There are some legitimate applications in, e.g., accessibility tools. But as far as the actual process of research and writing? Don't outsource that. At best it's bad for you, at worst it's bad for everyone.

And what's it trained on? Can you cite that? Did the wording get pulled primarily from a source it can't reveal to you? And we haven't even got to the "AI output can't be copyrighted" which raises serious concerns in scientific publishing. It's not inevitable.

An LLM produces confident and polished output with zero intent behind it. We anthropomorphize everything, and that colours how we see LLMs. It's not "reasoning", it's not "thinking", we're not "chatting". It's predicting an answer that is optimized to be something you'll like...

I've found inspiration in a single, somewhat tangential, sentence in an old paper from the '60s. I know that sentence was intentional and I weight it accordingly. Now, if I suspect LLM usage in writing? I don't give those the same weight.

The process of continuous practice, learning, and exercise of skills is what makes us good at what we do and good mentors for the next generation.

We get to be better through intentional practice of critical skills. Outsourcing that only helps a person if you outsource to a person so they can use their expertise. Science is, like so many things, a fundamentally human endeavour. The struggle on every project makes us better scientists...

Scour the literature. Read it all. Highlight it. Spread the pages across your desk and compare three things at once. Write incomprehensible notes that even you won't understand afterwards. Test everything, make 300 figures for every one that you might eventually use. It's about the process.

The physics one is definitely deserved though.

Not for playing football. For your enthusiasm...

Congratulations! Very well deserved. Maybe Wrexham can give you some sort of honorary football award now.

Alexa Melo has an EP of gorgeous Radiohead covers. I often think covering Radiohead is doomed to failure, with notable exceptions like The Darkness covering Street Spirit or anything Alexa Melo has done (her Lotus Flower is better than the original). youtu.be/07gYJot1-UQ

Bloc Party had a huge impact on me. I even remixed "The Prayer" for a Triple J competition back in the day. Matt Tong is one of my favorite drummers. And every year this song fails to lose relevance: youtu.be/bnTMm5RPFaM

Everyone knows Fortunate Son and there are numerous covers, but I like this one: youtu.be/TvxbqeLToug

IDLES are probably the best band I've heard in the last 5 years (Shout out to Die Spitz for being the other contender). Gift Horse is my favorite, but this one fits the list: youtu.be/BLcM3fq6Quk

A short interlude for a song I wrote in the 90s and recorded around '00/'01 with a couple of friends at a local college. soundclick.com/song/15118745 (🧵 to be continued)