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- Prompt Rage, Academic Junk, Rocks as Battery, and the Block Universe
Prompt Rage, Academic Junk, Rocks as Battery, and the Block Universe
This week’s science bits from SWTG
Marcus Gee-Lim
January 14, 2026
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Cursing at Your AI Might Not Help After All
A surprising new study has flipped the script on how to best talk to chatbots. Earlier research, like this one, suggested that being rude to Large Language Models could get you slightly more accurate answers. But this latest paper shows the effect has largely faded with the model generation that includes GPT-4o mini, Google's Gemini 2.0 Flash, and Meta's Llama 4 Scout.
The researchers compared prompts that were very friendly (polite), neutral, or very rude across a wide range of questions in science, math, and humanities topics. While rudeness sometimes hurt performance a bit (in interpretive subjects like philosophy or law, especially for GPT and Llama), the differences were small. Gemini, in particular, barely noticed the tone at all.
As usual, the published research is limping behind the current model versions, so we don’t have data on how GPT 5 or Gemini 3 feel about cursing at them. But for the time being it looks like being rude was only useful for an intermittent model phase that has passed.
This week’s video is about the "block universe" in physics. It is a direct consequence of Einstein's theory of general relativity and implies that the past, present, and future all exist in the same sense. I have talked about this previously, but in the past years I have changed my mind about the role of quantum mechanics in this argument. Let’s take a look.
Management Scholars Warn of “Junkification” in Academic Publishing
Figure: Academic publishing, symbolic image
Two business school professors from the University of Technology Sydney have sounded the alarm on the declining quality of academic literature in a new publication titled “The junkification of research”.
Drawing parallels to the "enshittification" of online platforms, they argue that similar forces are now overwhelming scholarly publishing. There are three key drivers of this “junkification”: 1) relentless “publish or perish” pressures in academia, 2) scientific publishers’ incentive to publish more to make more money, and 3) AI making paper production faster and easier. Taken together, they say, these drivers are a recipe for disaster. The authors call for a shift to not-for-profit models of scientific publishing and better evaluation systems. I strongly doubt either is going to happen.
The problem is of course not new, and you all know that I have been drawing attention to this trend for more than a decade. It is interesting to see, however, that the awareness for the issue is increasing. More here.
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Geothermal Startup Turns the Earth into a Giant Overnight Battery
Image: Sage Geosystems
The Houston-based company Sage Geosystems is working on an unusual type of giant battery. They are repurposing geothermal technology to store energy deep underground. Their “EarthStore system” uses energy to pump water deep into underground fractures under high pressure. The pressurized water can then be released to drive turbines and generate electricity. Their pilot project found a round-trip efficiency of 70-75% for 6-10+ hour durations (IMO quite remarkable). The company claims the levelized cost of this storage method is as low as 2-4 cents per kWh. While the efficiency in this time-window is somewhat lower than that of lithium-ion batteries, the new storage method is significantly cheaper. They are working on their first commercial facility in Texas. Video here.
