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Joshua Grochow

@joshuagrochow@mathstodon.xyz

mastodon 4.6.4

Assoc. Professor @ CU Boulder Comp. Sci. & Math; Research interests: theoretical computer science, pure mathematics, and complex systems.
Other interests: climate change; accurate (long)COVID info; equity, inclusion, & accessibility; improving academia. #BlackLivesMatter #TransRightsAreHumanRights #LandBack #CovidIsAirborne #CleanTheAir #StillMasking #MaskUp #YallMasking #TCS #TheoryCS #math #ComplexSystems #complexity (both kinds) #academia

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Joined April 25, 2022

Website:

https://home.cs.colorado.edu/~jgrochow/

cstheory.stackexchange:

https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/users/129/joshua-grochow

Twitter & Bsky:

@joshuagrochow@{twitter.com,bsky.social}

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Joshua Grochow @joshuagrochow@mathstodon.xyz · Mar 22, 2026

Replying to @courtcan__dup_1108@mastodon.social

@courtcan Nah, even the zombies will use LLMs to make zombie propaganda. So when you try to search for medical information about how to prevent or deal with zombie bites, you find authoritative-sounding websites that sound like people reporting on their personal experiences about how they got bitten by a zombie, and they took some Vitamin C and it wasn't so bad, really.

Joshua Grochow @joshuagrochow@mathstodon.xyz · Mar 13, 2026

ChatGPT as a cognitive crutch: evidence from a randomized controlled trial. (A. Barcaui, Social Sciences & Humanities Open, 2025)

"While [chatGPT] assistance may ease initial learning, it appears to undermine the effortful processes needed for robust learning"

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590291125010186

#AI #LLM #ChatGPT #academia #education

Joshua Grochow @joshuagrochow@mathstodon.xyz · Mar 11, 2026

Replying to @df@s.dfaria.eu

@df @Gargron Academics may study LLMs out in the open, but I don't think academia has been able to produce LLMs whose outputs are sufficiently marketable compared to the current commercially available ones. Because the first "L" ("large") is - in our current, limited understanding - crucial for the verisimilitude of the synthetic text, and only corporations (and governments, but they mostly haven't gotten to this yet) have the scale to get large enough for that so far.

Joshua Grochow @joshuagrochow@mathstodon.xyz · Dec 16, 2025

Replying to @alisonkiddle@mathstodon.xyz

@alisonkiddle@mathstodon.xyz I know, right! In my case I know powers of 2 because of my CS background.

Joshua Grochow @joshuagrochow@mathstodon.xyz · Dec 16, 2025

Replying to @alisonkiddle@mathstodon.xyz

@alisonkiddle@mathstodon.xyz First is 1/2¹⁰. I know the value of 2^{10} like the back of my hand, but since I don't know the value of 6^4 and don't want to calculate it that's not very helpful to me atm. But I *do* know the value of 6^2=36. And 36 is just a little more than 32=2^5 (again, another fact I know without having to think about it). So (6^2)^2 > (2^5)^2 = 2^{10}, so when we take reciprocals we get that 1/6^4 < 1/2^{10}.

Joshua Grochow @joshuagrochow@mathstodon.xyz · Nov 10, 2025

Replying to @timClicks@mastodon.nz

@timClicks@mastodon.nz The internet of 5 years ago was better!

Joshua Grochow @joshuagrochow@mathstodon.xyz · Aug 06, 2023

Replying to @tiago@social.skewed.de

@tiago@social.skewed.de which section of the ToS? Just trying to find the details

Joshua Grochow

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