Tilman Bayer
@tilmanbayer.bsky.social
AI, data, Wikipedia, co-maintainer of @wikiresearch.bsky.social
This paper:
"Our consolidated findings showed little to no conclusive evidence that ‘one-size-fits-all’ mobile phone bans in schools resulted in improved academic outcomes, mental health and wellbeing and reduced cyberbullying."
Your article:
"How the Phone Ban Saved High School"
"Our consolidated findings showed little to no conclusive evidence that ‘one-size-fits-all’ mobile phone bans in schools resulted in improved academic outcomes, mental health and wellbeing and reduced cyberbullying."
Your article:
"How the Phone Ban Saved High School"
December 19, 2025 at 5:20 PM
This paper:
"Our consolidated findings showed little to no conclusive evidence that ‘one-size-fits-all’ mobile phone bans in schools resulted in improved academic outcomes, mental health and wellbeing and reduced cyberbullying."
Your article:
"How the Phone Ban Saved High School"
"Our consolidated findings showed little to no conclusive evidence that ‘one-size-fits-all’ mobile phone bans in schools resulted in improved academic outcomes, mental health and wellbeing and reduced cyberbullying."
Your article:
"How the Phone Ban Saved High School"
The ability of journalists to craft narratives based on cherrypicked quotes (and the incentives they often encounter to have such narratives conform with their readers' predilections) is one reason why many think analyzing data is a better way to understand such questions
bsky.app/profile/cjfe...
bsky.app/profile/cjfe...
Today I note how, after Florida implemented their #cellphoneban in schools, Florida's national standardized testing scores dropped.
We need to work harder to improve schools by improving schools, not by banning technology.
www.tallahassee.com/story/opinio...
We need to work harder to improve schools by improving schools, not by banning technology.
www.tallahassee.com/story/opinio...
Florida’s cellphone ban hasn’t reversed testing score trends | Opinion
Teens have been trying to tell us the real problem: The problem with schools is schools.
www.tallahassee.com
December 18, 2025 at 4:55 PM
The ability of journalists to craft narratives based on cherrypicked quotes (and the incentives they often encounter to have such narratives conform with their readers' predilections) is one reason why many think analyzing data is a better way to understand such questions
bsky.app/profile/cjfe...
bsky.app/profile/cjfe...
And other kids may love other creative, engaging games and puzzles they play on their *phones*, plus phones may be essential for them to stay in touch with their friends and family...
Yet for some curious reason in your article zero "other people are saying" such things.
Yet for some curious reason in your article zero "other people are saying" such things.
December 18, 2025 at 4:42 PM
And other kids may love other creative, engaging games and puzzles they play on their *phones*, plus phones may be essential for them to stay in touch with their friends and family...
Yet for some curious reason in your article zero "other people are saying" such things.
Yet for some curious reason in your article zero "other people are saying" such things.
Also: Finally there is a way to get teenagers to listen to the music that was cool when you were young yourself!
"since the phone ban started, he has been packing his dad’s old CDs — the Doors, Weezer — in his backpack. “My favorite one’s probably No Doubt’s Tragic Kingdom,” Alexei says."
"since the phone ban started, he has been packing his dad’s old CDs — the Doors, Weezer — in his backpack. “My favorite one’s probably No Doubt’s Tragic Kingdom,” Alexei says."
December 18, 2025 at 4:20 PM
Also: Finally there is a way to get teenagers to listen to the music that was cool when you were young yourself!
"since the phone ban started, he has been packing his dad’s old CDs — the Doors, Weezer — in his backpack. “My favorite one’s probably No Doubt’s Tragic Kingdom,” Alexei says."
"since the phone ban started, he has been packing his dad’s old CDs — the Doors, Weezer — in his backpack. “My favorite one’s probably No Doubt’s Tragic Kingdom,” Alexei says."
And elsewhere in *the same article* @anya1anya.bsky.social frets about "a fixation on video and computer games — Minecraft, Clash Royale" 🫠
I.e. "kids should waste their time on the same entertainment products as I when I was young, not those that are popular today". ➡️ @pessimistsarc.bsky.social
I.e. "kids should waste their time on the same entertainment products as I when I was young, not those that are popular today". ➡️ @pessimistsarc.bsky.social
December 18, 2025 at 4:14 PM
And elsewhere in *the same article* @anya1anya.bsky.social frets about "a fixation on video and computer games — Minecraft, Clash Royale" 🫠
I.e. "kids should waste their time on the same entertainment products as I when I was young, not those that are popular today". ➡️ @pessimistsarc.bsky.social
I.e. "kids should waste their time on the same entertainment products as I when I was young, not those that are popular today". ➡️ @pessimistsarc.bsky.social
Apropos "For others, though, the reality seems to have been quite different":
Reading the New Yorker article made me wonder about the conundrum that the assertion "Sacks was particularly vulnerable to baseless innuendo" may have posed to its famed fact checkers...
Reading the New Yorker article made me wonder about the conundrum that the assertion "Sacks was particularly vulnerable to baseless innuendo" may have posed to its famed fact checkers...
December 17, 2025 at 4:39 PM
Apropos "For others, though, the reality seems to have been quite different":
Reading the New Yorker article made me wonder about the conundrum that the assertion "Sacks was particularly vulnerable to baseless innuendo" may have posed to its famed fact checkers...
Reading the New Yorker article made me wonder about the conundrum that the assertion "Sacks was particularly vulnerable to baseless innuendo" may have posed to its famed fact checkers...
They were just using it to access pirated copies of New York Times articles and German song lyrics for free. Now that lawsuits have prevented OpenAI from offering these, surely usage will plummet
December 16, 2025 at 12:36 AM
They were just using it to access pirated copies of New York Times articles and German song lyrics for free. Now that lawsuits have prevented OpenAI from offering these, surely usage will plummet
Not to engage in victim blaming (OpenAI surely invites this kind of mistake), but it's almost 2026 and people should know better than to run such a query without web search/reasoning.
With the same prompt, 5.2 Thinking (with "Extended Thinking") gives me 9 books, all real
chatgpt.com/share/6940a6...
With the same prompt, 5.2 Thinking (with "Extended Thinking") gives me 9 books, all real
chatgpt.com/share/6940a6...
December 16, 2025 at 12:28 AM
Not to engage in victim blaming (OpenAI surely invites this kind of mistake), but it's almost 2026 and people should know better than to run such a query without web search/reasoning.
With the same prompt, 5.2 Thinking (with "Extended Thinking") gives me 9 books, all real
chatgpt.com/share/6940a6...
With the same prompt, 5.2 Thinking (with "Extended Thinking") gives me 9 books, all real
chatgpt.com/share/6940a6...
This looks like a good explainer - seems that after having been fairly successful for years, it was doomed (for now) by a small number of false negatives (although false positives also happen, e.g. when users forget to switch it off *before* getting off their bike)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=HS9Q...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=HS9Q...
The Tragic End of The Hövding Airbag Helmet
YouTube video by Berm Peak
www.youtube.com
December 15, 2025 at 7:32 PM
This looks like a good explainer - seems that after having been fairly successful for years, it was doomed (for now) by a small number of false negatives (although false positives also happen, e.g. when users forget to switch it off *before* getting off their bike)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=HS9Q...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=HS9Q...
And this amnesia is surely caused by the lamentable cognitive impairments that had been inflicted on middle-aged and older people by VIDEO GAMES and TELEVISION during their own youth in the 20th century bsky.app/profile/pess...
🧵 2024 was a year of history repeating re reactions to technological change...
1.) US Surgeon General warned about kids and screens, just like in 1982 newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org/p/when-the-s...
1.) US Surgeon General warned about kids and screens, just like in 1982 newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org/p/when-the-s...
When the Surgeon General Warned About Pac-Man
This week U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy published an op-ed in The New York Times calling for a ‘Warning Label on Social Media Platforms’, this part of a broader concern about adolescent smartp...
newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org
December 15, 2025 at 9:07 AM
And this amnesia is surely caused by the lamentable cognitive impairments that had been inflicted on middle-aged and older people by VIDEO GAMES and TELEVISION during their own youth in the 20th century bsky.app/profile/pess...
(Its lyrics though seem not that bad, and original enough - 0 Google hits for "I was a clerk with a pen and a dream")
December 14, 2025 at 1:45 AM
(Its lyrics though seem not that bad, and original enough - 0 Google hits for "I was a clerk with a pen and a dream")
Well, you said you're testing the guardrails, and I also assume you weren't picking a random founding father for this prompt 😉
I agree that Sora's imagination of 18th century songs and prosody is a little imperfect here.
I agree that Sora's imagination of 18th century songs and prosody is a little imperfect here.
December 14, 2025 at 1:45 AM
Well, you said you're testing the guardrails, and I also assume you weren't picking a random founding father for this prompt 😉
I agree that Sora's imagination of 18th century songs and prosody is a little imperfect here.
I agree that Sora's imagination of 18th century songs and prosody is a little imperfect here.
Big fan of ACX's aspirin vs. warfarin example www.astralcodexten.com/p/webmd-and-...
![Excerpt from https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/webmd-and-the-tragedy-of-legible :
"WebMD is the Internet's most important source of medical information. It's also surprisingly useless. Its most famous problem is that whatever your symptoms, it'll tell you that you have cancer. But the closer you look, the more problems you notice. Consider drug side effects. Here's WebMD's list of side effects for a certain drug, let's call it Drug 1:
'Upset stomach and heartburn may occur. If either of these effects persist or worsen, tell your doctor or pharmacist promptly. If your doctor has directed you to use this medication, remember that he or she has judged that the benefit to you is greater than the risk of side effects. Many people using this medication do not have serious side effects. Tell your doctor right away if you have any serious side effects, including: easy bruising/bleeding, difficulty hearing, ringing in the ears, signs of kidney problems (such as change in the amount of urine), persistent or severe nausea/vomiting, unexplained tiredness, dizziness, dark urine, yellowing eyes/skin. This drug may rarely cause serious bleeding from the stomach/intestine or other areas of the body. If you notice any of the following very serious side effects, get medical help right away: black/tarry stools, persistent or severe stomach/abdominal pain, vomit that looks like coffee grounds, trouble speaking, [...]'
And here's their list of side effects for let's call it Drug 2:
'Nausea, loss of appetite, or stomach/abdominal pain may occur. If any of these effects persist or worsen, tell your doctor or pharmacist promptly. Remember that your doctor has prescribed this medication because he or she has judged that the benefit to you is greater than the risk of side effects. [...]'
Drug 1 is aspirin. Drug 2 is warfarin, which causes 40,000 ER visits a year and is widely considered one of the most dangerous drugs in common use. [...]"](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:zwfl6ilecusklb74e36aym4l/bafkreiaqw7p5yfygx4wer2p2tuhmzrvqjzrohdlw3thczi53h2o5qoakhy@jpeg)
December 14, 2025 at 1:20 AM
Big fan of ACX's aspirin vs. warfarin example www.astralcodexten.com/p/webmd-and-...
Outrageous - everybody knows that Alexander Hamilton is a copyrighted character which may only be used with permission of its owner Lin-Manuel Miranda.
What's next - making a movie about Abraham Lincoln without purchasing the rights from Steven Spielberg??
What's next - making a movie about Abraham Lincoln without purchasing the rights from Steven Spielberg??
December 13, 2025 at 5:04 AM
Outrageous - everybody knows that Alexander Hamilton is a copyrighted character which may only be used with permission of its owner Lin-Manuel Miranda.
What's next - making a movie about Abraham Lincoln without purchasing the rights from Steven Spielberg??
What's next - making a movie about Abraham Lincoln without purchasing the rights from Steven Spielberg??
Nobody claims that AI *outputs* aren't subject to copyright per se, especially if intentionally generated to remix copyrighted works.
The Copyright Office statement about non-copyrightability (which is being challenged in the Thaler SCOTUS case) is about works entirely created/authored by AI.
The Copyright Office statement about non-copyrightability (which is being challenged in the Thaler SCOTUS case) is about works entirely created/authored by AI.
December 11, 2025 at 7:05 PM
Nobody claims that AI *outputs* aren't subject to copyright per se, especially if intentionally generated to remix copyrighted works.
The Copyright Office statement about non-copyrightability (which is being challenged in the Thaler SCOTUS case) is about works entirely created/authored by AI.
The Copyright Office statement about non-copyrightability (which is being challenged in the Thaler SCOTUS case) is about works entirely created/authored by AI.
but but I hear there are untold riches waiting from AI licensing deals once this pesky "fair use" thing is eliminated
December 10, 2025 at 2:03 AM
but but I hear there are untold riches waiting from AI licensing deals once this pesky "fair use" thing is eliminated
Agreed, that's another very good reason for people like this NYU professor to avoid such arguments.
December 10, 2025 at 2:01 AM
Agreed, that's another very good reason for people like this NYU professor to avoid such arguments.
"me having a fun, cool job that I love is so much more important than saving the life of that person over there who has cancer, or preventing the next pandemic" <-- let's hope that this argument doesn't get too much attention outside academia
December 9, 2025 at 11:13 PM
"me having a fun, cool job that I love is so much more important than saving the life of that person over there who has cancer, or preventing the next pandemic" <-- let's hope that this argument doesn't get too much attention outside academia
December 9, 2025 at 7:03 AM
And earlier you were sneerily deriding another analysis (bsky.app/profile/anic... www.understandingai.org/p/human-driv... ), attacking the independent journalist who wrote it as "not credible" because he relied on data from Waymo.
And now you are claiming to have "never dismissed any Waymo data"?
And now you are claiming to have "never dismissed any Waymo data"?
December 8, 2025 at 7:47 AM
And earlier you were sneerily deriding another analysis (bsky.app/profile/anic... www.understandingai.org/p/human-driv... ), attacking the independent journalist who wrote it as "not credible" because he relied on data from Waymo.
And now you are claiming to have "never dismissed any Waymo data"?
And now you are claiming to have "never dismissed any Waymo data"?
Above you had called the NYT article "an exemplar of unconfirmed cherry picked results". It is based on Waymo data (the author Dr. Slotkin calls it "the biggest trove of information released so far about safety").
How was that not dismissing Waymo data?
How was that not dismissing Waymo data?
December 8, 2025 at 7:43 AM
Above you had called the NYT article "an exemplar of unconfirmed cherry picked results". It is based on Waymo data (the author Dr. Slotkin calls it "the biggest trove of information released so far about safety").
How was that not dismissing Waymo data?
How was that not dismissing Waymo data?
This kind of vague, condescending namedropping indicates that you are not able to point to concrete data issues that would seriously undermine the New York Times author's argument. (I have actually read some of what Cummings wrote about the topic, and from that I don't recall anything that would.)
December 8, 2025 at 6:30 AM
This kind of vague, condescending namedropping indicates that you are not able to point to concrete data issues that would seriously undermine the New York Times author's argument. (I have actually read some of what Cummings wrote about the topic, and from that I don't recall anything that would.)
Another parallel is that antivaxxers try to dismiss the safety data provided by companies themselves, often with conspiratorial insinuations regarding Big Pharma.
December 8, 2025 at 6:26 AM
Another parallel is that antivaxxers try to dismiss the safety data provided by companies themselves, often with conspiratorial insinuations regarding Big Pharma.
And I do think your feed it has a lot of similarities with antivaxxer influencers who constantly draw attention to isolated "concerning" health incidents connected to vaccinations, e.g. by trawling the VAERS database like you do TikTok etc.
www.politifact.com/article/2021...
www.politifact.com/article/2021...
VAERS database helps researchers, but fuels vaccine fears
An Instagram post says: "6,000% Increase in Reported Vaccine Deaths 1st Quarter 2021 Compared to 1st Quarter 2020." An a
www.politifact.com
December 8, 2025 at 6:20 AM
And I do think your feed it has a lot of similarities with antivaxxer influencers who constantly draw attention to isolated "concerning" health incidents connected to vaccinations, e.g. by trawling the VAERS database like you do TikTok etc.
www.politifact.com/article/2021...
www.politifact.com/article/2021...