Kendall Giles
@kendallgiles.com
I research the governance of emerging technologies, engineering translation, and technology, society, and meaning
Faculty @ Virginia Tech
Bagpipes
More: https://kendallgiles.com/bio
Faculty @ Virginia Tech
Bagpipes
More: https://kendallgiles.com/bio
Last night I played bagpipes with the Appalachian Piping Academy for the Grandin Village Winterfest Holiday Tree Lighting Ceremony.
Great turnout, despite the ~36F temperature. And yes, playing bagpipes when it is that cold is quite tricky.
Great turnout, despite the ~36F temperature. And yes, playing bagpipes when it is that cold is quite tricky.
December 7, 2025 at 3:29 PM
Last night I played bagpipes with the Appalachian Piping Academy for the Grandin Village Winterfest Holiday Tree Lighting Ceremony.
Great turnout, despite the ~36F temperature. And yes, playing bagpipes when it is that cold is quite tricky.
Great turnout, despite the ~36F temperature. And yes, playing bagpipes when it is that cold is quite tricky.
I'm getting involved in a lot more bagpipe/music performance stuff, so I created a new website devoted to that -- pseudodragon.com
Pseudodragon
Pseudodragon combines folk, Celtic, and modern influences into entertaining and unforgettable music performances online and across the Greater Roanoke Valley.
pseudodragon.com
November 19, 2025 at 4:29 PM
I'm getting involved in a lot more bagpipe/music performance stuff, so I created a new website devoted to that -- pseudodragon.com
This Saturday we'll be performing at the Radford Highlanders Festival -- massed bands at noon, and local pipes and drums band performances at 9:30AM, 10:30AM, 1:30PM, and 2:30PM.
PS: Ally the Piper will be performing there too!
PS: Ally the Piper will be performing there too!
October 5, 2025 at 2:54 PM
This Saturday we'll be performing at the Radford Highlanders Festival -- massed bands at noon, and local pipes and drums band performances at 9:30AM, 10:30AM, 1:30PM, and 2:30PM.
PS: Ally the Piper will be performing there too!
PS: Ally the Piper will be performing there too!
My students are aware of this, but good to see this realization getting more mainstream access
I feel like not nearly enough people understand this:
"Where real thinking involves organic associations, speculative leaps, and surprise inferences, AI can only recognize and repeat embedded word chains, based on elaborately automated statistical guesswork."
www.nplusonemag.com/issue-51/the...
"Where real thinking involves organic associations, speculative leaps, and surprise inferences, AI can only recognize and repeat embedded word chains, based on elaborately automated statistical guesswork."
www.nplusonemag.com/issue-51/the...
Large Language Muddle | The Editors
The AI upheaval is unique in its ability to metabolize any number of dread-inducing transformations. The university is becoming more corporate, more politically oppressive, and all but hostile to the ...
www.nplusonemag.com
September 29, 2025 at 10:30 PM
My students are aware of this, but good to see this realization getting more mainstream access
Here's a photo of the Honor Guard and us in the Roanoke Regional Emerald Society Pipes and Drums band, courtesy of Roanoke 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb, right before the start of the march around the block before the 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb.
September 22, 2025 at 4:11 PM
Here's a photo of the Honor Guard and us in the Roanoke Regional Emerald Society Pipes and Drums band, courtesy of Roanoke 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb, right before the start of the march around the block before the 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb.
Today I had the honor of playing bagipes with the Roanoke Regional Emerald Society Pipes and Drums for the opening ceremony of the Roanoke 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb.
Photo: Virginia Emergency Units
Photo: Virginia Emergency Units
September 13, 2025 at 6:27 PM
Today I had the honor of playing bagipes with the Roanoke Regional Emerald Society Pipes and Drums for the opening ceremony of the Roanoke 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb.
Photo: Virginia Emergency Units
Photo: Virginia Emergency Units
In an age when people are using AI to read for them, what gets lost when people don't/can't read?
BRO. THAT’S THE BOOK. THAT’S LITERALLY THE BOOK. WHAT THE FUCK.
Apparently Guillermo Del Toro has ruined Frankenstein by… being relatively faithful to the source material.
Oh my.
Oh my.
September 3, 2025 at 1:06 AM
In an age when people are using AI to read for them, what gets lost when people don't/can't read?
Reposted by Kendall Giles
The single most important thing to understand about digital futurism is this:
When the digital future that Sam Altman ( or Elon, or Andreessen, etc) predicts fails to materialize, he doesn’t have to give the money back.
When the digital future that Sam Altman ( or Elon, or Andreessen, etc) predicts fails to materialize, he doesn’t have to give the money back.
August 29, 2025 at 12:14 AM
The single most important thing to understand about digital futurism is this:
When the digital future that Sam Altman ( or Elon, or Andreessen, etc) predicts fails to materialize, he doesn’t have to give the money back.
When the digital future that Sam Altman ( or Elon, or Andreessen, etc) predicts fails to materialize, he doesn’t have to give the money back.
Reposted by Kendall Giles
What if scientists hadn’t waited until this point to speak about politics
Every time I see a headline like this, my brain just shouts
Like what if scientists hadn’t sat around silently watching everyone around them get attacked
Maybe the fight on campus would have gone differently
Every time I see a headline like this, my brain just shouts
Like what if scientists hadn’t sat around silently watching everyone around them get attacked
Maybe the fight on campus would have gone differently
"Tao is one of the most prominent mathematicians and academics to publicly oppose the administration’s actions, calling them an “existential threat” to his field, and academic science, more broadly. He said public advocacy is a priority over his research, for now."
www.nbcnews.com/science/scie...
www.nbcnews.com/science/scie...
The 'Mozart of Math' rarely speaks about politics. The wide-ranging cuts to science funding made him change that.
UCLA's Terence Tao called the Trump administration's actions an "existential threat" to academic research in the U.S.
www.nbcnews.com
August 28, 2025 at 12:34 PM
What if scientists hadn’t waited until this point to speak about politics
Every time I see a headline like this, my brain just shouts
Like what if scientists hadn’t sat around silently watching everyone around them get attacked
Maybe the fight on campus would have gone differently
Every time I see a headline like this, my brain just shouts
Like what if scientists hadn’t sat around silently watching everyone around them get attacked
Maybe the fight on campus would have gone differently
Back in June I posted a pic of some new chicks -- here's a chick update, with audio
August 27, 2025 at 3:35 PM
Back in June I posted a pic of some new chicks -- here's a chick update, with audio
Happy start to your fall semester, everyone!
Today I'm at Virginia Tech for the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering faculty retreat, where we are strategizing for the upcoming year.
Today I'm at Virginia Tech for the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering faculty retreat, where we are strategizing for the upcoming year.
August 20, 2025 at 5:52 PM
Happy start to your fall semester, everyone!
Today I'm at Virginia Tech for the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering faculty retreat, where we are strategizing for the upcoming year.
Today I'm at Virginia Tech for the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering faculty retreat, where we are strategizing for the upcoming year.
Reposted by Kendall Giles
I'll admit, I was skeptical when they said Gemini was just like a bunch of PhDs. But I gotta admit they nailed it.
August 17, 2025 at 1:51 PM
I'll admit, I was skeptical when they said Gemini was just like a bunch of PhDs. But I gotta admit they nailed it.
Reposted by Kendall Giles
my new AI powered lamp is trained on millions of lamp interactions so it understands that 50% of chain pulls are to turn it on and the other 50% are to turn it off. and honestly, it's a little spooky how it knows exactly what i want almost half of the time
March 17, 2025 at 10:59 PM
my new AI powered lamp is trained on millions of lamp interactions so it understands that 50% of chain pulls are to turn it on and the other 50% are to turn it off. and honestly, it's a little spooky how it knows exactly what i want almost half of the time
ChatGPT: "It’s cheat codes all the way down."
Exactly right.
They simply want the end product — whether it’s an actual production of art or music or the end result of hard work like a PhD — without doing the work.
It’s cheat codes all the way down.
They simply want the end product — whether it’s an actual production of art or music or the end result of hard work like a PhD — without doing the work.
It’s cheat codes all the way down.
Something that I have been thinking about with attribution of "PhD level intelligence" or "PhD level expertise" to a machine is that it reflects an increasing trend among these AI bros and their sycophants to want the products of highly skilled training without actually doing any of the work.
August 9, 2025 at 10:46 PM
ChatGPT: "It’s cheat codes all the way down."
Sam Altman says ChatGPT-5 is "a legitimate PhD-level expert in anything"
Per Dunning-Kruger: to someone who does not know much about a topic, ChatGPT will seem like "a legitimate PhD-level expert"
But: if you do know something about a topic, ChatGPT's stochastic parrot foundation will be obvious
Per Dunning-Kruger: to someone who does not know much about a topic, ChatGPT will seem like "a legitimate PhD-level expert"
But: if you do know something about a topic, ChatGPT's stochastic parrot foundation will be obvious
August 8, 2025 at 1:37 PM
Sam Altman says ChatGPT-5 is "a legitimate PhD-level expert in anything"
Per Dunning-Kruger: to someone who does not know much about a topic, ChatGPT will seem like "a legitimate PhD-level expert"
But: if you do know something about a topic, ChatGPT's stochastic parrot foundation will be obvious
Per Dunning-Kruger: to someone who does not know much about a topic, ChatGPT will seem like "a legitimate PhD-level expert"
But: if you do know something about a topic, ChatGPT's stochastic parrot foundation will be obvious
it's more than just the training data that is the problem with AI
amongst current misunderstanding and simplistic understanding of AI, the popular narrative of "bias in, bias out" continues to frustrate me the most. this thread covers some of the reason
most people want a quick and simple answer to why AI systems encode/exacerbate societal and historical bias/injustice and due to the reductive but common thinking of "bias in, bias out," the obvious culprit often is training data but this is not entirely true
1/
1/
August 7, 2025 at 1:55 PM
it's more than just the training data that is the problem with AI
Helping clean out an old house we came across this Oliver North campaign poster. Those scandals back then seem quaint compared to the ones we've experienced so far this year...
August 3, 2025 at 7:04 PM
Helping clean out an old house we came across this Oliver North campaign poster. Those scandals back then seem quaint compared to the ones we've experienced so far this year...
Last night we went to the wonderful musical Guys and Dolls at Attic Productions -- support local theater!
July 26, 2025 at 1:28 PM
Last night we went to the wonderful musical Guys and Dolls at Attic Productions -- support local theater!
Nice
CAPTCHAs are annoying and have gotten damn near impossible. #StarTrek
July 26, 2025 at 5:01 AM
Nice
More features that don't work, that we don't want and didn't ask for, and that costs us more -- bargain?!
Last week, I got an email from Microsoft. It told me I’d be paying 46% more for my Office subscription, starting next month.
But when I tried to cancel, it offered me the same price I was already paying — without the generative AI features I never asked for in the first place.
But when I tried to cancel, it offered me the same price I was already paying — without the generative AI features I never asked for in the first place.
I’ve had it with Microsoft
The company is deceptively raising prices on existing customers to fund its AI spending
www.disconnect.blog
July 25, 2025 at 3:16 PM
More features that don't work, that we don't want and didn't ask for, and that costs us more -- bargain?!
My university today about needing to suddenly remove a "Smart" Search Tool from our course LMS (Canvas):
"we recently discovered that some searches could surface restricted content in ways that may create confusion about where or how certain content is used within a course."
"we recently discovered that some searches could surface restricted content in ways that may create confusion about where or how certain content is used within a course."
AI-assistant caused DATA LOSS, destroyed projects, user files and a production database: issued faulty commands, overwriting data; another ignored freeze directives, fabricated test data, and dropped a live database. anuraag2601.github.io/gemini_cli_d... www.theregister.com/2025/07/21/r...
July 25, 2025 at 1:33 PM
My university today about needing to suddenly remove a "Smart" Search Tool from our course LMS (Canvas):
"we recently discovered that some searches could surface restricted content in ways that may create confusion about where or how certain content is used within a course."
"we recently discovered that some searches could surface restricted content in ways that may create confusion about where or how certain content is used within a course."
Reposted by Kendall Giles
This is my 7th-grade band director when he heard me play a scale on the oboe.
July 24, 2025 at 11:23 PM
This is my 7th-grade band director when he heard me play a scale on the oboe.