Starbird has been named an ACM Fellow, one of the highest honors in computing. She's recognized for contributions to understanding and improving information ecosystems, including during crisis events and addressing misinformation. www.hcde.washington.edu/news/article...
Reposted by David Mimno
We are #hiring a #phd student to develop novel #Bayesian #MachineLearning methods and algorithms. A fully funded PhD position at @umeauniversitet.bsky.social. See full ad and apply here: www.umu.se/en/work-with...
PhD student in Computing Science with a focus on Machine Learning
www.umu.se
December 19, 2025 at 2:00 PM
We are #hiring a #phd student to develop novel #Bayesian #MachineLearning methods and algorithms. A fully funded PhD position at @umeauniversitet.bsky.social. See full ad and apply here: www.umu.se/en/work-with...
Citation is the foundation of academic promotion. It’s noisy, sure, but its integrity is worth fighting for. Hallucinated citations should be a desk reject.
NEW: NeurIPS,one of the world’s top academic AI conferences, accepted research papers with 100+ AI-hallucinated citations, new report claims
fortune.com/2026/01/21/n...
fortune.com/2026/01/21/n...
NeurIPS papers contained 100+ AI-hallucinated citations, new report claims | Fortune
An analysis of NeurIPS 2025 papers by startup GPTZero reveals how AI-generated citations are slipping into elite academic research.
fortune.com
January 22, 2026 at 1:16 AM
Citation is the foundation of academic promotion. It’s noisy, sure, but its integrity is worth fighting for. Hallucinated citations should be a desk reject.
Claude Coded a command line translation wrapper for ollama translategemma, with LA->EN as default. It works really well!
github.com/mimno/transl...
github.com/mimno/transl...
GitHub - mimno/translategemma: Latin to English translator using TranslateGemma via Ollama
Latin to English translator using TranslateGemma via Ollama - mimno/translategemma
github.com
January 21, 2026 at 9:35 PM
Claude Coded a command line translation wrapper for ollama translategemma, with LA->EN as default. It works really well!
github.com/mimno/transl...
github.com/mimno/transl...
Reposted by David Mimno
Meet TranslateGemma. 💎
✅ Open weights (4B, 12B, 27B)
✅ 55 languages + 100s more in training data
✅ Multimodal capabilities (image text)
Blog: blog.google/innovation-a...
Paper: arxiv.org/pdf/2601.09012
Model: huggingface.co/collections/...
Cookbook: colab.research.google.com/github/googl...
✅ Open weights (4B, 12B, 27B)
✅ 55 languages + 100s more in training data
✅ Multimodal capabilities (image text)
Blog: blog.google/innovation-a...
Paper: arxiv.org/pdf/2601.09012
Model: huggingface.co/collections/...
Cookbook: colab.research.google.com/github/googl...
TranslateGemma: A new suite of open translation models
TranslateGemma is a new family of open translation models built on Gemma 3.
blog.google
January 16, 2026 at 7:50 PM
Meet TranslateGemma. 💎
✅ Open weights (4B, 12B, 27B)
✅ 55 languages + 100s more in training data
✅ Multimodal capabilities (image text)
Blog: blog.google/innovation-a...
Paper: arxiv.org/pdf/2601.09012
Model: huggingface.co/collections/...
Cookbook: colab.research.google.com/github/googl...
✅ Open weights (4B, 12B, 27B)
✅ 55 languages + 100s more in training data
✅ Multimodal capabilities (image text)
Blog: blog.google/innovation-a...
Paper: arxiv.org/pdf/2601.09012
Model: huggingface.co/collections/...
Cookbook: colab.research.google.com/github/googl...
Reposted by David Mimno
I'm trying to find scholars who have studied how scientists assimilate the discoveries of other scientists. I'm trying to understand the potential impact of AI-assisted acceleration of scientific discoveries beyond the short term. Can anyone point me to people and publications?
January 21, 2026 at 6:54 PM
I'm trying to find scholars who have studied how scientists assimilate the discoveries of other scientists. I'm trying to understand the potential impact of AI-assisted acceleration of scientific discoveries beyond the short term. Can anyone point me to people and publications?
Reposted by David Mimno
Associate professor Nicola Dell is featured in @sciencenews.bsky.social this week, in a profile highlighting her leadership in researching technology‑facilitated abuse and her role in co-founding Cornell Tech’s Clinic to End Tech Abuse. @cornellbowers.bsky.social
Read more: https://bit.ly/4b51ZOP
Read more: https://bit.ly/4b51ZOP
Computer science can help abuse and trafficking survivors regain safety
Nicola Dell, a computer scientist studying the role of technology in intimate partner violence, cofounded the Center to End Technology Abuse.
www.sciencenews.org
January 21, 2026 at 1:38 PM
Associate professor Nicola Dell is featured in @sciencenews.bsky.social this week, in a profile highlighting her leadership in researching technology‑facilitated abuse and her role in co-founding Cornell Tech’s Clinic to End Tech Abuse. @cornellbowers.bsky.social
Read more: https://bit.ly/4b51ZOP
Read more: https://bit.ly/4b51ZOP
Kinda doing both
Two extremes of student LLM usage: 1) avoid ever touching one & maybe get really into fountain pens and 100gsm paper, vs 2) build some kind of Rube Goldberg setup where a novel-length set of prompts and 10,000 lines of Python directs a half-dozen models recursively critiquing each others' outputs.
January 20, 2026 at 1:19 AM
Kinda doing both
Reposted by David Mimno
Internship opportunity! Please share!
📣 I'm looking to hire an intern in human-centered NLP for the agents team at Together AI. Come work on frontier AI systems that tackle complex agentic tasks!
Research direction is open and looking to publish in NLP and HCI venues!
📣 I'm looking to hire an intern in human-centered NLP for the agents team at Together AI. Come work on frontier AI systems that tackle complex agentic tasks!
Research direction is open and looking to publish in NLP and HCI venues!
January 19, 2026 at 7:00 PM
Internship opportunity! Please share!
📣 I'm looking to hire an intern in human-centered NLP for the agents team at Together AI. Come work on frontier AI systems that tackle complex agentic tasks!
Research direction is open and looking to publish in NLP and HCI venues!
📣 I'm looking to hire an intern in human-centered NLP for the agents team at Together AI. Come work on frontier AI systems that tackle complex agentic tasks!
Research direction is open and looking to publish in NLP and HCI venues!
Reposted by David Mimno
The Manuscript of the Week is RIA MS B ii 1, Astronomical tract. It is based on a medieval Latin version of a work by Messahalah, a Jew of Alexandria who wrote in Arabic c. 815. The frontispiece is an astronomical rotula with a moveable index attached, illuminated with red and yellow pigment...
January 19, 2026 at 9:32 AM
The Manuscript of the Week is RIA MS B ii 1, Astronomical tract. It is based on a medieval Latin version of a work by Messahalah, a Jew of Alexandria who wrote in Arabic c. 815. The frontispiece is an astronomical rotula with a moveable index attached, illuminated with red and yellow pigment...
Reposted by David Mimno
The Thesaurus Linguae Latinae project (125-year-long complete Latin language dictionary effort) is advertising to hire a full-stack developer in Munich (Django/React): job-portal.lmu.de/jobposting/5...
Full-Stack-Entwickler / -Entwicklerin zur Umsetzung der Umstellung des Thesaurus-Wörterbuchs von der gedruckten auf eine vollständig digitale Version
job-portal.lmu.de
January 19, 2026 at 1:20 PM
The Thesaurus Linguae Latinae project (125-year-long complete Latin language dictionary effort) is advertising to hire a full-stack developer in Munich (Django/React): job-portal.lmu.de/jobposting/5...
Reposted by David Mimno
The inkless doodles of Eadburg, an 8th-c. nun, discovered by new technology: now published by Jessica Hendy-Hodgkinson in EME doi.org/10.1111/emed... (Open access)
January 19, 2026 at 8:27 AM
The inkless doodles of Eadburg, an 8th-c. nun, discovered by new technology: now published by Jessica Hendy-Hodgkinson in EME doi.org/10.1111/emed... (Open access)
Reposted by David Mimno
Just under two weeks to go to apply to join our @copenlu.bsky.social lab as a PhD student or postdoc! ⤵️
#academicjobs #NLProc #XAI #HCI @aicentre.dk
#academicjobs #NLProc #XAI #HCI @aicentre.dk
📢 PhD & postdoc call for start in autumn 2026 📢
Join a new interdisciplinary project on Human-Centered Explainable LLMs @copenlu.bsky.social @aicentre.dk
⏳ 1 Feb 2026
ℹ️ www.copenlu.com/news/funded-...
🗒️ employment.ku.dk/phd/?show=15... (PhD); employment.ku.dk/faculty/?sho... (Postdoc)
Join a new interdisciplinary project on Human-Centered Explainable LLMs @copenlu.bsky.social @aicentre.dk
⏳ 1 Feb 2026
ℹ️ www.copenlu.com/news/funded-...
🗒️ employment.ku.dk/phd/?show=15... (PhD); employment.ku.dk/faculty/?sho... (Postdoc)
January 19, 2026 at 7:16 AM
Just under two weeks to go to apply to join our @copenlu.bsky.social lab as a PhD student or postdoc! ⤵️
#academicjobs #NLProc #XAI #HCI @aicentre.dk
#academicjobs #NLProc #XAI #HCI @aicentre.dk