All posts tagged: struggle

AI models struggle with expert-level global history knowledge

AI models struggle with expert-level global history knowledge

Researchers recently evaluated the ability of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) models to answer questions about global history using a benchmark derived from the Seshat Global History Databank. The study, presented at the Neural Information Processing Systems conference in Vancouver, revealed that the best-performing model, GPT-4 Turbo, achieved a score of 46% on a multiple-choice test, a marked improvement over random guessing but far from expert comprehension. The findings highlight significant limitations in current AI tools’ ability to process and understand historical knowledge, particularly outside well-documented regions like North America and Western Europe. The motivation for the study stemmed from a desire to explore the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in aiding historical and archaeological research. History and archaeology often involve analyzing vast amounts of complex and unevenly distributed data, making these fields particularly challenging for researchers. Advances in AI, particularly in large language models (LLMs), have demonstrated their utility in fields like law and data labeling, raising the question of whether these tools could similarly assist historians by processing and synthesizing historical knowledge. Researchers …

Mother of OpenAI Whistleblower Alleges He Was Murdered, Says There Were Signs of Struggle

Mother of OpenAI Whistleblower Alleges He Was Murdered, Says There Were Signs of Struggle

“Private autopsy doesn’t confirm cause of death stated by police.” Probe the Probe The family of Suchir Balaji, the 26-year-old OpenAI whistleblower who was found dead just a month after his New York Times exposé was published, is claiming that the young man was murdered. An account that appears to belong to Balaji’s mother Poornima Ramarao — shortened to “Rao” online — said in a post on X-formerly-Twitter that a private investigator’s probe has led the family to believe that the young whistleblower did not commit suicide as officials allege. “We hired private investigator and did second autopsy to throw light on cause of death,” Ramarao tweeted. “Private autopsy doesn’t confirm cause of death stated by police.” “Suchir’s apartment was ransacked,” she continued, adding that there was some “sign of struggle in the bathroom and looks like some one hit him in bathroom based on blood spots.” The account, which has shared photos of Balaji that hadn’t previously been seen in the press and a GoFundMe for the private investigation efforts, went on to suggest …

What are We (Not) Doing When We Struggle to Ask Good Questions?

What are We (Not) Doing When We Struggle to Ask Good Questions?

One of my favorite moments in class is when a student says something like, “I think I have a question, but I’m not sure how to put it…” This blog post is about why that is one of my favorite moments. About 7 or 8 years ago, after giving an assignment that involved writing some questions about reading, a student responded by asking, “What do we do if we don’t have any questions?” Another student said, “Yeah, what if we can’t find one?” My initial reaction was one of anxiety—it was a question I did not know how to respond to because intuitively I felt that it was a completely preposterous scenario (who could ever be without a question?!). Thankfully I did not respond in that spirit, and I did my best to offer a quick tip. The experience stuck with me, though, eventually prompting me to wonder why that question first filled me with anxiety. What was clear was that I found the question unrelatable to my own experience of reading or thinking—it simply …

Separated fathers struggle to maintain contact with children, especially daughters, study finds

Separated fathers struggle to maintain contact with children, especially daughters, study finds

Parental separation can strain family bonds, but the effects are not evenly distributed between mothers and fathers. A new study published in the Journal of Marriage and Family has found that fathers in Italy tend to have significantly less contact with their children after separation, with this gap being especially wide for daughters. Even in the digital age, where communication tools are more accessible, separated fathers struggle to maintain consistent relationships. Parental separation disrupts family dynamics, often reducing parental involvement. Previous research has shown that fathers tend to lose more contact with their children than mothers after separation. However, less is understood about how these patterns vary depending on the child’s gender and the methods of communication used. Understanding these dynamics is particularly important in Italy, where family ties are traditionally strong, and mothers often play a central role in maintaining familial relationships. A new study aimed to explore how gender differences manifest in face-to-face, phone, and digital communication between separated parents and their children, focusing on adult children in an Italian context. “My interest …

Why night owls struggle more when the clocks go back

Why night owls struggle more when the clocks go back

When the clocks go back and we gain an extra hour, it might seem like a welcome bonus. But not for everyone. Night owls, those who naturally prefer staying up late and waking up late, often find this time of year particularly difficult. The explanation lies in the the science of our internal clocks. Chronotypes are our natural preference for waking and sleeping at certain times, whether you’re an early bird who springs out of bed with the dawn or a night owl who comes alive in the evening. This variation is partly genetic, and it also influences our body’s natural rhythms, like hormone release and body temperature fluctuations. During the day, the hormone cortisol increases to help us feel alert and energised, while another hormone, melatonin, which induces sleepiness, is produced more in the evening. Similarly, our body temperature fluctuates, generally reaching its peak in the late afternoon and dropping during the night to facilitate sleep. When the clocks go back, night owls often face a double burden. Their biological rhythm is already shifted …

Fetterman says Musk ‘has an appeal to a demographic’ that ‘Democrats struggle with’

Fetterman says Musk ‘has an appeal to a demographic’ that ‘Democrats struggle with’

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) compared tech mogul Elon Musk to Tony Stark, the alias for the fictional Marvel superhero Iron Man, highlighting that he appeals to a demographic that Democrats tend to struggle to identify with. During an appearance on “The Hill Sunday” with Chris Stirewalt, Fetterman said former President Trump is popular in Pennsylvania and… Source link

Addiction-prone individuals excel at generating creative ideas but struggle with selecting the best ones

Addiction-prone individuals excel at generating creative ideas but struggle with selecting the best ones

A new study published in Psychological Reports sheds light on the complex relationship between addiction-prone personalities and creative thinking. The research found that individuals with a tendency toward addictive behaviors are more likely to generate a large number of ideas but struggle when it comes to selecting the best ones. The study also discovered that novelty seeking plays a key role in mediating this relationship, and that depressive tendencies can further influence how addiction-prone individuals approach creativity. Prior research has shown that certain personality characteristics, such as openness to experience and nonconformity, are linked to creativity. However, few studies have focused on how addiction-prone personality traits might affect creative cognitive styles like idea generation and idea selection. An addiction-prone personality is typically associated with traits such as impulsiveness and a propensity for risk-taking, characteristics that are also sometimes linked to creativity. Yet the exact mechanism by which these traits influence creativity, particularly in terms of generating and selecting ideas, remains unclear. Additionally, the researchers wanted to explore the role of novelty seeking—a desire for new …

Teaching assistant recruitment a struggle for 3 in 4 heads

Teaching assistant recruitment a struggle for 3 in 4 heads

Three in four headteachers are struggling to recruit teaching assistants, with most secondary and special school leaders anticipating needing more to cope with rising SEND demand. A government-commissioned report also found low pay was a “key reason why some TAs considered leaving the role”, and that a lack of opportunities for progression is a bugbear for around half of them. The Department for Education commissioned the report from CFE Research, which includes surveys of school leaders and TAs by pollster YouGov in May and June 2023. Seventy-five per cent of leaders surveyed found it fairly or extremely difficult to recruit TAs. This was higher for secondary school leaders (82 per cent). Retention was “less of a concern, but still difficult for under a third (29 per cent) of leaders and the challenges were again greater for secondary leaders (47 per cent) compared to those leading primary schools (25 per cent)”.  Eighty-nine per cent of leaders said they struggled to recruit TAs with the desired level of skills. Low pay is driving TAs away The survey …

Accounts of the Struggle | Tareq Baconi

Accounts of the Struggle | Tareq Baconi

Seventy-six years ago, Zionist militias drove more than 750,000 Palestinians from their homes during the war that established the state of Israel—a campaign of ethnic cleansing that came to be called the Nakba (catastrophe). Reviewing two memoirs of families haunted by that traumatic history in our October 3, 2024, issue, Tareq Baconi argues that in another sense the Nakba never ended. Palestinians, he writes, “have long argued that the Nakba is not a finite event but an ongoing process of violent dispossession,” visible both in “moments of spectacular violence”—above all Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza—and “in the relentless grind of colonization, in our mundane everyday routines, and in the ghosts that haunt our domestic lives.” Baconi is the president of the board of Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network, and the author of Hamas Contained (2018), a study of the militant group’s political evolution and the historical conditions that shaped it. Since 2018 he has written for the Review on many of the past decade’s most consequential episodes in Palestinian politics, from the Great March of …

Republicans struggle to respond to Hunter Biden’s conviction – podcast | Politics

Republicans struggle to respond to Hunter Biden’s conviction – podcast | Politics

On Tuesday, Hunter Biden was found guilty on all three criminal charges relating to buying a handgun while being a user of crack cocaine. His father – the president – was firm in his support for his son, but also in his belief in the justice system. After Donald Trump was convicted in a New York court last month, rightwing pundits and Republican politicians were lining up to accuse the Biden administration of rigging the justice system for political advantage. Yet now the courts have convicted Biden’s own son. Jonathan Freedland is joined by Susan Glasser of the New Yorker to look at how the right has decided to spin this latest historical conviction. How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know Source link