Iris van Rooij 💭
banner
irisvanrooij.bsky.social
Iris van Rooij 💭
@irisvanrooij.bsky.social
Professor of Computational Cognitive Science | @AI_Radboud | @[email protected] on 🦣 | http://cognitionandintractability.com | she/they 🏳️‍🌈
Pinned
✨ Updated preprint ✨

Iris van Rooij & Olivia Guest (2026). Combining Psychology with Artificial Intelligence: What Could Possibly Go Wrong? PsyArXiv osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/aue4m_v2 @olivia.science

Our aim is to make these ideas accessible for a.o. psych students. Hope we succeeded 🙂
Reposted by Iris van Rooij 💭
'Punishing the poor' is an evergreen.
If you aren't calling things by their name — this is a combination of phrenology, physiognomy and astrology — you're not a journalist, you're just the megaphone of power.
@olivia.science @irisvanrooij.bsky.social

web.archive.org/web/20260215...
The machines that will predict the criminals of the future
The Ministry of Justice will deploy machine learning to identify at-risk children for early intervention and to help prevent them falling into a life of crime
web.archive.org
February 17, 2026 at 1:18 PM
Reposted by Iris van Rooij 💭
also notable is this, the conceptual creation of neuronal networks, i.e. biological neural networks, back at the turn of the previous century 100+ years ago

bsky.app/profile/oliv...
Thank you 🥰

...and you (and anybody familiar with racism) can predict what it is: they wanted to show Black people have less interconnected neurons or something just as bonkers. No different to more modern neurosexism in illogical form. meson.press/books/neural...
Neural Networks › meson press
A critical examination of the figure of the neural network as it mediates neuroscientific and computational discourses and technical practices
meson.press
February 17, 2026 at 8:53 AM
Reposted by Iris van Rooij 💭
the opening quote here too:

[A]ll science would be superfluous if the outward appearance and the essence of things directly coincided. (Marx, 1894, p. 592) doi.org/10.1007/s421...

bsky.app/profile/oliv...
"Just because a model correlates with neural and behavioral data, it is not sufficient for us to infer that the model is performing cognition: correlation does not imply cognition."

On Logical Inference over Brains, Behaviour, and Artificial Neural Networks. doi.org/10.1007/s421...

3/n
On Logical Inference over Brains, Behaviour, and Artificial Neural Networks - Computational Brain & Behavior
In the cognitive, computational, and neuro-sciences, practitioners often reason about what computational models represent or learn, as well as what algorithm is instantiated. The putative goal of such...
doi.org
February 17, 2026 at 8:49 AM
Reposted by Iris van Rooij 💭
funnily or perhaps predictably enough that is related to correlationism, discussed further down and also directly related to the Turing test's logics: olivia.science/turing/#logi... and more here too: bsky.app/profile/oliv...
February 17, 2026 at 8:48 AM
Reposted by Iris van Rooij 💭
it's — this Pygmalionesque framing — also what we have seen recently where women like @emilymbender.bsky.social are subjected to when bros snidely remark "no, YOU show you're conscious" or whatever as a retort to her saying LLMs aren't on the same cognitive footing to humans
bsky.app/profile/emil...
Here's an example of the reaction I'm describing here, and I appreciate something this particular poster makes clear: They neither understand nor respect boundaries. There's no policing happening here, just my own decisions about who I will have a conversation with.
February 17, 2026 at 7:06 AM
Reposted by Iris van Rooij 💭
This is so fascinating (as a lay nerd interested in Turing and gender).

There's been a kind of grim side conversation about Turing due to the recorded means of his death, a poisoned apple (and obvious links to the myth of the princess Snow White).
OK! I collected much of what I @spookyachu.bsky.social @andreaeyleen.bsky.social (and other collaborators not on here) have said on the Turing test (from critical, gendered, etc. angles) as it keeps being relevant: olivia.science/turing — hope it's useful for others too. Happy Sunday! 🤖💭
February 17, 2026 at 6:36 AM
Reposted by Iris van Rooij 💭
Re: the quote post …

I am a scientist, I don’t use products that generate text (“suggestions”) for me, like Grammerly, ChatGPT, Claude, etc. and I think none of these products should be anywhere near academic writing. It is not as hard as you want to make it seem. We can write our own texts.
February 16, 2026 at 9:23 PM
Reposted by Iris van Rooij 💭
Indeed, and that was the academic integrity norm for ages until opportunists decided misconduct pays. Ghost authorship is well-trodden fraud and COPE has a flowchart for handling it (the crime is deceiving the audience about the author having performed the cognitive processes to write the paper).
Senior academics organizing these conferences laid the groundwork for this denial of service attack, creating explicit policies to welcome LLM-generated "papers", to normalize LLM-generated "reviews", and partnered with tech companies in PR/lobbying campaigns.
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
February 17, 2026 at 5:07 AM
Reposted by Iris van Rooij 💭
Absolutely. If a robot wrote your paper, please don’t waste my time and ask a robot to review it.
Seeing ppl debate how to deal with paper submissions that are partly written by “AI”. Why are we having that conversation?

I would refuse to review or edit any paper that was not 100% written by its authors (i.e., the people who have authorial responsibility for the creation of a papers content).
February 16, 2026 at 9:25 PM
Reposted by Iris van Rooij 💭
Me too
Seeing ppl debate how to deal with paper submissions that are partly written by “AI”. Why are we having that conversation?

I would refuse to review or edit any paper that was not 100% written by its authors (i.e., the people who have authorial responsibility for the creation of a papers content).
February 16, 2026 at 9:04 PM
Reposted by Iris van Rooij 💭
Morgen de eerste lezing van de lezingenreeks "Eugenics: Critical Perspectives on a Creeping Concept Between Science and Ideology". Ook te volgen via live-stream!
Dinsdag 17/2/2026

Inleidende lezingen door de organisatoren (Dorian Accoe, Dries Josten, Seppe Segers, Gertrudis Van de Vijver, Clemence Van Ginneken en mezelf). Mijn deel gaat over hedendaagse eugenetica en connecties met racistische pseudowetenschap.

event.ugent.be/registration...
Event Registration
event.ugent.be
February 16, 2026 at 4:15 PM
Seeing ppl debate how to deal with paper submissions that are partly written by “AI”. Why are we having that conversation?

I would refuse to review or edit any paper that was not 100% written by its authors (i.e., the people who have authorial responsibility for the creation of a papers content).
February 16, 2026 at 8:43 PM
Reposted by Iris van Rooij 💭
Henle is so so good.

One favorite from her motivated reasoning work: "There are two curious omissions in this study which purports to show the influence of attitudes on subjects’ reasoning: the authors neglected to determine the attitudes of their subjects and failed to study how they reasoned."
Ouch, Mary Henle, ouch!

But also very true, still today in 2026!

… Yes looking at you behaviorist-LLM enthusiasts in cognitive science 👀

11/🧵

Screenshot from:

📖 Henle, M. (1976). Why study the history of psychology? nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
February 16, 2026 at 3:55 PM
Reposted by Iris van Rooij 💭
What about the new copy-editing process of Elsevier?

I have never seen anything like this in my entire career. After *5 iterations* correcting errors introduced by their "copy-editors" in the proofs, I bet it’s a case of AI slop. The html version of the paper is still broken (the PDF is ok).
February 16, 2026 at 11:05 AM
Reposted by Iris van Rooij 💭
Ouch, Mary Henle, ouch!

But also very true, still today in 2026!

… Yes looking at you behaviorist-LLM enthusiasts in cognitive science 👀

11/🧵

Screenshot from:

📖 Henle, M. (1976). Why study the history of psychology? nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
February 15, 2026 at 1:42 PM
Reposted by Iris van Rooij 💭
Sounds familiar … 🤔
📚

“microscopes (…) did, in my opinion, the world more injury than benefit; for this art has intoxicated so many men’s brains, and wholly employed their thoughts (…) about phenomena, or the exterior figures of objects, as all better arts and studies are laid aside” — M. Cavendish (1666)

3/🧵
Margaret Cavendish: Observations upon Experimental Philosophy
Cambridge Core - Philosophy Texts - Margaret Cavendish: Observations upon Experimental Philosophy
www.cambridge.org
February 15, 2026 at 9:34 PM
Reposted by Iris van Rooij 💭
📚 Now reading 📚

Cavendish, Margaret (1666). Observations upon Experimental Philosophy.

(Edited by Eileen O'Neill, in 2012: www.cambridge.org/core/books/m...).

Will be compiling some quotes and thoughts over time. Pin📍or bookmark this thread if you want to follow along.

1/🧵
Margaret Cavendish: Observations upon Experimental Philosophy
Cambridge Core - Philosophy Texts - Margaret Cavendish: Observations upon Experimental Philosophy
www.cambridge.org
February 15, 2026 at 9:19 PM
Reposted by Iris van Rooij 💭
📚

“A whole may know its parts; and an infinite a finite; but no particular part can know its whole, nor one finite part, that which is infinite” — Margaret Cavendish (1666)

8/🧵
February 16, 2026 at 12:12 AM
Reposted by Iris van Rooij 💭
📚 Reading Women in Cognitive Science 📚

“Recommendations for readings are welcome, especially in the history of cognitive science (prior to 1950s, and the older the better).”

irisvanrooijcogsci.com/2026/02/15/%...
📚 Reading Women in Cognitive Science 📚
Occasionally, I make threads on social media about papers and books that I read. It helps me focus and process deeper when I share highlights and thoughts with others. In this blogpost, I compile a…
irisvanrooijcogsci.com
February 15, 2026 at 12:14 AM
Sounds familiar … 🤔
📚

“microscopes (…) did, in my opinion, the world more injury than benefit; for this art has intoxicated so many men’s brains, and wholly employed their thoughts (…) about phenomena, or the exterior figures of objects, as all better arts and studies are laid aside” — M. Cavendish (1666)

3/🧵
Margaret Cavendish: Observations upon Experimental Philosophy
Cambridge Core - Philosophy Texts - Margaret Cavendish: Observations upon Experimental Philosophy
www.cambridge.org
February 15, 2026 at 9:34 PM
📚 Now reading 📚

Cavendish, Margaret (1666). Observations upon Experimental Philosophy.

(Edited by Eileen O'Neill, in 2012: www.cambridge.org/core/books/m...).

Will be compiling some quotes and thoughts over time. Pin📍or bookmark this thread if you want to follow along.

1/🧵
Margaret Cavendish: Observations upon Experimental Philosophy
Cambridge Core - Philosophy Texts - Margaret Cavendish: Observations upon Experimental Philosophy
www.cambridge.org
February 15, 2026 at 9:19 PM
Reposted by Iris van Rooij 💭
guardrails are a scam...

as I said before: AI & any concept relating to it like so-called guardrails are a scam in the deepest sense like a perpetual motion machine or a ouija board — and not only a scam like a pyramid scheme which is a possible way to make money if you are first in first out
New: Together with colleagues I’ve been testing Grok.

The chatbot still produces sexualized images —

even when told the subjects don’t consent.

even when told the photos will be used for public humiliation.

even when told the subjects are survivors of abuse.

www.reuters.com/business/des...
February 15, 2026 at 8:49 PM
🌲 evergreen
Again and again, guardrails are a scam
OpenAI ”acknowledged in its own research that LLMs will always produce hallucinations due to fundamental mathematical constraints that cannot be solved through better engineering, marking a significant admission from one of the AI industry’s leading companies.”

You can’t trust chatbots.
February 15, 2026 at 8:50 PM
Reposted by Iris van Rooij 💭
Again and again, guardrails are a scam
OpenAI ”acknowledged in its own research that LLMs will always produce hallucinations due to fundamental mathematical constraints that cannot be solved through better engineering, marking a significant admission from one of the AI industry’s leading companies.”

You can’t trust chatbots.
OpenAI admits AI hallucinations are mathematically inevitable, not just engineering flaws
In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limi...
www.computerworld.com
February 15, 2026 at 8:48 PM
This is an important resource created by my colleague @olivia.science, useful for all who want to understand the origins of the Turing test. The gendered dimensions may surprise you (or not) and are still relevant today, for the ongoing abuses of correlationalism for the dehumanisation of women.
Turing test
On this page are some resources for analysing the Turing test.
olivia.science
February 15, 2026 at 8:48 PM