AI, science, education, & ethics

A Decade of Writing Stuff That People, To My Surprise, Actually Read

machine learning
advice

Challenging conventional wisdom, debunking AI hype, and democratizing machine learning

Nov 18, 2025
Rachel Thomas

Scientists Just Connected the Dots Between Viruses and… Everything

science

We need to rethink everything we thought we knew about getting sick.

Oct 7, 2025
Rachel Thomas

AI & medicine: promise & peril

ethics
machine learning
science

The risks of machine learning mirror existing failures in the medical system.

Jun 17, 2025
Rachel Thomas

Deep learning gets the glory, deep fact checking gets ignored

machine learning
science

When impressive AI biology results are full of errors

Jun 4, 2025
Rachel Thomas

Will gene sequencing finally prove its worth?

science

DNA sequencing hasn’t lived up to the hype (so far). Can newer technologies address its shortcomings?

May 13, 2025
Rachel Thomas

The Missing Medical Data Holding Back AI

ethics
machine learning
science

The negative spaces of what data is missing shape how AI is applied to healthcare.

Jan 24, 2025
Rachel Thomas

What AI can tell us about microscope slides

machine learning
science

A friendly introduction to Foundation Models for Computational Pathology

Jan 16, 2025
Rachel Thomas

AI and Immunology

machine learning
science

Applying powerful tools to a complex and high-impact field.

Nov 20, 2024
Rachel Thomas

5 Devious Tricks Pathogens Use Against Us

science

The immune system is impressive, but so are the mechanisms pathogens use to evade it.

Nov 12, 2024
Rachel Thomas

In defense of screen time

education

A controversial approach to parenting

Oct 29, 2024
Rachel Thomas

Gaps and Risks of AI in the Life Sciences

ethics
machine learning
science

Recognizing gaps in how AI is applied to scientific research can prevent potential shortcomings and risks.

Sep 10, 2024
Rachel Thomas

Your Immune System is Not a Muscle

science

Our immune systems evolved for a different world (that didn’t involve 100,000 global flights per day).

Aug 13, 2024
Rachel Thomas

AI’s Quest to Predict T Cell Binding– The Holy Grail of Immunology

machine learning
science

Different neural nets can be used to predict T cell binding, and it is unclear which is best.

Aug 1, 2024
Rachel Thomas

The Most Common and Useful Neural Nets

machine learning
science

Explainer: what are AI architectures and which are the most important ones?

Jul 24, 2024
Rachel Thomas

Decoding T cells with AI

machine learning
science

Can AI tell us what a T cell will bind to? Part 1 of this series covers the basics of T cells and protein folding.

Jul 9, 2024
Rachel Thomas

The microbiomes of wildfires, nanoplastics, and roller derby

science

How microbes create snow, travel through smoke, and change with your social contact.

May 7, 2024
Rachel Thomas

Surprises of the Microbiome

science

There are trillions of microbes in the air, in the soil, traveling along plant roots, and inside of us.

Apr 25, 2024
Rachel Thomas

Using AI to Discover New Antibiotics

machine learning
science

Bacterial resistance to existing antibiotics is an urgent threat. AI is being used to search for new antibiotics.

Apr 3, 2024
Rachel Thomas

“AI will cure cancer” misunderstands both AI and medicine

ethics
machine learning
science

The enthusiasm about AI in medicine is failing to grapple with realities of the system.

Feb 20, 2024
Rachel Thomas

How Immune Cells Communicate

machine learning
science

Immune cells are like a social network. Both math and benchtop experiments are useful in studying them.

Feb 6, 2024
Rachel Thomas

Applying AI to Immune Cell Networks

machine learning
science

Immune cells talk to each other through complex networks. NLP, math, and immunology are useful in studying these networks.

Jan 23, 2024
Rachel Thomas

4 Things I Learned About Bugs

science

I learned several fascinating and surprising facts about insects in my microbiology courses.

Jan 9, 2024
Rachel Thomas

The real risk of AI is how it concentrates power

ethics
machine learning

Understanding how AI causes harm

May 16, 2023
Rachel Thomas

Viruses: The Silent Triggers of Autoimmune and Neurodegenerative Diseases

science

How a simple cold can lead to life-changing disease

Mar 22, 2023
Rachel Thomas

Viruses are weirder, worse, & more preventable than you realise

science

The suprising, devastating, long-term consequences of viruses

Mar 7, 2023
Rachel Thomas

How to Remember Anything

advice
education

A study technique for all ages and all subjects

Feb 21, 2023
Rachel Thomas

I was an AI researcher. Now, I am an immunology student.

education
science

Last year, I became captivated by a new topic in a way that I hadn’t felt since I first discovered machine learning

Feb 7, 2023
Rachel Thomas

My family’s unlikely homeschooling journey

education

Prior to 2020, we never expected to homeschool, and now we have committed to it long-term.

Sep 6, 2022
Rachel Thomas

Qualitative humanities research is crucial to AI

ethics
machine learning

Following the thread of any quantitative issue leads to qualitative questions.

Jun 1, 2022
Louisa Bartolo and Rachel Thomas

AI Harms are Societal, Not Just Individual

ethics
machine learning

Much like pollution, the harms caused by algorithmic systems are often collective and communal.

May 17, 2022
Rachel Thomas and Louisa Bartolo

There’s no such thing as not a math person

advice
education

Many cultural factors, misconceptions, stereotypes, and obstacles turn people off to math.

Mar 15, 2022
Rachel Thomas

Avoiding Data Disasters

ethics
machine learning

Why you can’t ignore the crucial role of humans in the data science pipeline

Nov 4, 2021
Rachel Thomas

Medicine is Political

ethics
science

From covid-19 to HIV research to the long history of wrongly assuming women’s illnesses are psychosomatic, we have seen again and again that medicine, like all science, is political.

Oct 12, 2021
Rachel Thomas

11 Short Videos About AI Ethics

ethics
machine learning

Short videos about machine learning ethics to watch and share.

Aug 16, 2021
Rachel Thomas

Essential Work-From-Home Advice: Cheap and Easy Ergonomic Setups

advice
work

You can permanently damage your back, neck, and wrists from working without an ergonomic setup. Learn how to create one for less.

Aug 6, 2020
Rachel Thomas

4 Principles for Responsible Government Use of Technology

ethics

Government use of new technology raises issues around surveillance of vulnerable populations, unintended consequences, and potential misuse.

Jan 21, 2020
Rachel Thomas

The problem with metrics is a big problem for AI

ethics
machine learning

Unthinkingly optimizing metrics can lead to a variety of grave harms, and what most current AI approaches do is to optimize metrics.

Sep 24, 2019
Rachel Thomas

How IBM Helped the Nazis and What That Teaches Us About Surveillance

ethics

Why increasing surveillance doesn’t keep us safer

Aug 7, 2019
Rachel Thomas

Advice for Better Blog Posts

advice

A blog is like a resume, only better.

May 13, 2019
Rachel Thomas

Dairy farming, solar panels, and diagnosing Parkinson’s disease: what can you do with deep learning?

education
ethics
machine learning

Deep learning is not just for an elite few in Silicon Valley.

Feb 21, 2019
Rachel Thomas

Long Hours Are Discriminatory and Counterproductive

inclusion
work

Why working longer doesn’t work.

Feb 19, 2019
Rachel Thomas

Five Things That Scare Me About AI

ethics
machine learning

An AI-powered future is already here, and some of the consequences are scarier than you may realize.

Jan 29, 2019
Rachel Thomas

Things everyone should know about chronic illness & disability

inclusion

Misconceptions about chronic illness are harmful

Jan 21, 2019
Rachel Thomas

What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD

advice
education

Underappreciated risks of graduate school

Aug 27, 2018
Rachel Thomas

What Harvard Business Review Gets Wrong About Algorithms and Bias

ethics

Comparing human and computer-based decision-making is not an apples-to-apples comparison.

Aug 7, 2018
Rachel Thomas

Google’s AutoML: Cutting Through the Hype

technical
machine learning

Analyzing Google’s claims that we all need customized, bespoke neural network architectures

Jul 23, 2018
Rachel Thomas

An Opinionated Introduction to AutoML and Neural Architecture Search

technical
machine learning

AutoML is being heavily hyped– but would AugmentedML be a better approach?

Jul 16, 2018
Rachel Thomas

What do machine learning practitioners actually do?

advice
machine learning
work

Machine learning is an in-demand field, but there are misconceptions about what the work entails in practice.

Jul 12, 2018
Rachel Thomas

An Introduction to Deep Learning for Tabular Data

machine learning
technical

Deep learning is not just for images and text.

Apr 29, 2018
Rachel Thomas

How Facebook Responded to Genocide in Myanmar vs. Financial Fine in Germany

ethics

Why you can’t just throw AI at serious problems

Apr 19, 2018
Rachel Thomas

Five Trends to Avoid When Founding a Startup

advice
work

How common startup advice gets it wrong

Jan 8, 2018
Rachel Thomas

Making Peace with Personal Branding

advice

Even though the term ‘personal branding’ makes me cringe, it is a useful concept

Dec 18, 2017
Rachel Thomas

What you need to do deep learning

advice
technical
machine learning

The hardware, software, background, and data you need to do deep learning (it may be less than you expect).

Nov 16, 2017
Rachel Thomas

How (and why) to create a good validation set

machine learning
technical

Avoid failures from poorly chosen validation sets.

Nov 13, 2017
Rachel Thomas

Thoughts on OpenAI, reinforcement learning, and killer robots

ethics
machine learning

Teaching computers to play Atari (while ignorning risks of mass unemployment, wealth inequality, and gender & racial bias)

Jul 28, 2017
Rachel Thomas

Why you (yes, you) should blog

advice

The top advice I would give my younger self would be to start blogging sooner.

Jul 28, 2017
Rachel Thomas

How to Make Tech Interviews a Little Less Awful

advice
work
inclusion

The tech interview process is very, very broken.

Mar 5, 2017
Rachel Thomas

Deep Learning: Not Just for Silicon Valley

education
inclusion

Making AI accessible to people outside of elite institutions, who are tackling problems in meaningful but low-resource areas

Feb 27, 2017
Rachel Thomas

How should you structure your Data Science and Engineering teams?

advice
work

There are a lot of potential pitfalls related to data science and org structure (no matter what you choose)

Dec 8, 2016
Rachel Thomas

Please don’t say ‘It used to be called big data and now it’s called deep learning’

machine learning

On the difference between big data, machine learning, and deep learning.

Nov 17, 2016
Rachel Thomas

Providing a Good Education in Deep Learning

education

Machine learning education without the tedium and gatekeeping

Oct 8, 2016
Rachel Thomas

The Real Reason Women Quit Tech (and How to Address It)

inclusion

Why recruiting and mentoring women doesn’t solve diversity

Oct 4, 2016
Rachel Thomas

Diversity Washing Makes Things Worse

inclusion

Shallow, showy diversity efforts aren’t just ineffective, they are actively harmful.

Dec 7, 2015
Rachel Thomas

If you think women in tech is just a pipeline problem, you haven’t been paying attention

inclusion

It doesn’t matter how many girls you teach to code if you keep driving adult women out of the tech industry.

Jul 27, 2015
Rachel Thomas
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