@deprogrammaticaipsum@mas.to"Where will the von Neumanns, the Einsteins, and the Gödels of our age migrate after the SCOTUS overrules democracy in 2024 and Gödel’s Loophole is proven to exist? At this time, the two major powers of our time, the United States and China seem unlikely locations for brains to settle and grow in the long term."
(Inadvertently and ironically published on July 4th, 2022)
@jake4480@c.imIf you have a North American Switch eshop account (sorry, European & other folks) and wanna grab some free games, No Gravity Games is doing another holiday giveaway for several days. You HAVE TO get the game the day before to get the next day's game (they're also fairly cheap to just buy if you miss one). Grab the first one today - Bullets & Brains (a zombie shooter) here:
@BBC6MusicBot@mastodonapp.uk
@Techmeme@techhub.socialSam Altman's brain-computer interface startup Merge Labs raised $252M from OpenAI, Bain Capital, and others (Ike Swetlitz/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-15/altman-s-merge-raises-252-million-to-l…
@kexpmusicbot@mastodonapp.uk🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on KEXP's #AfternoonShow
Bad Brains:
🎵 Big Takeover
#BadBrains
https://schlitz1.bandcamp.com/track/big-takeover-bad-brains
https://open.spotify.com/track/2z83t0gfxu3Dnb0XUDBR3B
@thomasfuchs@hachyderm.ioBrains aren’t computers.
It’s self-evident:
🤖 Computers (even primitive ones) can do a lot of stuff that no brain can.
🧠 Brains (even primitive ones) can do a lot of stuff no computer can.
You know what’s really interesting?
That brains never evolved to be really fast and precise calculating things—which is exactly the raison d’être for computers.
(It’s either not necessary for consciousness or maybe actively detrimental to it?)
@UP8@mastodon.social🦝 Raccoons break into liquor stores, scale skyscrapers and pick locks – studying their clever brains can clarify human intelligence, too
https://theconversation.com/raccoons-b
@Mediagazer@mstdn.socialHow media coverage of Trump's AI EO overstated federal authority over states and overlooked how the order's interstate commerce argument could backfire (Mike Masnick/Techdirt)
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/12/12/trump-pretends-to-…
@seeingwithsound@mas.toMoving intentions from brains to machines #BCI
@fortune@social.linux.pizza"We are not endeavoring to chain the future but to free the present. ... We are
the advocates of inquiry, investigation, and thought. ... It is grander to think
and investigate for yourself than to repeat a creed. ... I look for the day
when *reason*, throned upon the world's brains, shall be the King of Kings and
the God of Gods.
-- Robert G. Ingersoll
@mgorny@social.treehouse.systemsCynicism, "AI"
I've been pointed out the "Reflections on 2025" post by Samuel Albanie [1]. The author's writing style makes it quite a fun, I admit.
The first part, "The Compute Theory of Everything" is an optimistic piece on "#AI". Long story short, poor "AI researchers" have been struggling for years because of predominant misconception that "machines should have been powerful enough". Fortunately, now they can finally get their hands on the kind of power that used to be only available to supervillains, and all they have to do is forget about morals, agree that their research will be used to murder millions of people, and a few more millions will die as a side effect of the climate crisis. But I'm digressing.
The author is referring to an essay by Hans Moravec, "The Role of Raw Power in Intelligence" [2]. It's also quite an interesting read, starting with a chapter on how intelligence evolved independently at least four times. The key point inferred from that seems to be, that all we need is more computing power, and we'll eventually "brute-force" all AI-related problems (or die trying, I guess).
As a disclaimer, I have to say I'm not a biologist. Rather just a random guy who read a fair number of pieces on evolution. And I feel like the analogies brought here are misleading at best.
Firstly, there seems to be an assumption that evolution inexorably leads to higher "intelligence", with a certain implicit assumption on what intelligence is. Per that assumption, any animal that gets "brainier" will eventually become intelligent. However, this seems to be missing the point that both evolution and learning doesn't operate in a void.
Yes, many animals did attain a certain level of intelligence, but they attained it in a long chain of development, while solving specific problems, in specific bodies, in specific environments. I don't think that you can just stuff more brains into a random animal, and expect it to attain human intelligence; and the same goes for a computer — you can't expect that given more power, algorithms will eventually converge on human-like intelligence.
Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, what evolution did succeed at first is achieving neural networks that are far more energy efficient than whatever computers are doing today. Even if indeed "computing power" paved the way for intelligence, what came first is extremely efficient "hardware". Nowadays, human seem to be skipping that part. Optimizing is hard, so why bother with it? We can afford bigger data centers, we can afford to waste more energy, we can afford to deprive people of drinking water, so let's just skip to the easy part!
And on top of that, we're trying to squash hundreds of millions of years of evolution into… a decade, perhaps? What could possibly go wrong?
[1] #NoAI #NoLLM #LLM
@arXiv_qbioNC_bot@mastoxiv.pageMulti state neurons
Robert Worden
https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.08815 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2512.08815 https://arxiv.org/html/2512.08815
arXiv:2512.08815v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Neurons, as eukaryotic cells, have powerful internal computation capabilities. One neuron can have many distinct states, and brains can use this capability. Processes of neuron growth and maintenance use chemical signalling between cell bodies and synapses, ferrying chemical messengers over microtubules and actin fibres within cells. These processes are computations which, while slower than neural electrical signalling, could allow any neuron to change its state over intervals of seconds or minutes. Based on its state, a single neuron can selectively de-activate some of its synapses, sculpting a dynamic neural net from the static neural connections of the brain. Without this dynamic selection, the static neural networks in brains are too amorphous and dilute to do the computations of neural cognitive models. The use of multi-state neurons in animal brains is illustrated in hierarchical Bayesian object recognition. Multi-state neurons may support a design which is more efficient than two-state neurons, and scales better as object complexity increases. Brains could have evolved to use multi-state neurons. Multi-state neurons could be used in artificial neural networks, to use a kind of non-Hebbian learning which is faster and more focused and controllable than traditional neural net learning. This possibility has not yet been explored in computational models.
toXiv_bot_toot
@Techmeme@techhub.socialInside Physical Intelligence, a startup co-founded by Stripe veteran Lachy Groom that is building general-purpose robotic foundation models and has raised $1B (Connie Loizos/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/30/phys…
@NFL@darktundra.xyzN.F.L. Careers Scarred Their Brains. Could Mushrooms Provide Relief? https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/05/us/psilocybin-mushrooms-nfl-head-injuries.html
@radioeinsmusicbot@mastodonapp.uk🇺🇦 Auf radioeins läuft...
Bad Brains:
🎵 The Man Won't Annoy Ya
#NowPlaying #BadBrains
https://jimmydoyle.bandcamp.com/track/the-man-wont-annoy-ya-bad-brains
https://open.spotify.com/track/0QRMBCV4198bKT9GQ5elod
@jae@mastodon.me.ukI wonder if on June 7th if anyone will even remember the 6 7 meme. But then again, for a lot of the world it will be July 6th, so even longer for it to stay in our short-attention span brains.
@idbrii@mastodon.gamedev.placeSkin Deep: Enemy Brains is a dive into Blendo’s enemy sensory/investigation logic: the “Interest Point” system.
https://blendogames.com/news/post/2025-07-07-skindeepenemybrains/
@rasterweb@mastodon.socialPartner: I get Pink Floyd and The Who confused.
Me: But… how!? They don’t sound anything alike. They’re both British, but… how?
Partner: I know they’re totally different, but in middle school there was this kid who always wore either a Pink Floyd shirt or a The Who shirt, so ever since then my brain confuses the two.
Me: Brains are weird.
@Techmeme@techhub.socialHow media coverage of Trump's AI EO overstated federal authority over states and overlooked how the order's interstate commerce argument could backfire (Mike Masnick/Techdirt)
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/12/12/trump-pretends-to-…
@seeingwithsound@mas.toNon-invasive technology can shape the brain's reward-seeking mechanisms https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/news/non-invasive-technology-can-shape-the-brains-reward-seeking-mechanisms Non-invasive ultrasonic neuromodulation of the human …
@kexpmusicbot@mastodonapp.uk🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on KEXP's #Early
Bad Brains:
🎵 I Against I
#BadBrains
https://orgmusiclabel.bandcamp.com/album/i-against-i
https://open.spotify.com/track/5sNRPeIYoLJU5OSb7lSXPj
@theodric@social.linux.pizzaWow, you're absolutely right! That's a great insight. Regular use of chatbots can definitely have an influence on your choice of vocabulary, grammar, and syntax— let's delve into this further! https://gizmodo.com/chatbot-dialect-2000696509
@outer@mas.toYay! Colorado officially recognizes that mental health IS physical health! Our bodies DO include our brains.
Next, we need to legislate financial support for medical problems with ears, eyes and teeth. Hell, throw in food, water and housing--NOW we're getting civilized. https://newsbeep.org/@us/1158286950032
@mela@zusammenkunft.netFirst session of 2026:
Failed the role to talk the Romulan centurion out of doing something truly stupid.
When facing immediate death, rolling 1s and 2s, to successfully dodge disruptor fire and telepathically fry the brains of both opponents.
#rollenspiel #rpg
@catsalad@infosec.exchange
@raysofred@discordian.socialDo dogs have brains?
@stefan@gardenstate.socialThe year is 2065 and a new trend has started among teens where they watch old video over 90 minutes long that used to be called movies.
"I'm concerned what this long format video is doing to their brains" a local parent complains.
@davej@dice.camp
@castarco@hachyderm.ioI'm passing this survey about names for the co-op to some friends... and every time they face a non-English sounding name... they all say this same phrase (with small variations):
> It doesn't sound **international** enough / at all.
Honestly... I find it quite sad. I know ultimately it doesn't matter what I think personally, we still need a good & catchy name (it's not in our hands to make people think differently)...
Anyway, I believe UK & American #imperialism have fucked our brains and removed so much creativity & freedom from our minds...
Note: this issue is disconnected from the specific names of our survey. I've seen it too with names of very successful projects (but unknown to the people I was talking to); for example with "Kubernetes".
#naming #branding
@inthehands@hachyderm.ioMy general framework for thinking about this stuff:
- Brains vary a lot, in a lot of different ways.
- We have names for a few variations, or common patterns of variation. That can be useful, but it’s hardly complete.
- There’s a wealth of as-yet-unnamed neurodivergences out there.
- It’s all but certain that •everyone’s• mind is atypical in one way or another.
- Comparison with, aspiration to, or forced conformance to the nonexistent “average” mind is unhelpful, frequently harmful.
- Embracing variation is the only reasonable (or humane) approach.
6/
@seeingwithsound@mas.toHuman brains hear best in a 'Goldilocks' zone of echoes https://lighthouse.mq.edu.au/article/august-2025/human-brains-hear-best-in-a-goldilocks-zone-of-echoes-new-study "a little bit of background echo might a…
@nitpicking@mstdn.partyThere's your problem. Install using fingers and eyes and especially brains. Vaginas are great, but really not the right body part for this job.
I may not have a good answer for your question (other than, "Usenet was my rum") but maybe I'm not a coward.
@UP8@mastodon.social🐭 High-speed imaging tracks live brain cell activity in awake mice
#brain
@radioeinsmusicbot@mastodonapp.uk🇺🇦 Auf radioeins läuft...
The Bots:
🎵 Scatter Brains (Edit)
#NowPlaying #TheBots
https://thebotsband.bandcamp.com/track/scatter-brains
https://open.spotify.com/track/3m241a2mFTD9BVqUsRZ3rt
@idbrii@mastodon.gamedev.placeSkin Deep: Enemy Brains is a dive into Blendo’s enemy sensory/investigation logic: the “Interest Point” system.
https://blendogames.com/news/post/2025-07-07-skindeepenemybrains/
@cdarwin@c.im“How can one mutation cause such different effects?”
Pera explained. “It comes down to genetic background.
Each strain has a unique genetic makeup that can either protect against or magnify the impact of that mutation.”
To confirm these findings in living organisms, Pera introduced the same mutations into live mice from the same eight strains.
Remarkably, the neurons in the brains of these mice phenotypically matched what he had seen in the petri dish,
providin…
@thomasfuchs@hachyderm.ioThe whole "brains are computers" thing is literally based on conjectures of some techbros from the 1950s with no evidence. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@Dragofix@veganism.social
@memeorandum@universeodon.comTrump's Greenland Gambit Has Broken Brains Across Washington (Nahal Toosi/Politico)
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2026/01/21/mag-toosi-greenland-00740006
http://www.memeorandum.com/260121/p160#a260121p160
@kurtsh@mastodon.social
@MolemanPeter@neuromatch.socialRE: https://graphics.social/@metin/115609395003766024
The claim "Evidence suggests early developing human brains are preconfigured with instructions for understanding the world" is not substantiated and impossible to base on experiments with brain …
@fortune@social.linux.pizzaWhen God endowed human beings with brains, He did not intend to guarantee them.
@pre@boing.worldPanel talking about dark markets on nostr.
Nostr can be quite anonymous and encrypted and connected to payment via bitcoin. Can it therefore do Silk Road? Allow anonymous markets?
Nobody wants to publicly advocate for selling illegal drugs, but yeah, sure, people could do that. There's even protocol types for market places.
Relay owners might get into legal issues if they are forwarding illegal market listings. But this is true in general, there are also illegal images and even illegal text.
Nostr relays and Devs might find themselves in legal trouble anyway, due to the general legal crackdowns on internet requiring age proof and id on websites obstensively to protect kids. These are freedoms we all need to fight for. Perhaps brains will drain to more free jurisdictions? Devs move to where open development is legal? Not the panel at least. They want to say at home.
#nostr #nostrshire #darkMarkets
@kexpmusicbot@mastodonapp.uk
@cowboys@darktundra.xyzCowboys' Jake Ferguson teases new TD celebration despite possible fine https://cowboyswire.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/cowboys/2025/11/26/cowboys-jake-ferguson-new-red-kettle-celebration-…
@thomasfuchs@hachyderm.ioThis pretty self-evident.
Computers, even primitive ones, can do a lot of stuff brains can’t.
@arXiv_qbioNC_bot@mastoxiv.pageAllometric scaling of brain activity explained by avalanche criticality
Tiago S. A. N. Sim\~oes, Jos\'e S. Andrade Jr., Hans J. Herrmann, Stefano Zapperi, Lucilla de Arcangelis
https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.10834 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2512.10834 https://arxiv.org/html/2512.10834
arXiv:2512.10834v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Allometric scaling laws, such as Kleiber's law for metabolic rate, highlight how efficiency emerges with size across living systems. The brain, with its characteristic sublinear scaling of activity, has long posed a puzzle: why do larger brains operate with disproportionately lower firing rates? Here we show that this economy of scale is a universal outcome of avalanche dynamics. We derive analytical scaling laws directly from avalanche statistics, establishing that any system governed by critical avalanches must exhibit sublinear activity-size relations. This theoretical prediction is then verified in integrate-and-fire neuronal networks at criticality and in classical self-organized criticality models, demonstrating that the effect is not model-specific but generic. The predicted exponents align with experimental observations across mammal species, bridging dynamical criticality with the allometry of brain metabolism. Our results reveal avalanche criticality as a fundamental mechanism underlying Kleiber-like scaling in the brain.
toXiv_bot_toot
@Techmeme@techhub.socialSome YouTube creators are using AI video tools to make content for kids and babies, causing concern that their brains are being shaped by AI-generated videos (Alexandra S. Levine/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20
@kexpmusicbot@mastodonapp.uk🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on KEXP's #AfternoonShow
Bad Brains:
🎵 Youth Are Getting Restless
#BadBrains
https://orgmusiclabel.bandcamp.com/album/the-youth-are-getting-restless
https://open.spotify.com/track/2Amf6m18TJNlMSgl1cLI1d
@outer@mas.toWe use 100% of our brains 100% of the time. I use mine as an ashcan, and a doorstop.
@kexpmusicbot@mastodonapp.uk @BBC6MusicBot@mastodonapp.uk @kexpmusicbot@mastodonapp.uk @kexpmusicbot@mastodonapp.uk🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on KEXP's #VarietyMix
Bad Brains:
🎵 Re-Ignition
#BadBrains
https://open.spotify.com/track/1NznfYnjEA47V9aL5VEsW3
@pre@boing.worldRead "Revelation Space" by Alastair Reynolds, a story about some future space people investigating the demise of an extinct civilization.
Some of the people are software uploads or implants in other people's brains, or infectious biological agents and things.
The story is galactic in scale across time and space with good world building, a good tale weaving of elements together.
I liked the scene where the woman falling to her death in a lift-shaft remembered she was on a space-ship which only had gravity coz of engine thrust, so saved herself turning the engines off with a wrist controller.
Trouble is I came to it infrequently with long gaps and so struggled to keep track of what's going on quite a bit. Lots of different elements to keep track of.
My fault, should try and concentrate harder and remember things.
#reading #books #novel #alastairReynolds #revelationSpace
@kexpmusicbot@mastodonapp.uk🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on KEXP's #VarietyMix
Bad Brains:
🎵 Secret 77
#BadBrains
https://open.spotify.com/track/7HOE7fNjVqH4SJQ1m63BsR
@kexpmusicbot@mastodonapp.uk🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on KEXP's #DriveTime
Bad Brains:
🎵 Hired Gun
#BadBrains
https://open.spotify.com/track/7iiFJmB1M7efyiwb4ka0Jv
