enthusiast phd student @UMich @FordSchool phd fellow @freesystemslab
Ann Arbor, MI
Joined February 2023
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- Following374
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Divided on this
This is a dishonest argument. 20 hours per week does not in any way approximate the PhD workload
BUT, we are massively subsidized by the government to do very little of economic value for six years. I don't feel like $51k and insurance is much to complain about
A $51,000 annual stipend, combined with free tuition and health insurance, produces a total annual compensation package exceeding $100,000. In exchange, students work approximately 20 hours per week for say four 14-week semesters over five years. This amounts to just 1,120 hours of work over the entire five-year period, yielding an effective hourly compensation of more than $450 -- over 18 times the median hourly wage of an American worker. Even if you write off the free tuition, this wage is around 9x that of the median US worker.
Not to mention that you walk away with a Harvard PhD when all is said and done. Good work if you can get it.
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branden retweeted
Many scholars have made this argument. But it's the first time that I personally am making it, which is pretty exciting for me
branden retweeted
AND FUCK @WWERomanReigns
this is vibes-based but i really like the more informal language in older academic papers. i think that this will make a return now that we've overcorrected on jargony overly-technical language with LLMs. i would enjoy that greatly
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Anthropic is killing it rn but oh my god are the mobile app and connectors terrible compared to GPT
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branden retweeted
This is such an incredibly creative project.
We built an AI ads agency and let it run autonomously on Meta for weeks, with the stated goal of netting new subscribers for the @freesystemslab newsletter. Our real goal: learn how AI is persuading people online, and what it might mean for the future of politics and our information environment.
The agents did really well! They learned from their mistakes, and by the end of four weeks, they'd all brought down cost-per-subscriber by more than 50% from the first week. They brought us more than 100 new subscribers, made 70+ highly amusing online ads, occasionally ran afoul of Meta's ads policies, and taught us a lot along the way.
Political campaigns are already using AI a lot in their advertising; it's only a matter of time before they embrace automated agentic systems. Check out our full piece for a ton of details on the mistakes we saw, how the agents learned, and what we think will happen next.
This was one of the most fun pieces we've done, and I think it really makes it clear how AI enables totally new kinds of research. Super excited to get it out there, and huge congrats to @eigenstuffs who led this project.
freesystems.substack.com/p/b…
branden retweeted
Of note: AI isn't replacing the jobs in the ad agency. It's replacing the ad agency.
We built an AI ads agency and let it run autonomously on Meta for weeks, with the stated goal of netting new subscribers for the @freesystemslab newsletter. Our real goal: learn how AI is persuading people online, and what it might mean for the future of politics and our information environment.
The agents did really well! They learned from their mistakes, and by the end of four weeks, they'd all brought down cost-per-subscriber by more than 50% from the first week. They brought us more than 100 new subscribers, made 70+ highly amusing online ads, occasionally ran afoul of Meta's ads policies, and taught us a lot along the way.
Political campaigns are already using AI a lot in their advertising; it's only a matter of time before they embrace automated agentic systems. Check out our full piece for a ton of details on the mistakes we saw, how the agents learned, and what we think will happen next.
This was one of the most fun pieces we've done, and I think it really makes it clear how AI enables totally new kinds of research. Super excited to get it out there, and huge congrats to @eigenstuffs who led this project.
freesystems.substack.com/p/b…
what'll happen to our information environment when AI is in charge of political advertising? we tried to get at this question by letting AI run our lab's advertising! read more here 👇
Could an AI run a political ad agency on its own? How might that impact our political information environment?
To find out, @eigenstuffs gave four AI models their own advertising agencies, $100 a week, and one job: win subscribers to our AI & politics newsletter through Instagram ads.
The task required them to do real political work well: understanding an audience, crafting persuasive messages, coordinating teams of AI agents, and learning from real results - all while navigating Meta’s rules.
What happened:
- They got more efficient. By week four, they attracted nearly three times as many subscribers as in week one, at less than half the cost per subscriber.
- They herded. Once one agency found a cheaper route to subscribers, the others followed which flattened out their distinctive strategic insight
- Their political messaging shifted. Research findings gave way to broader appeals about power, control and whose interests AI serves, and their deliberations increasingly sounded like ad executives
Read the full piece and check out the ads they created here: freesystems.substack.com/p/b…
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branden retweeted
Could an AI run a political ad agency on its own? How might that impact our political information environment?
To find out, @eigenstuffs gave four AI models their own advertising agencies, $100 a week, and one job: win subscribers to our AI & politics newsletter through Instagram ads.
The task required them to do real political work well: understanding an audience, crafting persuasive messages, coordinating teams of AI agents, and learning from real results - all while navigating Meta’s rules.
What happened:
- They got more efficient. By week four, they attracted nearly three times as many subscribers as in week one, at less than half the cost per subscriber.
- They herded. Once one agency found a cheaper route to subscribers, the others followed which flattened out their distinctive strategic insight
- Their political messaging shifted. Research findings gave way to broader appeals about power, control and whose interests AI serves, and their deliberations increasingly sounded like ad executives
Read the full piece and check out the ads they created here: freesystems.substack.com/p/b…
branden retweeted
We built an AI ads agency and let it run autonomously on Meta for weeks, with the stated goal of netting new subscribers for the @freesystemslab newsletter. Our real goal: learn how AI is persuading people online, and what it might mean for the future of politics and our information environment.
The agents did really well! They learned from their mistakes, and by the end of four weeks, they'd all brought down cost-per-subscriber by more than 50% from the first week. They brought us more than 100 new subscribers, made 70+ highly amusing online ads, occasionally ran afoul of Meta's ads policies, and taught us a lot along the way.
Political campaigns are already using AI a lot in their advertising; it's only a matter of time before they embrace automated agentic systems. Check out our full piece for a ton of details on the mistakes we saw, how the agents learned, and what we think will happen next.
This was one of the most fun pieces we've done, and I think it really makes it clear how AI enables totally new kinds of research. Super excited to get it out there, and huge congrats to @eigenstuffs who led this project.
freesystems.substack.com/p/b…
branden retweeted
Introducing Demonstration House 2.
Our first home built with our completely redesigned building system, engineered for automated manufacturing and rapid assembly.
Demo 2 – Proto Town, TX
- 2 Bed
- 1.5 Bath
- 1 Office nook
- 1,100 sqft
How we got here... 🧵
branden retweeted
Should I stay quiet?
Or expose the truth?
21%Stay quiet
79%Expose the truth
1,634 votes • Final results
branden retweeted
i don't want to say much about 'you can see everything' because the viewers discovery is so important and i don't want to spoil it, but there's a specific name mentioned 2/3's into the film so unexpected that the entire theater erupted, what an unbelievable movie experience