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Ari B Friedman

@abfriedman.com

This is my personal account. Faculty at UPenn. Emergency doc, health economist, geriatrics and privacy researcher. Views are my own. RT does not imply endorsement.

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Latest posts by Ari B Friedman @abfriedman.com

This is not just cursed, its monstrous. The digital resurrection of a historian who died in January of this year, all so Grammarly can get some more clicks and engagement from students and/or scholars and/or others.

It feels so wrong on so many levels, these ghosts enslaved to AI forever

03.03.2026 13:15 πŸ‘ 975 πŸ” 453 πŸ’¬ 23 πŸ“Œ 61

Luigi Guido speaking on The Economic Costs of Ambiguous Laws

03.03.2026 11:07 πŸ‘ 10 πŸ” 4 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Would love to learn more here if you have references to what Claude is doing around fact verification.

02.03.2026 20:18 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

LLMs reporting on their own reasoning are generally not particularly reliable. Would absolutely be possible to incorporate other models on top of an LLM, although the state of the science there is in flux. But at that point, it's not an LLM, it's some kind of composite model?

02.03.2026 20:18 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

"Structurally indifferent to truth is a good line" is a good line. Also worth noting that not all models are, just that LLMs weren't even designed to have a concept of truth. One of many ways the "AI" moniker distracts.

02.03.2026 16:58 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 0

The critique of unmeasured confounding is often levied in a lazy/broad way. It is trivially true in any observational study. But if the critic can't think of a plausible such confounder and posit a reasonable direction/magnitude of its bias then they're not doing productive science.

01.03.2026 18:47 πŸ‘ 111 πŸ” 19 πŸ’¬ 7 πŸ“Œ 8
Anakin-Padme meme.
Anakin: Additionally, we considered the confounders c1, c2 and c3.

Padme: And you included all of them in a single model, right?
Padme: And you included all of them in a single model, right?

Anakin-Padme meme. Anakin: Additionally, we considered the confounders c1, c2 and c3. Padme: And you included all of them in a single model, right? Padme: And you included all of them in a single model, right?

Psychologists following a third-variable control strategy that may be best described as "sequential."

17.02.2026 09:48 πŸ‘ 101 πŸ” 8 πŸ’¬ 5 πŸ“Œ 3
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Join NYT's @jeneeninterlandi.bsky.social, Dr. Jonathan Mannheim, and me on Monday, March 2nd at 1pm ET, Live on Substack as we discuss the human cost of the administration's war on US science.

Link to Live: open.substack.com/live-stream/...
Info below:
insidemedicine.substack.com/p/speaking-o...

02.03.2026 01:17 πŸ‘ 15 πŸ” 5 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
A line graph showing NSF grant awards made through 2/27/26 for fiscal year 2026 compared with grant awards for fiscal years 2021-2025.

A line graph showing NSF grant awards made through 2/27/26 for fiscal year 2026 compared with grant awards for fiscal years 2021-2025.

NSF Update (Awards through 2/27/26)

Directorates to follow

1/10

01.03.2026 14:48 πŸ‘ 666 πŸ” 444 πŸ’¬ 28 πŸ“Œ 118
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The impact is already hitting science agencies hard. The NIHβ€”the world's largest public biomedical research funderβ€”has had to rely on leftover stopgap funds.

New grant awards have slowed to a trickle β€” exacerbating the effects of a record-long shutdown in October.

(h/t @jeremymberg.bsky.social)

27.02.2026 16:06 πŸ‘ 174 πŸ” 103 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 2
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That's right. Worse than Pointless
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/o...

01.03.2026 15:32 πŸ‘ 1540 πŸ” 436 πŸ’¬ 40 πŸ“Œ 22

It’s possible to hope the ayatollahs regime will fall one day and Iranians be free and be dismayed by our country bombing Iran with no probable cause , with no public debate , and no congressional authorization.

28.02.2026 10:55 πŸ‘ 18 πŸ” 3 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

There were HUGE differences between patients who did and did not receive the AI stethoscope. Patients were 20 years older (64 vs 44), 3.5x more likely to have hypertension (53% vs 15%) and 4x more likely to have kidney disease (13% vs 3%)

🧡 11/

25.02.2026 16:44 πŸ‘ 90 πŸ” 6 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 1

But per-protocol analyses are difficult. Whether a doctor chooses to use the "AI stethoscope" is not determined at random.

This 'breaks' the randomisation, making the design equivalent to an observational study.

🧡 6/

25.02.2026 16:44 πŸ‘ 125 πŸ” 8 πŸ’¬ 5 πŸ“Œ 0

First, the headline should be the result of the primary analysis (the intention to treat), which reports "Implementation of an AI stethoscope in routine primary care did not significantly increase detection of heart failure or increase community-based diagnosis"

🧡 2/

25.02.2026 16:44 πŸ‘ 130 πŸ” 13 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Part of the problem here is a long-standing issue of mine: The public gets a huge benefit from beat journalismβ€”but the journalism industry does not, by and large, recognize beat journalism for its value or when it comes to awards and prizes. Those go to investigations and "one big thing" features.

25.02.2026 17:49 πŸ‘ 1535 πŸ” 209 πŸ’¬ 16 πŸ“Œ 22

Authoritarians launch coercion against the Other, then expand it to political opponents and people with resources they want to control.

White Americans are used to govt respecting our rights. Good, Pretti, & 1000s of other Minnesotans learned this administration does not.
bsky.app/profile/jaya...

25.02.2026 13:28 πŸ‘ 27 πŸ” 8 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

The administration is trying to aggressively escalate its coercive power over the American people.

26.08.2025 06:53 πŸ‘ 411 πŸ” 175 πŸ’¬ 11 πŸ“Œ 3

Undiagnosed cognitive impairment is common in older patients discharged back to home. I’m interested in seeing the follow up results on how these patients manage recovery from the injury or illness that brought them to the ED. Great work team!

20.02.2026 17:41 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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In case you were wondering how good we are at detecting cognitive impairment in the ED absent a systematic approach to do so, here are clock draws from 63 patients discharged from a single ED.
In @annalsofem.bsky.social :
www.annemergmed.com/article/S019...

20.02.2026 15:50 πŸ‘ 6 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Yesterday, those who teach Intro to Sociology at Florida colleges (as opposed to universities) received a ready-made curriculum from the state and were ordered to teach it.

Yes, you read that correctly. The *state* is enforcing a curriculum on college profs, complete w/ the following restrictions:

19.02.2026 16:47 πŸ‘ 2751 πŸ” 1567 πŸ’¬ 171 πŸ“Œ 404
a graph showing how LLMs do or do not p-hack

a graph showing how LLMs do or do not p-hack

While LLMs will try to follow good research practices by default, you can pretty easily convince them to p-hack for you. In one case (out of the 4 tested), the LLM moved the result from p > 0.05 to p < 0.001. github.com/janetmalzahn...

19.02.2026 19:10 πŸ‘ 32 πŸ” 13 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 3

The high costs of isolationism

19.02.2026 16:25 πŸ‘ 259 πŸ” 72 πŸ’¬ 8 πŸ“Œ 2
Preview
This Is How a Child Dies of Measles When your family becomes a data point in an outbreak

This is a vivid, horribly relevant read. β€œShe does not sleep well. And as you lift up her pajama top to check her rash one morning, you see that her breathing is labored, shadows pooling between her ribs when she sucks in air. You suffer an icy moment of realization: This is a medical crisis.”

13.02.2026 12:35 πŸ‘ 387 πŸ” 240 πŸ’¬ 8 πŸ“Œ 36
"Moderna's CEO announced the company will no longer invest in new Phase 3 vaccine trials for infectious diseases: 'You cannot make a return on investment if you don't have access to the U.S. market. Vaccines for Epstein-Barr virus, herpes, and shingles have been shelved.”
9:12 AM
Feb 12, 2026
604.8K Views

"Moderna's CEO announced the company will no longer invest in new Phase 3 vaccine trials for infectious diseases: 'You cannot make a return on investment if you don't have access to the U.S. market. Vaccines for Epstein-Barr virus, herpes, and shingles have been shelved.” 9:12 AM Feb 12, 2026 604.8K Views

In terms of what cures are being lost:

- Epstein-Barr virus is perhaps the major trigger for multiple sclerosis
- herpes simplex virus causes cold sores, genital herpes, infections in babies, deadly meningitis
- shingles virus causes an intensely painful disease

13.02.2026 05:44 πŸ‘ 12542 πŸ” 6208 πŸ’¬ 444 πŸ“Œ 785

EPA claims repeal will be "de minimis." Based on our forthcoming work on wildfire smoke (below) and a back-of-the-envelope calculation from Table 1 in the final rule, I estimate this action will kill over *200,000 Americans* over the 21st century. De minimis indeed!

www.nber.org/papers/w33829

13.02.2026 13:44 πŸ‘ 18 πŸ” 14 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1

Tomorrow!

09.02.2026 21:54 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 5 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1

Two thoughts:
1. Fortunate to live in a world where nonlinearities are just waiting to be exploited by clever researchers.
2. That book _Cheaper by the Dozen_ had a misleading title.

09.02.2026 22:19 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

I don't know for sure, but AHRQ was decimated by staff cuts and losses.

I am checking on any active litigation.

09.02.2026 19:36 πŸ‘ 21 πŸ” 8 πŸ’¬ 6 πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
Transplant recipient arrested by federal agents in Rochester needs medicine, state representative says State Rep. Kim Hicks told MPR News she drove to the Whipple Federal Building near Ft. Snelling Thursday night to give the man his medication but authorities wouldn't take it without a doctor's note. S...

A man taken into custody in Rochester Thursday by federal immigration agents and now held at the Whipple Federal Building in the Twin Cities is a recent organ transplant recipient who is without his needed anti-rejection medication, state Rep. Kim Hicks tells MPR News.

06.02.2026 18:07 πŸ‘ 2819 πŸ” 1702 πŸ’¬ 119 πŸ“Œ 246