Bradly Alicea
@bradly-alicea.bsky.social
Director of research and content @Orthogonal_Lab. Scientific Advisory Board @ Active Inference Institute. Lecturer, iSchool @ UIUC. Developmental biology @openworm. Bike enthusiast. Good without God. Hands off Higher-Ed. #tsundoku afficionado.
Pinned
Reposted by Bradly Alicea
Dimensionality reduction may be the wrong approach to understanding neural representations. Our new paper shows that across human visual cortex, dimensionality is unbounded and scales with dataset size—we show this across nearly four orders of magnitude. journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...
December 11, 2025 at 3:32 PM
Dimensionality reduction may be the wrong approach to understanding neural representations. Our new paper shows that across human visual cortex, dimensionality is unbounded and scales with dataset size—we show this across nearly four orders of magnitude. journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...
Reposted by Bradly Alicea
It's finally here: The public (and most complete) version of my talk covering every stage of the process to build Olmo 3 Think. This involves changes and new considerations of every angle of the stack, from pretraining, evaluation, and of course post-training.
December 10, 2025 at 7:36 PM
It's finally here: The public (and most complete) version of my talk covering every stage of the process to build Olmo 3 Think. This involves changes and new considerations of every angle of the stack, from pretraining, evaluation, and of course post-training.
Reposted by Bradly Alicea
When we see something that's moving, our memories about it end up projected forward in time: We remember it further along than it was. In a new paper in 𝘗𝘴𝘺𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘚𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦, out today and led by @dillonplunkett.bsky.social, we demonstrate that this happens even when there is 𝙣𝙤 𝙢𝙤𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩𝙨𝙤𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧.🧵
Representational Momentum Transcends Motion
Dillon Plunkett & Jorge Morales (2025) Psychological Science
subjectivitylab.org
December 9, 2025 at 3:37 PM
When we see something that's moving, our memories about it end up projected forward in time: We remember it further along than it was. In a new paper in 𝘗𝘴𝘺𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘚𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦, out today and led by @dillonplunkett.bsky.social, we demonstrate that this happens even when there is 𝙣𝙤 𝙢𝙤𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩𝙨𝙤𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧.🧵
Reposted by Bradly Alicea
1/28 New preprint up, which I think is the best theoretical idea I've ever had. We asked a simple question: what are the costs of investment into non-reproductive somatic cells? Turns out these costs decrease with the *logarithm* of organism size!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
The fitness costs of reproductive specialization scale inversely with organismal size
The evolution of reproductive specialization represents a fundamental innovation in multicellular life, yet the conditions favoring its evolution remain poorly understood. Here, we develop a populatio...
www.biorxiv.org
December 9, 2025 at 7:44 PM
1/28 New preprint up, which I think is the best theoretical idea I've ever had. We asked a simple question: what are the costs of investment into non-reproductive somatic cells? Turns out these costs decrease with the *logarithm* of organism size!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Reposted by Bradly Alicea
every time i read about one of these college presidents promising to reinvent the liberal arts education i think of "marge v. the monorail"
Yes we all agree that this is the reason colleges are in trouble
December 9, 2025 at 4:57 PM
every time i read about one of these college presidents promising to reinvent the liberal arts education i think of "marge v. the monorail"
Reposted by Bradly Alicea
FYI: A heatpump is a reverse McDLT: instead of keeping hot and cold separate and then combining them, it takes combined hot and cold and makes them separate.
December 9, 2025 at 2:21 AM
FYI: A heatpump is a reverse McDLT: instead of keeping hot and cold separate and then combining them, it takes combined hot and cold and makes them separate.
Reposted by Bradly Alicea
They're using the confinement box, one of the most horrific methods of CIA torture in the post-9/11 black sites, against migrants now. This is the direct result of the lack of consequences for the architects of the torture program. Either there will be criminal penalties for this or it will expand.
Torture Techniques from CIA Black Sites Were Used at Alligator Alcatraz
Amnesty International, interviewing migrant detainees, identifies use of the confinement box. There can be no denying it is a torture prison
www.forever-wars.com
December 8, 2025 at 9:40 PM
They're using the confinement box, one of the most horrific methods of CIA torture in the post-9/11 black sites, against migrants now. This is the direct result of the lack of consequences for the architects of the torture program. Either there will be criminal penalties for this or it will expand.
Reposted by Bradly Alicea
What if complex life began when evolution hit a search bottleneck?
Across 6,500+ species, 🧬 length follow a scale-invariant law. At eukaryote origins, proteins plateau while 🧬 keep growing as noncoding regulatory DNA. Phase transition?
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
👉 manlius.substack.com
Across 6,500+ species, 🧬 length follow a scale-invariant law. At eukaryote origins, proteins plateau while 🧬 keep growing as noncoding regulatory DNA. Phase transition?
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
👉 manlius.substack.com
December 8, 2025 at 9:49 AM
What if complex life began when evolution hit a search bottleneck?
Across 6,500+ species, 🧬 length follow a scale-invariant law. At eukaryote origins, proteins plateau while 🧬 keep growing as noncoding regulatory DNA. Phase transition?
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
👉 manlius.substack.com
Across 6,500+ species, 🧬 length follow a scale-invariant law. At eukaryote origins, proteins plateau while 🧬 keep growing as noncoding regulatory DNA. Phase transition?
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
👉 manlius.substack.com
Reposted by Bradly Alicea
Great to see this published: Fitting dynamical landscape models to single-cell data, creating interpretable maps of cell decision making & developmental logic
Applied to neural tube patterning, we show how morphogen signals reshape landscapes and drive fate decisions
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Applied to neural tube patterning, we show how morphogen signals reshape landscapes and drive fate decisions
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Reconstructing Waddington’s landscape from data | PNAS
The development of a zygote into a functional organism requires that this single progenitor
cell gives rise to numerous distinct cell types. Attemp...
www.pnas.org
December 4, 2025 at 6:29 AM
Great to see this published: Fitting dynamical landscape models to single-cell data, creating interpretable maps of cell decision making & developmental logic
Applied to neural tube patterning, we show how morphogen signals reshape landscapes and drive fate decisions
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Applied to neural tube patterning, we show how morphogen signals reshape landscapes and drive fate decisions
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Reposted by Bradly Alicea
was at an event on AI for science yesterday, a panel discussion here at NeurIPS. The panelists discussed how they plan to replace humans at all levels in the scientific process. So I stood up and protested that what they are doing is evil.
Full post:
togelius.blogspot.com/2025/12/plea...
Full post:
togelius.blogspot.com/2025/12/plea...
Please, don't automate science!
I was at an event on AI for science yesterday, a panel discussion here at NeurIPS. The panelists discussed how they plan to replace humans a...
togelius.blogspot.com
December 8, 2025 at 6:51 AM
was at an event on AI for science yesterday, a panel discussion here at NeurIPS. The panelists discussed how they plan to replace humans at all levels in the scientific process. So I stood up and protested that what they are doing is evil.
Full post:
togelius.blogspot.com/2025/12/plea...
Full post:
togelius.blogspot.com/2025/12/plea...
Reposted by Bradly Alicea
On January 1, Illinois begins to regulate employer use of AI, making it a civil rights violation to use AI tools that result in discrimination based on protected characteristics in hiring, promotion, discipline, termination, or other employment terms and requiring notice of AI use. #AIBillofRights
Illinois becomes one of the few states to regulate employer use of AI. House Bill 3773 amends the Illinois Human Rights Act to make it a civil rights violation for employers to use AI tools that result in discrimination based on race, gender, age, or disability.
www.mystateline.com/news/local-n...
www.mystateline.com/news/local-n...
www.mystateline.com
December 6, 2025 at 10:49 PM
On January 1, Illinois begins to regulate employer use of AI, making it a civil rights violation to use AI tools that result in discrimination based on protected characteristics in hiring, promotion, discipline, termination, or other employment terms and requiring notice of AI use. #AIBillofRights
Reposted by Bradly Alicea
also re @nicolecrust.bsky.social
Morgan Hough @bbradlyn.bsky.social @orthogonal-lab.bsky.social @jopro-org.bsky.social
penntoday.upenn.edu/news/sas-psy...
Morgan Hough @bbradlyn.bsky.social @orthogonal-lab.bsky.social @jopro-org.bsky.social
penntoday.upenn.edu/news/sas-psy...
December 6, 2025 at 6:13 PM
Reposted by Bradly Alicea
Indonesia has pledged to hit 100% #RenewableEnergy by 2035. But its coal use is still growing & fast.
The reason? Captive coal.
Read as @nithincoca.com breaks down what & who is behind the climbing coal use
The reason? Captive coal.
Read as @nithincoca.com breaks down what & who is behind the climbing coal use
What, and who, is behind Indonesia’s climbing coal use? - Climate and Capital Media
How a renewables superpower, lack of transparency, and international financing have created a gaping fossil fuel loophole
www.climateandcapitalmedia.com
December 5, 2025 at 2:02 AM
Indonesia has pledged to hit 100% #RenewableEnergy by 2035. But its coal use is still growing & fast.
The reason? Captive coal.
Read as @nithincoca.com breaks down what & who is behind the climbing coal use
The reason? Captive coal.
Read as @nithincoca.com breaks down what & who is behind the climbing coal use
Reposted by Bradly Alicea
Jan 6 + Brony= jabroni
December 5, 2025 at 10:35 PM
Jan 6 + Brony= jabroni
Reposted by Bradly Alicea
Remember when the internet wasn't awful? We can go back to that.
Some friends and I have released the Resonant Computing Manifesto: a call to bring back such a time, to see if we can bring back a world where technology works for us, rather than against us.
resonantcomputing.org
Some friends and I have released the Resonant Computing Manifesto: a call to bring back such a time, to see if we can bring back a world where technology works for us, rather than against us.
resonantcomputing.org
The Resonant Computing Manifesto
Technology should bring out the best in humanity, not the worst—a manifesto for resonant computing built on five principles that reject hyper-scale extraction for human flourishing.
resonantcomputing.org
December 5, 2025 at 5:57 PM
Remember when the internet wasn't awful? We can go back to that.
Some friends and I have released the Resonant Computing Manifesto: a call to bring back such a time, to see if we can bring back a world where technology works for us, rather than against us.
resonantcomputing.org
Some friends and I have released the Resonant Computing Manifesto: a call to bring back such a time, to see if we can bring back a world where technology works for us, rather than against us.
resonantcomputing.org
Reposted by Bradly Alicea
Listening to Steven Pinker being interviewed on Radio 4 ahead of his Orwell Lecture "set up to shine a light on brave writing", and reflecting on why a handful of people receive criticism for their views on race and intelligence while others are celebrated despite facilitating the same views 🤔
"There were few people better placed to
know why notions of race-based differences in intelligence
have no scientific foundation; to sustain his beliefs in the
face of that demanded not just ignorance but active denial." @philipcball.bsky.social in @thelancet.com
know why notions of race-based differences in intelligence
have no scientific foundation; to sustain his beliefs in the
face of that demanded not just ignorance but active denial." @philipcball.bsky.social in @thelancet.com
I wrote an Opinion piece for @thelancet.com about James Watson. It's not an obituary - Georgina Ferry did that for them - but offers some thoughts on the problematic aspects of Watson's history.
www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
December 4, 2025 at 9:01 AM
Listening to Steven Pinker being interviewed on Radio 4 ahead of his Orwell Lecture "set up to shine a light on brave writing", and reflecting on why a handful of people receive criticism for their views on race and intelligence while others are celebrated despite facilitating the same views 🤔
Reposted by Bradly Alicea
Reposted by Bradly Alicea
The media and especially he new york times blared about an impending recession during 200 out of 208 weeks under biden. Bloomberg in Oct 2022 claimed it was 100% certain. There’s not a peep from these chuds now
It’s only a recession if it comes from the Democratic region of France, otherwise it’s just sparkling Republican mass layoffs and crushing inflation.
Behold the greatest economy in the history of the world
December 4, 2025 at 1:04 PM
The media and especially he new york times blared about an impending recession during 200 out of 208 weeks under biden. Bloomberg in Oct 2022 claimed it was 100% certain. There’s not a peep from these chuds now
Reposted by Bradly Alicea
A lot of the tech world is making a Pascal's wager inside of Plato's cave standing on top of a basilisk (?) yelling AGI that is begging for someone to be like, what are you even talking about? Read Cole's great essay about AI and the future.
Wherein I ask to be at the front of the line when the basilisk arrives
Huge thanks to @justinhendrix.bsky.social for hosting this!
techpolicy.press/what-happens...
Huge thanks to @justinhendrix.bsky.social for hosting this!
techpolicy.press/what-happens...
What Happens When 'Superintelligence' Doesn't Appear in a Few Months? | TechPolicy.Press
We must question the motives of the techno-optimists and their political goals, writes Cole Donovan.
techpolicy.press
December 2, 2025 at 5:40 PM
A lot of the tech world is making a Pascal's wager inside of Plato's cave standing on top of a basilisk (?) yelling AGI that is begging for someone to be like, what are you even talking about? Read Cole's great essay about AI and the future.
Reposted by Bradly Alicea
I sat for a long while with my complicated feelings about "vibe coding". It is _genuinely_ empowering for many — opening a door to creating with code that otherwise would never exist. Also? It enables a dangerous dependency that could be a path to serfdom for coders. www.anildash.com/2025/12/02/v...
Vibe Coding: Empowering and Imprisoning - Anil Dash
A blog about making culture. Since 1999.
www.anildash.com
December 2, 2025 at 10:32 PM
I sat for a long while with my complicated feelings about "vibe coding". It is _genuinely_ empowering for many — opening a door to creating with code that otherwise would never exist. Also? It enables a dangerous dependency that could be a path to serfdom for coders. www.anildash.com/2025/12/02/v...
Reposted by Bradly Alicea
Cope cautions that land acknowledgments risk becoming empty formalities, and instead urges real relationships, education, and reparative action for Indigenous communities.
L is for land acknowledgment, part one - Culture
A startling bit of prose was introduced before public events at the University of Illinois after July 26, 2018, when the Chancellor’s office issued an official “Land Acknowledgment Statement.” Timed f...
www.smilepolitely.com
December 2, 2025 at 9:24 PM
Cope cautions that land acknowledgments risk becoming empty formalities, and instead urges real relationships, education, and reparative action for Indigenous communities.
Reposted by Bradly Alicea
CryoBoltz improves protein structure prediction by integrating cryo-EM data with models, uncovering hidden conformations and quickly generating accurate atomic models for dynamic systems. This method aids exploration of protein landscapes, supporting drug design. https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.04490
Multiscale guidance of protein structure prediction with heterogeneous cryo-EM data
ArXiv link for Multiscale guidance of protein structure prediction with heterogeneous cryo-EM data
arxiv.org
December 2, 2025 at 6:21 PM
CryoBoltz improves protein structure prediction by integrating cryo-EM data with models, uncovering hidden conformations and quickly generating accurate atomic models for dynamic systems. This method aids exploration of protein landscapes, supporting drug design. https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.04490
Reposted by Bradly Alicea
A new paper, co-authored by WormAtlas directors Dave Hall and Nate Schroeder, describes how C. elegans community research resources, including WormAtlas, provide the infrastructure that supports nematode research around the world.
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
PNAS
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...
www.pnas.org
December 2, 2025 at 7:00 PM
A new paper, co-authored by WormAtlas directors Dave Hall and Nate Schroeder, describes how C. elegans community research resources, including WormAtlas, provide the infrastructure that supports nematode research around the world.
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Reposted by Bradly Alicea
"We are just another branch in the Tree with no more special a designation than a flea or a cow.”
Is Our Picture of Evolution Still Stuck in the Past?
We may have ditched the monkey-to-man meme, but the myth of humans as nature’s “pinnacle of evolution” persists in subtler ways.
thereader.mitpress.mit.edu
December 2, 2025 at 12:40 AM
"We are just another branch in the Tree with no more special a designation than a flea or a cow.”
Reposted by Bradly Alicea
Notes and pelicans for today's pair of DeepSeek v3.2 model releases simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/1/d...
DeepSeek-V3.2
Two new open weight (MIT licensed) models from DeepSeek today: DeepSeek-V3.2 and DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale, both 690GB, 685B parameters. Here's the PDF tech report. DeepSeek-V3.2 is DeepSeek's new flagsh...
simonwillison.net
December 2, 2025 at 12:22 AM
Notes and pelicans for today's pair of DeepSeek v3.2 model releases simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/1/d...