Brandon Vaidyanathan

Why do scientists pursue their work? For many, the answer is beauty. In our @aeonmag essay, we explore 3 types of #beauty in #science—sensory, useful, & the beauty of understanding—plus the ugly sides of science. 💬 Comments are open! Share your thoughts: aeon.co/essays/how-the…

Famously (there is a beautiful Works in Progress piece on this) in 2016, Geoffrey Hinton told an audience in Toronto that medical schools should stop training radiologists, since AI would soon outperform them at reading scans. Ten years later, there are more radiologists than ever, and they earn more than they did then. Hinton was right about the task, but he was wrong (so far!) on the future of the radiology profession. Times have never been better for them. The gap between those two claims, the difference between tasks and jobs, is the subject of a paper I have written with Jin Li and Yanhui Wu, and that we release today: "Weak Bundle, Strong Bundle: How AI Redraws Job Boundaries." (Very relatedly we are also finishing the first draft of our book "Messy Jobs" on AI and Jobs!! You will be the first to hear). We start from the observation that the growing literature on AI and labor markets measures the AI shock by task exposure: people count how many tasks AI can perform in a given occupation AI can perform, and infer that more exposure means more displacement. Eloundou et al. published a paper in Science in 2024 that started this literature, and many follow the same logic. The inference they make is that the more exposed tasks, the worse the outcomes. This is incomplete, because labor markets price jobs, not tasks. A radiologist does not just sell image classification, but does many other jobs: triages cases, communicates with other physicians, trains residents, makes the difficult decisions, and signs a diagnosis. The market buys a bundled service. The question AI poses is not whether it can do one task inside the bundle. The question is whether that task can be pulled out. Thread (1/3) dropbox.com/scl/fo/689u1g7…

“Scripted beauty has its place – it helps us stick to shared norms and orders our lives. But if we stop there, we confuse beauty with conformity. We end up wounding those who can’t follow the scripts, and become oblivious to their beauty.” @brvnathan plough.com/en/topics/life…

Beauty isn’t just decorative. It can reshape how we think, perceive, and connect — supporting wellbeing and fresh insights. New research across neuroscience, psychology, and social science shows that engaging with beauty can widen perspective, reorganize the sense of self, and deepen connection. I explored this research in a new story for @templeton_fdn: “How Beauty Changes the Beholder” With thanks to the researchers whose work helped shaped this reporting: @SimoneSchnall @Cambridge_Uni @Anjan435 @Penn @brvnathan — Institutional Flourishing Lab Edward Vessel, and others. #Neuroscience #Psychology #SocialScience #Art #Culture #Beauty #Community #Wellbeing #Nature

“Typically we’re focused on everything that’s wrong and on [all the places] where beauty is absent, but moments of silence in which what it is we yearn for can come to the fore, and also the cultivation of a practice of gratitude, I think that is essential.” @brvnathan plough.com/en/topics/life…

“I think that beauty is experienced often as a call, as a beckoning, as a summons. The pervasive belief that beauty is in the eye of the beholder suggests to a lot of people that it’s simply something we impose on reality.” @brvnathan plough.com/en/topics/life…

A beautiful essay about beauty—the difference between what he called 'scripted' and 'revealed' beauty—by my friend and colleague @brvnathan plough.com/en/topics/life…

“I think about encountering faith, about encountering Christ, as someone who comes unbidden into your life, pulls you out of yourself, allows you to be open to that experience happening through other people.” @brvnathan plough.com/en/topics/life…

“Seeing beauty in my mother again is an obligation of attention. It means refusing to make legibility the price of love. It means holding together the facts of her illness and the honor due to her person.” @brvnathan plough.com/en/topics/life…

The Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies @IACSUSC invites proposals for an interdisciplinary seminar in June 2026 in Knoxville, exploring authority & co-responsibility in Roman Catholicism. Applications due January 30, 2025. sssreligion.org/announcement/c…

An utterly Epiphany sentiment: "To value such revealed beauty is to train ourselves to attend to what is easily missed, to wait for the radiance to surface. It is to recognize that presence is more important than presentation." – @brvnathan, in Plough Magazine

A Call for New Aesthetics: newaesthetics.art.

In my latest piece in @commentmag I identify four key dimensions of institutional flourishing

What can we learn from #scientists about #spiritual #intelligence?

My latest piece in @Plough on beauty and mental illness

From peacocks to iPhones, life keeps reinventing itself. I talk with @mattwridley about what connects beauty and innovation—and why both can uplift or unsettle us. Thanks @TempletonRelig for sponsoring this season. beautyatwork.net/p/evolution-be…

"Why Modern Scientists Yearn for Spirituality" by Makai Allbert, @MakaiAllbert and Mari Otsu, @marisotsu A good article supporting the view that science and spirituality are not mutually exclusive. (Also references much info from @brvnathan). "Research shows that far from diminishing spiritual longing, science may actually awaken it. For many scientists, the lab is not just a place of logic, but a portal to wonder and a deeper search for meaning." As per @DrMANowak, both science and spirituality long for truth. “Both have to deal with wonder and awe.” . . . "Einstein believed that science and spirituality shared a fundamental drive toward truth and wonder." As @ProfJohnLennox points out, "... explanations can work on different levels without canceling each other out. " And for @Mario_Livio, who helped operate the Hubble Space Telescope, "... the spiritual dimension of science manifested when the first results from the “Hubble Deep Field”—the deepest image of the universe captured at that point—arrived." Both science and spirituality feed our need to pursue truth, wonder, and awe. theepochtimes.com/health/why-mod… via @epochtimes

What is innovation and why is it one of the laws of life? @mmuthukrishna explains in my latest podcast episode. Thanks to @TempletonRelig for sponsoring this season on the beauty and burdens of innovation. open.substack.com/pub/brandonvai…

Is Science a Vocation? open.substack.com/pub/brandonvai…

How do scientists view the public? As either (1) Indifferent, (2) Dogmatic, or (3) Pragmatic, according to our latest article. These perceptions shape science communication and public trust. sociologica.unibo.it/article/view/1…

What can scientists teach us about spiritual intelligence? open.substack.com/pub/brandonvai…