@samillingworth.com
Full Professor of Critical AI Literacy | Slow AI
When to use AI and when to leave it the hell alone.
@samillingworth.comโค๏ธ Late-night questions to AI about hearts
Across 109,017 chats about home ECG results, 60.01% came outside working hours and 57.90% of users lived in lower-tier cities. Questions drifted from meaning to next steps.
@samillingworth.com๐ผ๏ธ Teens fall for AI images
A study of 272 lower secondary students found them fairly good at spotting edited photos but often trusting AI-made ones. Only checking other sources reliably helped.
๐ doi.org/10.1002/jcal.70344
#MediaLiteracy #AI #Education ๐งช
@samillingworth.com๐๏ธ Shared spaces mean smaller homes
In Toronto, Vancouver and Montrรฉal, people living near more shared community spaces had smaller homes, whatever their income or household size. Less floor space means less carbon.
@samillingworth.com๐ช Jupiter's colour sits in one cloud layer
Using six years of telescope images, Oxford researchers found two layers, a main cloud and a haze, explain what we see. The colour comes from the main cloud. Mapped from Earth.
๐ doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stag1936
#Jupiter #Astronomy #Space ๐งช
@samillingworth.com๐ง Broken ice predicts September's Arctic low
Chinese researchers found that the amount of loose, broken ice at the Arctic's edge in summer is a strong clue to September's ice cover. Adding ocean data sharpened forecasts.
@samillingworth.com๐ฆ AI reads birders' notes to map wildlife
A language model pulled bird to bird and plant to pollinator interactions out of multilingual citizen science comments, with high accuracy. Ecologists have long lacked that data.
@samillingworth.com๐ฃ๏ธ AI agents left to chat split into camps
In a simulation of thousands of chatbot agents, like-minded ones clustered together and their opinions drifted into polarised camps, much as in human networks.
@samillingworth.comโ๏ธ Cutting a chemistry AI's made-up answers
Researchers in China used teams of AI agents to build training data, and a small chemistry model's made-up answers fell from 41.95% to 12.91% on one test. Fewer wrong answers.
๐ doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-78213-5
#Chemistry #AI ๐งช
@samillingworth.comโ๏ธ Cutting a chemistry AI's made-up answers
Researchers in China used teams of AI agents to build training data, and a small chemistry model's made-up answers fell from 41.95% to 12.91% on one test. Fewer wrong answers.
๐ doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-78213-5
#Chemistry #AI ๐งช
@samillingworth.com๐ฑ An AI that names 1,593 weed species
Trained on 14 million images, WeedNet scored 91% accuracy across 1,593 species, and 97% on 84 weeds in Iowa. A farmer could spot trouble early.
๐ doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-78044-4
#AI #Agriculture #Weeds ๐งช
@samillingworth.com๐ซ Trained lung cells saved mice from a virus
In mice, lung immune cells conditioned by past immune history let the animals survive a severe virus, while every unconditioned mouse died by day 6. Mouse work, so far.
๐ doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-11060-y
#Immunology #Lungs ๐งช
@samillingworth.comโ Most Indonesian coffee clears EU forest rules
Maps put 87.9% of Indonesia's coffee area in 2024 under the EU's deforestation-free rule, even as coffee area grew about 15% in eight years. Most farmers can keep selling to Europe.
๐ doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aeb1e2
#Coffee #Deforestation ๐งช
@samillingworth.comโ๏ธ A failed solar eruption still dimmed the Sun
X-ray light from one active region fell by over 30% in an eruption that failed, with no sign of material flung into space. It helps anyone forecasting space weather.
๐ doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/aea099
#Sun #SpaceWeather #Astronomy ๐งช
@samillingworth.com๐ AI developers ignoring privacy law
Computer Weekly reports that AI model developers have 'no justification' for failing to comply with privacy law.
@samillingworth.com๐งฎ An AI cracked nine open maths problems
An AI agent solved nine of 353 open Erdลs problems on its own and proved 44 of 492 integer sequence conjectures. A Lean compiler checked every proof step.
@samillingworth.com๐ In monkeys, how COVID gets in beats dose
Pooling 107 experiments on 721 monkeys and other primates shows the entry route shapes infection more than dose, age, sex, or species. Route also decides which tissues get infected.
@samillingworth.com๐ช Uranus's rings resemble Kuiper Belt ice
Webb telescope readings of Uranus's rings and four small moons show deep water ice and carbon dioxide, a close match for icy objects in the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune.
@samillingworth.com๐ Itโs Bookshop Day. Go and celebrate.
Walk into the nearest independent bookshop, ask whoever is behind the counter what they have read this month, and leave with it.
@samillingworth.com๐ด Amazon droughts are getting thirstier
Hotter air is behind record Amazon droughts. Without either the warming or the extra sunshine of 2024, the worst drought area would be 25% to 33% smaller. Bad news for forest communities.
@samillingworth.com๐ข Were you watched by AI at work?
The Guardian wants UK workers to share how AI has monitored, scored or assessed them on the job, as workplace surveillance spreads ahead of any rules.
๐ theguardian.com/technology/2026/oct/08/tell-us-have-you-been-monitored-or-assessed-by-ai-at-work
