In February 2023, a brief national scandal erupted: Several students at a high school in Florida were accused of using a tool called “ChatGPT” to write their essays. The tool was four months old at the time, and it already seemed like a technology that, at the very least, students would try to cheat with. That scandal now feels incredibly quaint.

Immediately after that story broke, I filed 60 public records requests with state departments of education and a few major local school districts to learn more about how—and if—they were training teachers to think about ChatGPT and generative AI. Over the last few years, I have gotten back thousands of pages of documents from all over the country that show, at least in the early days, a total crapshoot: Some states claimed that they had not thought about ChatGPT at all, while other state departments of education brought in consulting firms to give trainings to teachers and principals about how to use ChatGPT in the classroom. Some of the trainings were given by explicitly pro-AI organizations and authors, and organizations backed by tech companies. The documents, taken in their totality, show that American public schools were wildly unprepared for students’ widespread adoption of ChatGPT, which has since become one of the biggest struggles in American education.

Last week, New York magazine ran an article called “Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College,” which is full of anecdotes about how generative AI and ChatGPT in particular has become ubiquitous in the education system, and how some students are using it to do essentially all of their work for them. This is creating a class of students who are “functionally illiterate,” one expert told New York. In the years since generative AI was introduced, we’ve written endlessly about how companies, spammers, and some workers have become completely reliant on AI to do basic tasks for them. Society as a whole has not done a very good job of resisting generative AI because big tech companies have become insistent on shoving it down our throats, and so it is asking a lot for an underfunded and overtaxed public school system to police its use.

The documents I obtained are a snapshot in time: They are from the first few months after ChatGPT was released in November 2022. AI and ChatGPT in particular have obviously escaped containment and it’s not clear that anything schools did would have prevented AI from radically changing education. At the time I filed these public records requests, it was possible to capture everything being said about ChatGPT by school districts; now, its use is so commonplace that doing this would be impossible because my request would encompass so many documents it would be considered “overbroad” by any public records officer. All documents and emails referenced in this article are from January, February, or March 2023, though in some cases it took years for the public records officers to actually send me the documents.

And yet, the documents we obtained showed that, in the early days of ChatGPT, some state and local school districts brought in pro-AI consultants to give presentations that largely encouraged teachers to use generative AI in their classrooms. Each of these presentations noted potential “challenges” with the technology but none of them anticipated anything as extreme as what is described in the New York magazine article or as troublesome as what I have heard anecdotally from my friends who are teachers, who say that some students rely almost entirely on ChatGPT to make it through school.

For example, the Louisiana Department of Education sent me a presentation it said it consulted called “ChatGPT and AI in Education,” made by Holly Clark, the author of The AI Infused Classroom, Ken Shelton, the author of The Promises and Perils of AI in Education, and Matt Miller, the author of AI for Educators. The presentation includes slides that say AI “is like giving a computer a brain so it can learn and make decisions on its own,” note that “it’s time to rethink ‘plagiarism’ and ‘cheating,’” alongside a graph of how students can use AI to help them write essays, “20 ways to use ChatGPT in the classroom,” and “Warning: Going back to writing essays—only in class—can hurt struggling learners and doesn’t get our kids ready for their future.” One graphic in the slide imagines a chatbot conversation where a teacher says “AI please grade my papers,” and the bot says “On it! Give me 30 seconds.” It also includes this slide:

New York City’s Department of Education initially banned ChatGPT before quickly unbanning it. Records obtained by 404 Media show that Project Recess, a “Google for Education Partner,” gave the education system a presentation called “ChatGPT: The Convenience and Challenge of A.I. in the Classroom,” which is about the “capabilities and potential benefits and challenges of using ChatGPT for education. By the end of the workshop participants will be able to start exploring ways to incorporate ChatGPT into their teaching.” 

It notes ChatGPT is “similar to the personal computer, high speed internet, [and] the iPhone” and says “ChatGPT can assist students in improving their writing skills by providing suggestions on grammar, spelling, and style. Additionally, it can help students generate ideas and outlines for their writing assignments,” and suggests that teachers can use ChatGPT to “generate customized quizzes and exams for teachers to use in the classroom,” quotes a New York Times Kevin Roose article about ChatGPT’s “potential for mental health services,” and said it can be used “to evaluate student writing and provide feedback on grammar, sentence structure, and content.” It also does note the potential for cheating and plagiarism, but the presentation ends with a guide for teachers to request it to be unblocked in their classrooms. 

The New York State Education Department, meanwhile, put together a relatively straightforward informational presentation called ChatGPT & Generative AI, which listed several generative AI concerns such as “How can we ensure students are submitting their own work? Will AI give students wrong or biased information? Are we still preparing students with the right knowledge and skills?,” and “What privacy concerns should my school be aware of and how can they keep students safe?” Missouri took a similar approach. The state department of education sent me a presentation it gave teachers called “Right-sizing ChatGPT/AI in the Secondary Classroom,” which was created by a University of Missouri assistant teaching professor. The presentation is level-headed about AI and suggests “simple tweaks that you can make to your existing assignments to engage students in the process of writing, assessing and giving feedback along the way” to teach them how to actually write. 

The documents and emails I obtained also had a lot of administrators and teachers discussing how they felt about ChatGPT, and in some cases showed that state departments of education had not thought about ChatGPT even after it became popular.

In California, when the principal of a school asked the state if it had curricula or frameworks for how it should think about ChatGPT, they were told “unfortunately, the topic of ChatGPT has not come up in our circles” and “I am not aware of any plans to develop a framework in this area.” When a California public information officer sought details from one of his colleagues about what the state was doing about ChatGPT in schools, or how the state was thinking about it, his colleague said “I have never heard of ChatGPT prior to your email. I am not aware of discussions among educators and teachers about this program.” These specific emails were from January and February 2023, which was soon after ChatGPT launched, but even then, it was a phenomenon, and experts and teachers were warning about how it would change teaching. 

In Idaho, one of the state’s heads of curriculum told a colleague in an email that ChatGPT “is AMAZING and can be used in so many ways for teachers. Writing letters to parents, writing letters of recommendations for students, and giving unit and lesson ideas.” The colleague wrote back saying they were concerned because “it can be prone to factual errors or biases in its generated responses, and that “The people who'd need the most help with planning are the ones who probably wouldn't catch any problematic stuff the bot generates.” The head of curriculum wrote back “it's kind of like Wikipedia‐ some people think it is the worst thing to ever happen but really it is one source and actually a fairly decent one. The more it is used, the better it gets,” then explained that they tested having it make a quiz. “I bet when spell check came out teachers went crazy as well. But I know I for one would not want a world without it!” 

Another email shows that a Michigan department of education worker sent a TikTok about using ChatGPT in schools to a curriculum coordinator in Idaho, who responded “That is some serious application…I love it!” An administrator in Missouri told colleagues that ChatGPT is “quite incredible. When we google a question we typically get multiple sites that we have to sort through to find the answer. This website uses artificial intelligence software to sort through websites and articles and literally just gives you the answer to your question.”

In Minnesota, an education department worker told colleagues that “ChatGTP [sic] is creating some buzz in education circles,” then shared a screenshot of a ChatGPT conversation in which he asked it “Explain how AI may impact education.” “It’s here and free for anyone to use,” he said. In Mississippi, a teacher undergoing coaching was taught how to use ChatGPT to make quizzes and activity plans. 

Vermont appeared to be a bit more forward thinking, with a teacher proactively reaching out to the state department of education to say they wanted to put together tools for teachers about the risks of ChatGPT: “I was initially only thinking about doing this for my local district, but I believe there is a larger need. The vast majority of educators are ignorant about this technology … Readily accessible AI can already generate whole essays on nearly any topic, and so it is understandable that educators are concerned about the implications for VT students,” they wrote. “The best teaching strategies and practices already mitigate many of the concerns this tech raises. I’d like to help teachers understand what those are, and what it means to teach in a way that asks students to do more than simply generate formulaic content that a machine can spit out in seconds. At the same time, I’d like to assist teachers in thinking about ways to help students interact with content generators in healthy and responsible ways—as is our obligation as educators. The tech is here to stay; we can’t hide from it or ignore it. What we can do, however, is use it as an opportunity to remind ourselves what high-quality teaching looks like.”

In New Hampshire, a district superintendent told administrators at schools that their current ways of teaching were likely to get “overwhelmed” by AI: “ChatGPT is merely an example of how AI is now (currently, not soon) impacting content creation — including research and writing,” he wrote. “As we work on curriculum alignment among our schools, then move from there into instruction and assessment, we CAN NOT continue to embrace traditional notions of instruction and assessment. Not ‘shouldn’t’ — ‘can’t.’ There are some obvious strategies that our educators can employ; others will not be so obvious. This is important, and even if you feel like we are drinking from a firehouse already, we don’t have any choice but to engage on these challenging, disruptive ideas.”

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At the bottom of the periodic table, you’ll find the ‘heavy’ atoms. Their tiny nuclei are crammed with over a hundred protons and neutrons. Heavy atoms, like uranium-235 are naturally unstable. The electrical repulsion inside them is so great that they are perpetually on the edge of fragmenting – a single, slow-moving neutron is enough to make a nuclear rupture.

When the break comes, the ‘heavy atom’ will split into two mid-sized atoms, commonly pairs such as krypton and barium or strontium and xenon, along with a few neutrons. Each split also releases about 200 million electron-volts of energy; a gram of U-235 yields roughly the heat of a few tonnes of coal.

Meanwhile, the neutrons generated by each split can strike other heavy nuclei, triggering a carefully managed chain reaction. The steady torrent of heat this process generates is used to boil water, produce the steam that spins turbines, and generate electricity.

If you are interested in nuclear energy, you will hear throwaway references to different reactor types. To an outsider, it may not be obvious how the many types of water or gas reactor projects differ from each other or which experimental designs are likely to be close to fruition. This post outlines the main categories of reactors, their advantages, drawbacks, and the prospects for different concepts.

The different reactor types have some features in common. They need nuclear fuel containing fissile material, usually uranium that has been enriched to contain a higher proportion of fissile isotope uranium-235. Most reactors also have a moderator that slows the flying neutrons so they linger near the uranium nucleus longer, allowing it to absorb them more easily and keep the chain reaction going. Cooling systems then transfer heat from the reactor core to turn a turbine and generate electricity while preventing overheating (which would cause a meltdown of the core).

They key differences across reactors tend to concern:

• Moderator: Different moderators slow neutrons with varying efficiency. All moderators absorb a proportion of the neutrons, but every absorbed neutron is a neutron that cannot fission a nucleus, making it harder to keep a chain reaction going. Moderators with lower absorption rates can use less enriched or entirely natural uranium.

• Coolant: The coolant establishes the maximum operating temperatures and pressures. When the steam is at a higher temperature, a higher proportion of its energy is converted into mechanical work turning turbine blades, meaning it has a higher thermal efficiency. Some coolants have more failsafes, preventing meltdowns, or minimising their impact if they do happen.

• Fuel composition: The form and enrichment level of fuel determines energy density, frequency of refueling, and the amount and type of waste that’s produced.

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I’ve not focused on size in this piece, as many of the reactor types in this piece could theoretically be built either as large reactors or adapted to smaller and modular designs, often known as SMRs. Currently, the most common basis for SMRs is the pressurized water reactor, although essentially every experimental design is currently being approached in a small format for economic reasons.

Operating reactors

Pressurized water reactor

Moderator: water

Coolant: water

Operating temperature: 290-330 celsius

Thermal efficiency: 33 percent

Enrichment: 3-5 percent

The Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) is the most widely used nuclear reactor design in the world. Roughly 70 percent of operational civilian nuclear reactors are PWRs. The vast majority of reactors in France, South Korea and China are PWRs, along with two thirds of the US fleet.

In a PWR, nuclear fission heats water in a primary coolant loop kept under high pressure to prevent boiling. This pressurized water transfers heat through steam generators to a separate secondary loop where water is allowed to boil and produce steam, which then drives turbines to generate electricity.

First developed in the US to power submarines, they were adapted and scaled up for civilian use as part of the 1950s Atoms for Peace program, with the first commercial PWR beginning operation at Shippingport, Pennsylvania in 1957.

The PWR’s dominance was driven by two main factors.

First, its military origins ensured that there was a readymade industrial base for civilian deployment. Companies like Westinghouse that designed and built reactor components for military purposes already had equipment, supply chains, and in-house expertise.

Secondly, the use of water came with inherent advantages. As the reactor gets hotter or if any coolant is lost, the nuclear reaction slows, acting as a passive safety measure. This is because water becomes less dense as it heats up, making it less effective at slowing down neutrons to the optimal speed needed for uranium fission. This is known as a negative temperature coefficient and is an example of ‘passive safety’, when natural physical processes build in a degree of safety without the need for human intervention.

The two-loop design also creates a barrier between the radioactive primary coolant and the turbine system, making maintenance easier and reducing the number of components that need radiation shielding.

Despite their dominance, PWRs do have notable disadvantages, which have inspired much of the subsequent innovation in reactor design. The pressure level of 150-160 bar (one bar is roughly equal to atmospheric pressure; 150 is roughly the crushing pressure that would be experienced under the weight of a 1,500 metre column of water) requires highly robust pressure vessels and piping, along with a rigorous inspection regime. The two-loop design also builds in a degree of complexity.

Water also has its drawbacks, most notably its lower steam temperature. This means that PWRs typically achieve lower thermal efficiency than most of the competition, with only about a third of the heat generated being converted into electricity. (This is less of a problem if there is some other use for the spare heat, for example a district heat network as at Beznau in Switzerland.)

Boiling water reactors

Moderator: water

Coolant: water

Operating temperature: 288 celsius

Thermal efficiency: 35 percent

Enrichment: 3-5 percent

The Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) is the second most common nuclear reactor worldwide, accounting for roughly a fifth of nuclear power generation. In a BWR, water circulates through the reactor core where it is heated directly by nuclear fission until it boils, creating steam that drives turbines to generate electricity. Unlike PWRs, BWRs employ a single-loop design where the same water serves as both coolant, moderator, and then boils directly inside the reactor core to generate steam.

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Developed in the 1950s by General Electric, BWRs emerged as an alternative to PWRs with the first commercial unit entering operation at Dresden, Illinois in 1960. Their development was driven by the pursuit of simplified systems and lower construction costs. Alongside the US, major BWR adopters include Japan, Sweden, and Germany.

BWRs offer several advantages compared to other reactor designs. By employing half the operating pressure of a PWR, the BWR does not need such thick pressure vessels and demands fewer pressure-resistant components. The single-loop design strips out some complexity, while retaining some of the passive safety benefits of water. The steam in a BWR is generated directly by boiling conditions in the reactor core, which removes some of the temperature and efficiency loss. This means that despite operating at a lower temperature than PWRs, thermal efficiency is marginally higher thanks to higher steam quality.

Despite these benefits, BWRs face certain disadvantages. The single-loop design means radioactive water comes into contact directly with the turbine system. This means that all the components require radiation shielding and makes maintenance more complicated. BWRs also need complicated control systems, because steam bubbles can displace the liquid water moderator, potentially causing the reactor’s power to oscillate and interfering with cooling. Additionally, when steam forms in the upper part of the core, it creates uneven heating patterns that operators must carefully manage to prevent any areas from becoming too hot and maintain stable operation.

Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor

Moderator: heavy water

Coolant: heavy water

Operating temperature: 290 celsius

Thermal efficiency: 30 percent

Enrichment: 0.7 percent

A Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR) uses deuterium oxide (heavy water) as both moderator and coolant instead of ordinary water. This allows the use of natural uranium (uranium-238), because the deuterium atoms in heavy water absorb significantly fewer neutrons than the hydrogen atoms in ordinary water.

The concept of heavy water moderation has been extensively trialled since the 1940s. Canada, India, and Argentina have all opted for PHWRs, as they allow countries to build reactors without relying on a uranium enrichment programme. Deuterium only makes up 0.0156 percent of hydrogen atoms in standard water and is extracted by circulating hydrogen sulfide gas between hot and cold towers to concentrate the naturally occurring deuterium.

PHWRs use separate systems for coolant (hot heavy water under pressure) and moderator (cold heavy water at low pressure) to maximize neutron efficiency. This separation requires hundreds of horizontal pressure tubes running through a large tank (calandria), with each fuel channel needing complex sealing connections and individual cooling circuits. While technically ingenious, this is builds in significant cost and complexity.

This cost of manufacturing and maintaining these hundreds of individual pressure tubes means that PHWRs remain relatively niche, providing only five percent of the world’s nuclear energy.

Advanced gas-cooled reactors

Moderator: graphite

Coolant: carbon dioxide

Operating temperature: 650 celsius

Thermal efficiency: 41 percent

Enrichment: 2.5-3.5 percent

Advanced gas-cooled reactors (AGRs) were the great hope of the British nuclear industry and served as the backbone of the UK’s nuclear fleet, building on the UK’s original gas-cooled Magnox reactors. While eight of the second-wave ‘advanced’ reactors remain in operation, the UK never succeeded in exporting the advanced design, and it exported only two of the original Magnox (though its plans were shared as part of the Atoms for Peace program, and the North Korean nuclear program was based on it).

They used carbon dioxide as a coolant and graphite as a moderator instead of water, which allowed the AGRs to operate at a higher temperature, providing a meaningful efficiency improvement over PWRs.

There was another advantage. In AGRs, the graphite moderator is a large, solid block in which the fuel channels are embedded. This made it theoretically possible to open individual fuel channels for refueling, while keeping the reactor running, as the graphite would stay in place and continue to slow neutrons effectively. By contrast, a water moderator involves the coolant cycling continuously, so its removal or disturbance during fuel handling would interfere with the moderation process, necessitating a shutdown for safe refueling.

Construction proved significantly more complex and expensive than expected and engineers later discovered that the graphite moderator was prone to cracking. It was also necessary to shut the reactor down for safe refueling.

While much maligned, the AGR was relatively cheap by the standards of British infrastructure mistakes. By the time they are all decommissioned in the 2030s, the UK will have gained fifty years of reliable electricity from these reactors, which collectively cost around £30 billion, significantly less than Sizewell C, and about as much as was spent on capping energy prices during recent energy price spikes.

Sodium-cooled fast reactor

Moderator: none

Coolant: liquid sodium

Operating temperature: 550 celsius

Thermal efficiency: 41 percent

Enrichment: 15-30 percent

A Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor (SFR) uses liquid sodium metal as its primary coolant instead of water. This allows the reactor to operate at much higher temperatures compared to traditional water-cooled reactors. The sodium coolant transfers heat efficiently and remains liquid without requiring high pressure. These higher temperatures significantly improve thermal efficiency, while the low pressure operation making maintenance simpler.

SFRs are among the only ‘fast breeder’ reactors to have ever been built. These reactors have the potential to produce more fissile material than they consume, theoretically making them self-sustaining after their initial fueling.

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However, sodium's violent chemical reactivity with water and air presents serious safety challenges. The liquid metal ignites spontaneously in air and reacts explosively with water, requiring sophisticated containment systems, inert gas blankets, and multiple heat exchange barriers to prevent potential sodium fires.

The concept of sodium cooling has been extensively tested since the 1950s. Several countries have operated experimental and demonstration SFRs, including long-running plants like France's Phénix, Russia's BN-series, and Japan's Monju. A number of commercial projects are under construction, including TerraPower’s Natrium reactor in Wyoming.

Proposed or experimental reactor types

While the range in operational reactor design is quite limited, start-ups and government-funded R&D projects have been exploring a range of potential innovations. These are largely focused on finding alternative coolants to water so the reactor can operate with greater thermal efficiency.

There are few ‘original’ ideas in nuclear, so these concepts often rely on ideas that were explored during the 1960s or 1970s, but abandoned on the grounds of cost or complexity. Innovators are hoping that advances in engineering, technology, and material sciences can help to overcome some of these hurdles.

It’s important to note that the thermal efficiency numbers for these advanced concepts are R&D targets or design estimates – no reactor has ever demonstrated efficiency significantly above 40% at utility-scale.

Molten salt reactors

Moderator: molten salt

Coolant: molten salt

Operating temperature: 600-800 celsius

Thermal efficiency: 40-45 percent

Enrichment: 5-19 percent

A molten salt reactor uses a mixture of molten salts as its primary coolant and, in many designs, as the medium in which the nuclear fuel is dissolved. The molten salt stays liquid at high temperatures without needing high pressure, allowing efficient heat transfer without complex high-pressure systems. This allows the reactor to operate at much higher temperatures, typically around 700 degrees centigrade compared to traditional water-cooled reactors.

These higher temperatures improve efficiency, while the lack of pressurization reduces the likelihood of an explosion if the reactor malfunctions. Molten salts’ chemical properties can act as a passive safety feature. The molten salt keeps most fission products dissolved in the liquid and, if a leak occurred, would drain into a catch tank and quickly freeze, trapping the radioactivity. Because the salt boils only at around 1,400 celsius and carries heat well, the core can ride out a loss of active cooling for long periods without overheating.

The idea of using molten salt isn’t new. Oak Ridge National Laboratory deployed an experimental reactor between 1965 and 1969, but there was little incentive at the time to invest billions of dollars in commercializing them, given the success of light water reactors.

Governments are giving the technology a second look now and a number of start-ups are tackling the challenge. Google has struck an agreement to buy energy from Kairos Power, which is working on small molten salt reactors.

High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor

Moderator: Graphite

Coolant: helium

Operating temperature: 750-950 celsius

Thermal efficiency: 48-51 percent

Enrichment: 17 percent

The High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor (HTGR) uses helium gas as coolant and graphite as moderator. Helium is chemically inert and remains gaseous at high temperatures, which allows for high heat transfer without the risk of dangerous chemical reactions, while the graphite can absorb significant amounts of heat.

HTGRs use specialized fuel consisting of uranium particles coated with multiple layers of ceramic materials, which can withstand extreme temperatures while containing radioactive materials (even in case of a meltdown). There are two main design variants: prismatic block designs where hexagonal graphite blocks contain channels for fuel and coolant, and pebble-bed designs where tennis ball-sized fuel spheres move through the reactor core.

These high temperatures, however, require specialized materials and the specialised fuel particles require intricate manufacturing processes.

The US experimented with HTGRs, operating the Fort St. Vrain plant from 1979 to 1989. While the reactor itself worked, consistent faults in other parts of the plant’s setup led to its early decommissioning on economic grounds. There have also been experimental reactors in Germany and the UK. There is currently only one HTGR in operation globally, the pebble-bed Shidao Bay Nuclear Power Plant in Shandong province. Meanwhile, US start-up Valar Atomics is planning a test reactor in the Philippines.

Lead-cooled fast reactors

Moderator: none

Coolant: liquid lead

Operating temperature: 480-580 celsius

Thermal efficiency: 42 percent

Enrichment: 16 percent

A Lead-Cooled Fast Reactor (LFR) uses liquid lead or lead-bismuth blend as its primary coolant instead of water or gas. This allows the reactor to operate at much higher temperatures, typically around 480-580 degrees celsius compared to traditional water-cooled reactors. The lead coolant remains liquid at these high temperatures without requiring high pressure, enabling efficient heat transfer while eliminating the need for complex high-pressure containment systems.

Lead also has some intrinsic advantages. It doesn't react violently with water or air, doesn't burn, and it effectively shields radiation. The high boiling point of lead (1,749 celsius) creates a substantial safety margin, as it's nearly impossible to boil the coolant during operation.

The concept of using liquid metal as a reactor coolant has been explored since the early days of nuclear power, with the Soviet Union pioneering lead-bismuth cooled reactors for their submarine fleet. However, this design comes with several challenges. The high density of lead creates substantial structural loading on reactor components. The coolant's opacity makes visual inspection of submerged components impossible, complicating maintenance. Additionally, lead's high melting point requires sophisticated heating systems to prevent freezing during shutdowns, which could damage reactor structures.

There are no LFRs currently in operation, but a few demonstrator reactors have been planned. For example, Belgium, Italy and Romania have formed a consortium with Westinghouse, although the project is in its early stages.

Supercritical Water Reactor

Moderator: Supercritical water

Coolant: Supercritical water

Operating temperature: 500-625 celsius

Thermal efficiency: 44-48 percent

Enrichment: 5-7 percent

A Supercritical Water Reactor (SCWR) uses water heated and pressurized beyond its critical point (374 celsius and 22.1 megapascals) as both coolant and moderator. In this supercritical state, water has properties of both liquid and gas, with exceptional heat transfer capabilities. This allows the reactor to operate at significantly higher temperatures than many of its competitors.

These higher temperatures substantially improve thermal efficiency, but the extreme operating conditions create formidable materials challenges. Supercritical water's extreme temperature, pressure, and radiation exposure creates a powerfully corrosive environment that rapidly degrades conventional materials, necessitating specialized alloys for reactor components.

Several countries have research programs exploring SCWR designs, but the significant costs mean that technology remains at the conceptual and small-scale experimental stage.

Alex Chalmers is an editor at Works in Progress, focused on AI and energy. He’s also the author of Chalmermagne, a Substack covering technology, policy, and finance.

A new study published in Nature Human Behaviour reveals that ChatGPT diminishes the diversity of ideas generated during brainstorming sessions. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School found [PDF] that while generative AI tools may enhance individual creativity, they simultaneously reduce the collective diversity of novel content. The investigation responds to previous research that examined ChatGPT's impact on creativity. Their findings align with separate research published in Science Advances suggesting AI-generated content tends toward homogeneity. This phenomenon mirrors what researchers call the "fourth grade slump in creativity," referencing earlier studies on how structured approaches can limit innovative thinking.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

One hat, two independent claims, three bases, two outs, and zero energy from you, the third-base coach wearing a hat that alleges, WOMEN WANT ME, FISH FEAR ME.

I have no standing to doubt that women want you. I’m willing to take you at your word that there are women out there who want a lethargic man who just stands there as a runner that he should’ve told to slide is casually tagged out at third. My issue is with your hat’s second claim.

I do not believe fish fear you.

I believe fish are unaware of your existence. And I think it would be impossible for any animal, land- or sea-faring, to fear an entity it has never known. For instance, you or I could reasonably fear aliens as a concept, but we do not fear one specific alien we’ve never met, like Zorpthop the Destroyer (though we should).

I also believe fish would never fear a man with the cowardice to stop a runner when he had a clear path to home. No creature would watch the outfielder bobble the ball like that, see you fail to send the runner home, and quiver at your existence.

Am I to assume your hat means you’re a skilled fisherman, and fish fear you because your fishing prowess means you represent certain death for the fish? If that is what the hat is getting at, you should know that is impossible. In order for you to be seen as an aquatic angel of death, you must kill all the fish you catch. And if you kill all the fish you catch, then word of you would never spread throughout the fish community. Your legend would never grow underwater.

You can take the hat off, but it’s been three innings. I already saw the hat, and I’m not going to let it go.

The only way for you to develop a reputation underwater as the fish-slaughtering third-base coach would be if you threw the fish back after catching them. However, if you throw the fish back, the fish would not fear you. They would be annoyed by you (as I am). They would see you as some sort of mysterious deity that inconveniences them and potentially causes them to be late to their fish child’s baseball game. But they would not fear you.

Maybe you catch five fish, kill the first four, then show the fifth one all of its dead compatriots before returning it to the water so that it can spread word of the horrors it saw at your hand. But in that scenario, I still don’t think the fish would fear you. The fish would recognize that they have, in their midst, a fish who was spared by you. A fish that somehow defeated the mystifying harbinger of evil on the fishing boat. Whatever fear the fish may have for you would be outweighed by the respect they have for their maritime messiah.

No, I won’t shut up and let you focus on coaching.

If you knew anything about baseball, you would signal a bunt right now, you coward. The five-year-old T-ballers on the other team don’t even fear you.

There is only one plausible scenario I can dream up in which both women want you and fish fear you. Perhaps you work at a pet shop or a dentist’s office, some place with a fish tank. And maybe you also enjoy attending either horror conventions or Slipknot concerts. Occasionally, you have to get changed into your Slipknot/horror costume at work so you can drive straight to the event after work. There are women at these concerts/conventions who love the lengths you go to to dress up, and thus, they want you. And there are fish in the office fish tanks you pass by on your way out who look out and are frightened at the sight of your Slipknot / Freddy Krueger mask, as they are unfamiliar with the discography of Slipknot or the Freddy Krueger franchise.

Oh, okay, Ump, his absurd hat is fine, but you’re going to kick me and my kid out because of my yelling and my hat that says I CAN’T GO INTO DETAILS BUT I INSPIRED AN EPISODE OF LAW AND ORDER SVU. That’s fine, Bozo. My kid’s game doesn’t even start for another forty-five minutes.

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Rep. Elise Stefanik recently issued a fairly typical conservative criticism of the university, telling Fox News that “We need to focus on engineering, math, science, the classics. And instead they are training not the next generation of leaders, but the next generation of Marxists.” This kind of rhetoric is common on the right. “Many professors are Marxists or other varieties of radicals who hate America,” warned Phyllis Schlafly in 2005. “We have ceded education to the radical Left,” laments Sebastian Gorka. JD Vance, of course, tells us that “the professors are the enemy,” quoting an older statement by Richard Nixon. The pro-Palestine protests today, writes Craig DeLuz in the Sacramento Observer, are part of “a long-standing trend towards Marxist indoctrination within our universities.”