Wessel Reijers
@wesselreijers.bsky.social
160 followers 93 following 53 posts
Philosophy and Ethics of Emerging Technologies | Citizenship & Emerging Technologies | Book: Narrative & Technology Ethics | Music: Paper Knife
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First experience of having to review an AI generated 'academic' paper... how bleak.
Research and innovation funding in Europe is broken. But, there is an alternative!

Together with @jaromil.bsky.social I'm working on an idea for continuity funding, for long-term, sustainable, and non-precarious R&I

Check it out here: news.dyne.org/rethinking-r...
Rethinking R&I Funding: Opting for Continuity
There is a widening consensus that research and innovation (R&I) funding in Europe is not working the way it is supposed to.
news.dyne.org
I think, if anything, it shows how little universities are really 'ours,' as consultants often have more influence than collective decision-making.
Reposted by Wessel Reijers
Want a simple foundation from which to understand confusing topics like trade deficits, tariffs, and stablecoins? Check out my new video where I explain the international monetary system in under 15 minutes www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRHT...
The entire global monetary system explained in under 15 minutes
YouTube video by Brett's Altered States of Monetary Consciousness
www.youtube.com
Reposted by Wessel Reijers
Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n
Reposted by Wessel Reijers
New post 🚨 The Risk of More Reliable AI briandavidearp.substack.com/p/the-risk-o... -- Maybe hallucinations are good?
Reposted by Wessel Reijers
A typical financial market has *fundamental* traders who watch the world and *technical* traders who watch other traders. A striking feature of the Bitcoin market is the almost total absence of the former. This has increasingly serious implications for all of us www.asomo.co/p/the-whale-...
The Whale of Mass Destruction
How a fundamental weakness in Bitcoin might (technically) crash our economy
www.asomo.co
Reposted by Wessel Reijers
Reposted by Wessel Reijers
This is in the replies and it demonstrates a real issue which is if you find profundity from an AI, you’re responding to something profound a human being wrote that was vacuumed up and what ends up happening is you thank AI and not only don’t thank the person, you have no idea they were involved
Reposted by Wessel Reijers
Many EU member states are arguing for forcing WhatsApp to inspect all our photos w/AI. If the AI is in any “doubt” if it might be child pornography, your photo, location & other details get reported to Europol and a local police force. This is a terrible plan: berthub.eu/articles/pos... #chatcontrol
Chatcontrol 2025 edition in Brief - Bert Hubert
In short, led by Denmark, many EU member states are arguing for forcing WhatsApp/Signal/etc to inspect all our photos and links, using AI. If the AI is in any “doubt” if this might be child pornograph...
berthub.eu
Reposted by Wessel Reijers
Das sechsteilige Feature "Tech Bro Topia" über die Ideologien der Tech-Milliardäre (von Musk bis Andreessen, vom Longtermism bis zum #eacc) ist nun online @deutschlandfunk.de.web.brid.gy. Es war eine Freude, dabei zu sein – vielen Dank für die Einladung: www.deutschlandfunk.de/tech-bro-top...
Podcast "Tech Bro Topia" (1/6)
Sommer 2025: Die USA vollziehen den Schwenk zum Autoritarismus. Mittendrin die Tech-Bros aus dem Silicon Valley.
www.deutschlandfunk.de
I've just tried Google's NotebookLM and though I've never been too impressed by ChatGPT and the like, this seems to change a lot.

It can write original papers, grant applications, you name it; accurately because it only cross-references the texts you add.

How to deal with this?
Reposted by Wessel Reijers
In what kind of world do we live when we are not even sure whether billionaires exists or not??? Source: Forbes newsletter.
Interesting that the article frames this as "women are being left behind in the technological revolution" instead of, maybe they're just more thoughtful and not jumping on a senseless hype.
Reposted by Wessel Reijers
METR @metr.org · Jul 10
We ran a randomized controlled trial to see how much AI coding tools speed up experienced open-source developers.

The results surprised us: Developers thought they were 20% faster with AI tools, but they were actually 19% slower when they had access to AI than when they didn't.
Reposted by Wessel Reijers
De UvA rolt nu de 'eigen' AI Chat uit. Alle medewerkers hebben nu toegang, studenten binnenkort ook. Inclusief UvA-logo's voor vertrouwelijke feel. Het wordt echt een drama, hele simpele feitelijke vragen (bijv. wat staat in artikel 25(1) van de DSA) leveren meermaals totaal foutieve output op.
Reposted by Wessel Reijers
In a horrifying article about the dangers of Teslas, one point stands out: Teslas automatically disengage self-driving mode <1 second before an imminent crash--not enough time for the driver to react, but enough for Tesla to deny responsibility for fatal crashes, since self-driving "wasn't engaged."
Joe Rogan talking with Bernie Sanders is strangely heart warming.

They genuinely make an effort to bridge ideological differences to have a meaningful conversation.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYVz...
Joe Rogan Experience #2341 - Bernie Sanders
YouTube video by PowerfulJRE
www.youtube.com
Reposted by Wessel Reijers
Having a bit of a Trump appreciation moment, what's going on?
The problem with the idea of "stochastic parrot" is that, while it denies the (false) claim that Ai is something like a human being, it leaves the door open for the (false) claim of it being something like an animal.