M.J. Crockett
@mjcrockett.bsky.social
Professor of Psychology & Human Values at Princeton | Cognitive scientist curious about technology, narratives, & epistemic (in)justice | They/She 🏳️🌈
www.crockettlab.org
www.crockettlab.org
Pinned
M.J. Crockett
@mjcrockett.bsky.social
· Oct 21
AI Surrogates and illusions of generalizability in cognitive science
Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have generated enthusiasm for using AI simulations of human research participants to generate new know…
www.sciencedirect.com
Can AI simulations of human research participants advance cognitive science? In @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social, @lmesseri.bsky.social & I analyze this vision. We show how “AI Surrogates” entrench practices that limit the generalizability of cognitive science while aspiring to do the opposite. 1/
Reposted by M.J. Crockett
Worth reading for lots of reasons, but particularly because it closes with something I see in my work and travels speaking on writing and AI. Many, maybe most students do not want AI-mediated schooling or lives. We can offer them something better. www.currentaffairs.org/news/ai-is-d...
AI is Destroying the University and Learning Itself
Students use AI to write papers, professors use AI to grade them, degrees become meaningless, and tech companies make fortunes. Welcome to the death of higher education.
www.currentaffairs.org
December 7, 2025 at 4:45 PM
Worth reading for lots of reasons, but particularly because it closes with something I see in my work and travels speaking on writing and AI. Many, maybe most students do not want AI-mediated schooling or lives. We can offer them something better. www.currentaffairs.org/news/ai-is-d...
Reposted by M.J. Crockett
"Today’s microwave can cook a frozen burrito. Tomorrow’s microwave will be able to cook an entire Thanksgiving Dinner. Ten years from now a microwave may even be able to run the country."
December 7, 2025 at 5:32 PM
"Today’s microwave can cook a frozen burrito. Tomorrow’s microwave will be able to cook an entire Thanksgiving Dinner. Ten years from now a microwave may even be able to run the country."
Reposted by M.J. Crockett
One of my neighbors has been putting up these fish facts posters. All kinds of different fish, marine, freshwater, deep, shallow, all kinds. This is a good one. “Stg this real fish” took me out. Good work, neighbor.
December 7, 2025 at 3:39 PM
One of my neighbors has been putting up these fish facts posters. All kinds of different fish, marine, freshwater, deep, shallow, all kinds. This is a good one. “Stg this real fish” took me out. Good work, neighbor.
Reposted by M.J. Crockett
Incredible book, if you haven’t seen it. I think about the “technologically precocious boy” all the time.
December 7, 2025 at 4:26 PM
Incredible book, if you haven’t seen it. I think about the “technologically precocious boy” all the time.
Reposted by M.J. Crockett
FDA Approves New Drug That Reverses Effects Of Narcan
FDA Approves New Drug That Reverses Effects Of Narcan
SILVER SPRING, MD—Praising the drug’s ability to quickly and effectively increase fatalities amongst the nation’s opioid users, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a new nasal spray Wednesd...
theonion.com
December 7, 2025 at 5:00 PM
FDA Approves New Drug That Reverses Effects Of Narcan
Reposted by M.J. Crockett
What strikes me over and over again about the reality we are currently creating with so-called “generative AI” is that it’s always pitched as saving human time and effort. But this is only true if you are a parasitic grifter. For anyone with principles, anyone who cares about reality
I mean we are absolutely in a place now where the only solution to this information disorder is for everyone to constantly evaluate the source of information. Never trust a chatbot, but also don't believe a video unless you know and trust where it comes from.
Unfortunately... that's a lot of work.
Unfortunately... that's a lot of work.
December 6, 2025 at 1:22 AM
What strikes me over and over again about the reality we are currently creating with so-called “generative AI” is that it’s always pitched as saving human time and effort. But this is only true if you are a parasitic grifter. For anyone with principles, anyone who cares about reality
Reposted by M.J. Crockett
The most important lesson for professors is that you can take a nice vacation without going to a conference.
In 2026, all three of the major ML conferences will be in incredible locations:
- #ICLR2026 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- #ICML2026 in Seoul, South Korea
- #NeurIPS2026 in Sydney, Australia
Which one do you want to go to the most?
- #ICLR2026 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- #ICML2026 in Seoul, South Korea
- #NeurIPS2026 in Sydney, Australia
Which one do you want to go to the most?
#NeurIPS2026 will be held in Sydney, Australia!
#ICML2017 was also in Sydney and was an absolute blast
#ICML2017 was also in Sydney and was an absolute blast
December 6, 2025 at 4:34 PM
The most important lesson for professors is that you can take a nice vacation without going to a conference.
Reposted by M.J. Crockett
I'm not exaggerating when I say following @boltsmag.org rn will unlock money for our journalism.
A generous reader, @russ41.bsky.social, has offered to donate $1 for every 1-person increase to our follower count.
If you're not following @boltsmag.org yet, it'll directly help fund our reporting!
A generous reader, @russ41.bsky.social, has offered to donate $1 for every 1-person increase to our follower count.
If you're not following @boltsmag.org yet, it'll directly help fund our reporting!
December 6, 2025 at 12:07 AM
I'm not exaggerating when I say following @boltsmag.org rn will unlock money for our journalism.
A generous reader, @russ41.bsky.social, has offered to donate $1 for every 1-person increase to our follower count.
If you're not following @boltsmag.org yet, it'll directly help fund our reporting!
A generous reader, @russ41.bsky.social, has offered to donate $1 for every 1-person increase to our follower count.
If you're not following @boltsmag.org yet, it'll directly help fund our reporting!
Reposted by M.J. Crockett
Wrote about Deepak Chopra’s new AI model, AI guru slop, and how none of this is really shocking because we already turned spirituality into a commodity.
houseofmirrors.substack.com/p/this-was-i...
houseofmirrors.substack.com/p/this-was-i...
This Was Inevitable
AI gurus are not shocking, we already commodified spirituality
houseofmirrors.substack.com
December 5, 2025 at 3:36 PM
Wrote about Deepak Chopra’s new AI model, AI guru slop, and how none of this is really shocking because we already turned spirituality into a commodity.
houseofmirrors.substack.com/p/this-was-i...
houseofmirrors.substack.com/p/this-was-i...
Reposted by M.J. Crockett
"All is lost" narratives are popular because people generally do not want to take action. Taking action is tiring so if all is lost, you are off the hook. Nothing is more seductive than not having to do anything.
December 5, 2025 at 4:35 PM
"All is lost" narratives are popular because people generally do not want to take action. Taking action is tiring so if all is lost, you are off the hook. Nothing is more seductive than not having to do anything.
Reposted by M.J. Crockett
AI Is Not Inevitable
join AAUP for a conversation with educators, educator unions, and the Collaborative Research Center for Resilience
zoom.us/webinar/regi...
join AAUP for a conversation with educators, educator unions, and the Collaborative Research Center for Resilience
zoom.us/webinar/regi...
December 5, 2025 at 1:18 PM
AI Is Not Inevitable
join AAUP for a conversation with educators, educator unions, and the Collaborative Research Center for Resilience
zoom.us/webinar/regi...
join AAUP for a conversation with educators, educator unions, and the Collaborative Research Center for Resilience
zoom.us/webinar/regi...
Reposted by M.J. Crockett
this encapsulates the essential relationship between the people running universities, the people doing academic work in universities, and the people looking to smash and grab as much as possible from universities while we're on the way down
My employer, Dartmouth College, today boasts it's 1st Ivy "to launch AI at an institutional scale." It is doing this by partnering--"more than a collaboration"--with Anthropic, a company that stole the books of many faculty, me included, which many of us are suing.
December 5, 2025 at 1:51 AM
this encapsulates the essential relationship between the people running universities, the people doing academic work in universities, and the people looking to smash and grab as much as possible from universities while we're on the way down
Important work!!
New paper alert!
"Public Speakers With Nonnative Accents Garner Less Engagement" -- now out in Psych Science!
This is my first graduate student's first first-author paper (and it was her first-year project).
Short THREAD on the results:
"Public Speakers With Nonnative Accents Garner Less Engagement" -- now out in Psych Science!
This is my first graduate student's first first-author paper (and it was her first-year project).
Short THREAD on the results:
December 4, 2025 at 8:29 PM
Important work!!
Reposted by M.J. Crockett
Public smoking bans just got in under the wire, too. Younger folks might not realize how rare they used to be and how hard they were to enact.
it is MIRACULOUS that we got rid of lead paint and asbestos when we did. if we had tried that today, there would be people whining about how we're restricting their rights.
Bring back residential-use lead paint, you cowards.
December 4, 2025 at 3:44 PM
Public smoking bans just got in under the wire, too. Younger folks might not realize how rare they used to be and how hard they were to enact.
Reposted by M.J. Crockett
I'm only halfway through listening but this podcast featuring @mjcrockett.bsky.social touches on just about everything I believe it's important to ponder re human cognition, cultural evolution, the digital degradation of social learning, it's all here. Wonderful.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6onU...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6onU...
Mind & Life Podcast: Molly Crockett – Changing the World is a Group Project
YouTube video by Mind & Life Institute
www.youtube.com
December 4, 2025 at 3:09 PM
I'm only halfway through listening but this podcast featuring @mjcrockett.bsky.social touches on just about everything I believe it's important to ponder re human cognition, cultural evolution, the digital degradation of social learning, it's all here. Wonderful.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6onU...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6onU...
Reposted by M.J. Crockett
Historian of eugenics here. I don't normally like to retweet bad arguments, but this is such a fundamental misunderstanding of eugenics, I think it's important to point out. I don't have time to debunk all of the ways this is inaccurate, but I'll highlight a few things and then recommend some books🧵
December 4, 2025 at 12:44 PM
Historian of eugenics here. I don't normally like to retweet bad arguments, but this is such a fundamental misunderstanding of eugenics, I think it's important to point out. I don't have time to debunk all of the ways this is inaccurate, but I'll highlight a few things and then recommend some books🧵
Reposted by M.J. Crockett
Finegold's "The Engineer's Apprentice"
December 3, 2025 at 2:35 PM
Finegold's "The Engineer's Apprentice"
Reposted by M.J. Crockett
Also @ruthmalan.bsky.social has a good thread of examples over on the elephant website
mastodon.social/@RuthMalan/1...
mastodon.social/@RuthMalan/1...
Ruth — of systems & em dashes (@[email protected])
“The designer's view of the human operator may be that the operator is unreliable and inefficient, so should be eliminated from the system. There are two ironies of this attitude. One is that designer...
mastodon.social
December 3, 2025 at 2:36 PM
Also @ruthmalan.bsky.social has a good thread of examples over on the elephant website
mastodon.social/@RuthMalan/1...
mastodon.social/@RuthMalan/1...
Reposted by M.J. Crockett
I'm shocked no-one has started cosplaying Dreyfus on AI yet! philpapers.org/rec/DREWHA But I also found this ace piece on automation from the early 80s last week which is like every ai in work application www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Ironies of automation
This paper discusses the ways in which automation of industrial processes may expand rather than eliminate problems with the human operator. Some comm…
www.sciencedirect.com
December 3, 2025 at 1:10 PM
I'm shocked no-one has started cosplaying Dreyfus on AI yet! philpapers.org/rec/DREWHA But I also found this ace piece on automation from the early 80s last week which is like every ai in work application www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Reposted by M.J. Crockett
December 3, 2025 at 1:29 PM
Reposted by M.J. Crockett
So many things.
Have you read Philip Agre's "Toward a Critical Technical Practice" ? pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/agre...
Have you read Philip Agre's "Toward a Critical Technical Practice" ? pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/agre...
pages.gseis.ucla.edu
December 3, 2025 at 3:12 AM
So many things.
Have you read Philip Agre's "Toward a Critical Technical Practice" ? pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/agre...
Have you read Philip Agre's "Toward a Critical Technical Practice" ? pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/agre...
What are your favorite “vintage” pieces on AI that are just as relevant today?
It’s wild reading critical scholarship on AI from 20-30 years ago and seeing how little has changed.
December 3, 2025 at 1:03 PM
What are your favorite “vintage” pieces on AI that are just as relevant today?
Reposted by M.J. Crockett
Cannot second this one enough! If you haven't read it, I'd also recommend John Pierce's Whither Speech Recognition, which I think has some interesting resonances today, and some early inklings of how a lot of later technology ended up working out, couched in so.e *pure* venom
Whither Speech Recognition?
Speech recognition has glamour. Funds have been available. Results have been less glamorous. “When we listen to a person speaking much of what we think we hear
pubs.aip.org
December 3, 2025 at 4:48 AM
Cannot second this one enough! If you haven't read it, I'd also recommend John Pierce's Whither Speech Recognition, which I think has some interesting resonances today, and some early inklings of how a lot of later technology ended up working out, couched in so.e *pure* venom
It’s wild reading critical scholarship on AI from 20-30 years ago and seeing how little has changed.
December 3, 2025 at 3:05 AM
It’s wild reading critical scholarship on AI from 20-30 years ago and seeing how little has changed.
Reposted by M.J. Crockett
All our work on replicability in the last decade has taught me that it's not a good use of resources to try and predict replicability in the first place since it's neither a good goal to achieve nor diagnostic of specific problems. It's a search for shortcuts, easy answers to complex questions.
There are many good arguments for why AI/ML will struggle to predict replicability.
www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....
I'm curious why, in light of these arguments and now data, COS is continuing to pursue this project.
www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....
I'm curious why, in light of these arguments and now data, COS is continuing to pursue this project.
December 3, 2025 at 2:29 AM
All our work on replicability in the last decade has taught me that it's not a good use of resources to try and predict replicability in the first place since it's neither a good goal to achieve nor diagnostic of specific problems. It's a search for shortcuts, easy answers to complex questions.