MIT no longer has a mask requirement. Our research group discussed whether to keep masks on for indoor meetings so that everyone feels comfortable attending. Today, an email from the Vice Chancellor says that’s not allowed.
MIT requires vaccination, has a vaccination rate above 90%, has a weekly testing requirement, mask requirement, and contact tracing. And we still have COVID cases.
Next time I’m thinking of putting my career on the line by speaking truth to power and ugly-crying in front of 100 people, I’ll try to remember that a man will get credit for it in the press.
It’s official! I've joined the Boston Dynamics AI Institute to lead their ethics & society research initiative. I'll keep MIT as an academic home, but I’m thrilled to be building my own team at a cutting-edge robotics research institute.
If we end this with one person falling on their sword, nothing will change. There is so much work to do to fight the systemic problems at the Media Lab, MIT, and beyond. Today we grieve, tomorrow we roll up our sleeves.
Here's my conversation with Kate Darling (
@grok_
), human-robot interaction and robot ethics researcher at MIT and author of The New Breed, a book in which she explores what our past with animals reveals about our future with robots. Kate is amazing!
1. The AI is not sentient.
2. Of course people think it’s sentient.
3. We share the earth with actual sentient beings and we literally eat them.
4. If interested in the “why” to any of that, my book The New Breed is a pretty good explainer.
This was a tweet in reaction to other university policies for the fall. MIT has good policies. Policies that many other universities are hesitant to implement.
It feels like a million years ago that I sat down with
@lexfridman
for this conversation. He’s one of the most interesting people I’ve ever spoken with.
Here's my conversation with Kate Darling (
@grok_
), a human-robot interaction researcher at MIT, about the emotional connection between humans and robots.
This. Note that you don't need to be aware of horrible crimes like sex trafficking to be complicit in this other aspect. The boys club is real and I'm tired of being gaslit. This shouldn't be normal.
Dear America, I’m going to continue voting for the woman who is 1000x more qualified than the men yet held to an impossible standard, until it is acceptable practice. We all know where this is eventually going.
I was on a hijacked(?)
@MBTA
train today—it was driving erratically, someone was fooling around hollering through the intercom. Passengers were freaked out, called 911, fortunately we were all able to get out at Charles/MGH. Cops came. Still don’t know what happened.
Just confronted a racist white woman who was being super shitty to a Washington Dulles airport shopkeep in a hijab. I told her off, she backed down immediately and slunk away. I asked the shopkeep if she was ok and then I didn’t know what else to do so I... bought a lot of gum?
When you’re reading The Age of Surveillance Capitalism and Apple Books pings you with a notification congratulating you on reaching the daily reading goal it set for you.
@TheSourceAV
Cases are going up. Even if they weren’t, there are at-risk individuals and people who live with unvaccinated children who should be allowed to respectfully ask that someone mask when in an enclosed space with them for a meeting.
Stallman is a disgusting misogynist and known sexual harasser who licked my law professor friend’s arm from wrist to elbow when she met him and shook his hand.
I was lingering at daycare drop off, when Babybot (who is learning to string words together) said “Mama... walk” and when I didn’t get the hint he kissed my face and said “Bye bye Mama!” and pointed at the door. I am ded.
A problem with the culture of work ethic I was raised in is that it doesn’t distinguish between grit (perseverance in the face of challenges that are worth overcoming) and grind (which is not being able to or not knowing when to step away).
Getting yelled at by Bernie supporters and being told I’m a harpie who should go make a man a sandwich is sure convincing me that none of this is about sexism.
Pretty sure
@Klonick
’s career is based on her being a brilliant, driven, well-published scholar, who also has some serious reporting experience under her belt. But please, tell us more about how you think the little lady should have done it!
“While periods are normal, they remain stigmatized, under-innovated for, and neglected[...]”
The MIT
@medialab
is going to host a hackathon called There Will Be Blood!
Not sure what part of my parental leave out-of-office reply people don’t understand. I have to keep checking that it’s actually sending! You got your answer. If you’re following up demanding a response, how about you come over and take the baby and toddler so that I can shower.
Me: "I'm only half a chapter away from finishing my manuscript draft, why is my stress level increasing?"
Friend: "Because you love writing your book and it enabled you to shove aside the real stressors in your life that are about to come crashing down on you again."
Me: "Oh."
I’m in a 175-person Zoom meeting to discuss emergency COVID-19 measures in our lab and a lot of people including myself are backchanneling to discuss the meeting leader’s kitchen cabinets.
I started therapy toward the end of 2019 because I wanted to change. Instead, therapy has helped me understand. Like I’ve been given the keys to the secrets of the universe. I want this for everyone.
Some dude on a mailing list just said he was “presenting a view from the trenches”, the trenches being the challenges of teaching remotely at an Ivy League school.
Santa brought my husband the Mousetrap game that he always wanted and never got, and never played because the kids who had it never wanted to when he came over. Me: “Is it everything you hoped for?” Him: “I understand now why nobody wanted to set this up.”
-I’m an introvert
-I played national league basketball in Switzerland
-a Duke law prof taught me to inhale in 2019
-the (then) European vice-champion in women’s boxing banged up my nose
-I was about to go on tour as dancer for a punk surf rock band when I moved to US for MIT job
I masturbate! I will fight for anyone’s right to masturbate without being shamed. AND, if you masturbate in front of me at work without my consent, I will cut your dick off. This isn’t complicated.
Yeah the problem is not that he masturbates. The problem is that he masturbated *at work* and exposed himself to his colleagues. We just had a whole
#metoo
about this or did y’all forget???
I’ve read Asimov. I’ve also read seemingly hundreds of robot book introductions that breathlessly praise Asimov’s life, work, and person without ever mentioning that he constantly groped women at conferences and drove female writers out of the sci fi scene.
Last year some anonymous accounts were harassing me and I just ignored them but it’s kind of hilarious to find out that they were all the same person and that they just got busted.
Hi I’m turning 38 next week and I don’t remove my makeup at night let alone do any skincare and my friend was so horrified that she bought me a sunscreen moisturizer and retinol eye cream even though she’s broke.