#AcademicRunPlaylist - 11/21/25

I headed over to Harvard for some meetings, and after taking in the atmosphere before they shellac Yale I listened to talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was an amazing talk by Robin Welsch on metacognitive challenges in assessing AI system use at the UCL Interaction Centre (UCLIC). Through a clever series of experiments, Welsch convincingly demonstrates that simply telling people a system uses "AI" (even when it's a placebo) improves performance, impairs insight into their own task accuracy, and breeds overconfidence. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aQ34N16BF8

Next was an interesting talk by Wei Wang on creating effective marine robots at the GRASP Lab https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVCOGI0iuXE

Next was an engaging panel on the regulatory implications of AI-assisted price discrimination at the GW Competition & Innovation Lab with John Yun, Miroslava Marinova, Jorge Padilla, and Christian Bergqvist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WozgO2bpxRU

Last was "Secrets of Sleep Science" by Craig Heller. This series of lectures provides a solid foundation in sleep science - its biological underpinnings, theories around the exact function of sleep, and its effects in humans and other animals. Heller provides a rich review of these topics, and importantly doesn't shy away from acknowledging the current gaps in our understanding of phenomena. In addition, he deftly walks the delicate line between scientific rigor and accessibility. Highly recommend https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Sleep-Science-Dreams-Disorders/dp/B00DTO4G2C/