Observing many researchers using the same data and hypothesis reveals a hidden universe of uncertainty
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2203150119 This study explores how researchers’ analytical choices affect the reliability of scientific findings. Most discussions of reliability problems in science focus on systematic biases. We broaden the lens to emphasize the idiosyncrasy of conscious and unconscious decisions that researchers make during data analysis. We coordinated 161 researchers in 73...
The strongest predictor of men's well-being isn't family or health
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-strongest-predictor-of-men-s-well-being-isn-t-family-or-health What makes men happy? To answer this question, the men’s grooming company Harry’s partnered with University College London psychologist John Barry, co-founder of the male psychology section of the British Psychological Society, to conduct one of the most comprehensive studies of American masculinity on record. The 2018 Harry’s Masculinity...
How to make causal inferences using texts
https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciadv.abg2652 Text as data techniques offer a great promise: the ability to inductively discover measures that are useful for testing social science theories with large collections of text. Nearly all text-based causal inferences depend on a latent representation of the text, but we show that estimating this latent representation from...
Outcome super prompt
https://cutlefish.substack.com/p/tbm-4252-outcome-super-prompt How do you help teams focus on WHAT they are measuring instead of fixating on HOW they will measure it? Here’s a decent activity that helps teams put it all together. The prompt: Right now we are working to improve the ______[A]________ ______[B]________ for ______[C]_______ which we could potentially...
Foundation models: The future isn't happening fast enough -- Better tooling will make it happen faster
https://www.madrona.com/foundation-models-create-opportunity-tooling-layer/ The problem developers face today is the heavy friction that makes it difficult to build great applications on top of the foundation models. First, running these models requires specialized hardware such as GPUs and a massive amount of compute. That imposes operational constraints that severely limit the throughput and...
How to become an expert
https://psyche.co/guides/how-to-become-an-expert-and-navigate-the-bumps-along-the-way Becoming expert can’t be measured in terms of time alone. It’s more about the kind of responsibility you’re taking. What follows will provide you with a map, sketching the landscape to help you pinpoint your position on the journey toward expertise in whatever you’ve chosen to do. The Apprentice...
Socially situated artificial intelligence enables learning from human interaction
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2115730119 Regardless of how much data artificial intelligence agents have available, agents will inevitably encounter previously unseen situations in real-world deployments. Reacting to novel situations by acquiring new information from other people—socially situated learning—is a core faculty of human development. Unfortunately, socially situated learning remains an open challenge for artificial...
Build your career on dirty work
https://staysaasy.com/career/2022/09/11/Dirty-Work.html The Dirty Work Theory: The lamentable work that many people avoid are great places to look for high impact, low hanging fruit. Whenever people ask me for advice on career growth, I share what has worked reasonably well for me: find a growth company, one that really needs you...
If data is a product, what is production?
https://benn.substack.com/p/what-is-production But a huge percentage of a data team’s work sits somewhere in a muddy middle. We share one-off reports to answer one-off questions. We create new dashboards for a product launch, or to fill an urgent demand from an executive. We copy existing dashboards to make new versions that...
Trial or freemium? Get the best of both with a reverse trial
https://amplitude.com/blog/reverse-trial Trial or freemium? It’s an age-old question for product-led growth companies. Well, I say, neither. You can capture the best of both worlds with a reverse trial. A reverse trial gives customers access to paid features and puts them on a freemium plan when the trial ends. The result?...
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a collection of excerpts from interesting research, blogs, events, etc...