decorrespondent.nl/17145/democr...

Democratie in verval? De democratie werkt juist prima (alleen vinden progressieven dat niet leuk)

In een vertegenwoordigende democratie zullen populaire standpunten vroeg of laat vertegenwoordigd worden. Steun voor minder migratie was onder kiezers allang normaal, nu is het dat ook onder politici....

decorrespondent.nl

A rare hope-giving move by the US administration: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) proposes to get rid of the requirement for nuclear plants to ensure that radiation exposure is “as low as is reasonably achievable.” thehill.com/policy/energ...

US moves to eliminate longtime radiation safety principle for nuclear power

The federal government is proposing to overhaul radiation safety regulations for nuclear power, including by eliminating a long-term principle for nuclear safety. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission …

thehill.com

"Groningse kansen" -- fijne column van @studioenergie.bsky.social over Groningen en kernenergie. www.linkedin.com/posts/remcod...

'𝗚𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀𝗲 𝗸𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗲𝗻' – Groningen wil géén kernenergie, maar groene waterstof. Alleen loopt die ballon al tijden langzaam leeg. Te duur, om het heel kort samen te vatten. En ook de grote… | Remco...

'𝗚𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀𝗲 𝗸𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗲𝗻' – Groningen wil géén kernenergie, maar groene waterstof. Alleen loopt die ballon al tijden langzaam leeg. Te duur, om het heel kort samen te vatten. En ook de grote hoeveelheden win...

linkedin.com

Some hoped that AI for academic writing would make things fairer by levelling the playing field between native and non-native speakers. What's happening is volume has increased, attention is scarce, and only contributions from prestigious institutions are taken seriously to begin with. Seems bad.

Great article with a devastating verdict on the empirical (in-) adequacy of the Everett interpretation now an Editor's Choice article in BJPS.

British Journal for the Philosophy of Science@thebjps.bsky.social · 2mo ago

This issue's Editors' Choice article: Conquering Mount Everett: Branch Counting Versus the Born Rule – Jake Khawaja Abstract in alt text or read it for free here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/726282 #philsci #philsky

This issue's Editors' Choice article: Conquering Mount Everett: Branch Counting Versus the Born Rule – Jake Khawaja Abstract in alt text or read it for free here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/726282 #philsci #philsky

Good piece by Aronson on the "possibly last days of human relevance": scottaaronson.blog?p=9782 His students were understandably morose when news broke about the AI-result on the unit-distance conjecture.

Dispatches from the possibly last days of human relevance

As most readers have presumably heard by now, Paul Erdös’s Unit Distance Problem from 1946—one of the central open problems from the field of discrete geometry—has been solved by …

scottaaronson.blog

Blair's criticism of net-zero targets is worth taking seriously. Ignoring the collective action dimension of emission reduction is shortsighted, not virtuous.

Check out the digest of this 📃 by Edward Roussel and @lodelauwaert.bsky.social: moralweights.substack.com/p/the-selfis... Subscribe to moralweights.substack.com for monthly philosophical reflections on technology & #AI from the Chair Ethics and AI at KU Leuven! #philsky #philtech #HPS #mathsky

The Selfish Moratorium

Why States Might Want a Pause on ASI Development

moralweights.substack.com

The Ramsey Lab@theramseylab.bsky.social · 3mo ago

New preprint alert! 📝🚨 Against the dominant view of an inevitable #AI race, we use game theory to show that a moratorium on Artificial Superintelligence can be in a state's self-interest—even amid today's geopolitical landscape 👇💻🌎 arxiv.org/abs/2605.01297 #philsky #philsci #philtech #academicsky

In the near future, it will often be difficult to decide whether humans or AI systems deserve credits for achievements. @jonsymons.bsky.social and I made a proposal for how to deal with this: link.springer.com/article/10.1....

Norms for Academic Writing in the Era of Advanced Artificial Intelligence - Digital Society

If and when artificial intelligence systems become superhuman in more aspects of analytic reasoning, this will inevitably have a strong impact on the social organisation of science, including academic...

link.springer.com

The OpenAI announcement could be very bad news for universities: The problem was solved by their internal model. External experts with university affiliations were still needed to check, but that process will surely also be automated. Power shifts from universities to AI companies.

OpenAI's claim that this is a central conjecture in discrete geometry is not an exaggeration. This will I think be looked back on as the first time that AI solved a major mathematics problem (defined as a problem that all experts in some subfield had thought about). openai.com/index/model-...

An OpenAI model has disproved a central conjecture in discrete geometry

An OpenAI model solved the 80-year-old unit distance problem, disproving a major conjecture in discrete geometry and marking a milestone in AI-driven mathematics.

openai.com

OpenAI's internal model has solved an important problem in mathematics -- more specifically, has disproved a central conjecture in discrete geometry: openai.com/index/model-...

An OpenAI model has disproved a central conjecture in discrete geometry

An OpenAI model solved the 80-year-old unit distance problem, disproving a major conjecture in discrete geometry and marking a milestone in AI-driven mathematics.

openai.com

My PhD student Mritunjay Tyagi and I derived a new version of the Schrödinger equation. It's in terms of the Glauber-Sudarshan and Husimi quasi-probability distributions. We think that it may be useful to explore sharp values for all dynamical variables. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Time evolution of the Husimi and Glauber–Sudarshan functions in terms of complementary Hamiltonian symbols

We present a compact, systematic formulation of the dynamics of the Husimi Q- and Glauber–Sudarshan P-phase space distribution functions expressed in …

sciencedirect.com

It's not difficult to understand: Fossil fuels have made our lives vastly better than those of previous generations. Millions of children would have died without them. Abandoning them is genuinely hard.

ashley fairbanks@ziibiing.com · 4mo ago

still can’t believe that given the choice between “bountiful, free, clean energy from the earth, wind, and sun” and “poisonous dead animal sludge price sensitive to global politics” we keep choosing the latter

AI capabilities are advancing way too fast. I support the call for a pause.

I really, really enjoy working with Claude -- in particular having it identify holes in my arguments and calculations -- but it also fills me with grief to experience how it gets stronger and stronger. I can't help hoping that this progress will somehow stop.

"The pathology arrives when those governing from the upper floors lose the ability to perceive the importance of the foundations [...], and begin making decisions that erode that base in the service of ideological commitments the foundations had made affordable." www.decouple.media/p/europe-for...

Europe Forgot the Lesson the 1970s Oil Shocks Once Taught

The continent answered with reactors, pipeline diplomacy, and offshore drilling, then spent three decades neglecting and dismantling everything it had built.

decouple.media

The combination of the NVidia-chips decision and the EO creates the impression that the biggest concern is not China winning the race to AGI/ASI, but not getting to AGI/ASI at all, unless it's done very quickly.

Why philosophers of physics should look more into Anti-Wick quantization -- and quantization in general. New paper in Physics Letters A: Sharp values for all dynamical variables via Anti-Wick quantization sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Sharp values for all dynamical variables via Anti-Wick quantization

This paper proposes an approach to interpreting quantum expectation values that may help address the quantum measurement problem. Quantum expectation …

sciencedirect.com

This new peer-reviewed theoretical physics paper, in a good journal, is, according to its author (on X) based on an AI-generated research idea: arxiv.org/abs/2511.15935 The research is probably not very original. Still, I find it depressing how close we are to being superseded by the machines.

Relativistic Covariance and Nonlinear Quantum Mechanics: Tomonaga-Schwinger Analysis

We use the Tomonaga-Schwinger (TS) formulation of quantum field theory to determine when state-dependent additions to the local Hamiltonian density (i.e., modifications to linear Schrodinger evolution...

arxiv.org

Is er in de Nederlandse wetenschap nog ruimte voor tegendraads onderzoek? Ik sprak er vrijdag over bij het symposium Open debat in de wetenschap! aan de @unileiden.bsky.social Lees hier een bewerkte versie van mijn voordracht op Substack: open.substack.com/pub/hofhuis/p/…

Statement that, as things stand, superintelligence should not be developed: superintelligence-statement.org I have signed.

Statement on Superintelligence

“We call for a prohibition on the development of superintelligence, not lifted before there is (1) broad scientific consensus that it will be done safely and controllably, and (2) strong public bu...

superintelligence-statement.org

Yes, and 2. is correct, even though I often wish it was false.

Justin Wolfers@justinwolfers.bsky.social · 10mo ago

There are basically only two positions in the debate about AI. 1. I’ve barely invested any time in learning how to use it effectively. AI sucks. 2. I’ve invested in learning how to use this tool. Holy cow, it’s transformational. Position #1 has lower barriers to entry.

@leol.bsky.social reageerde zaterdag in NRC samen met zijn broer op mijn opiniestuk van een week ervoor. Helaas voldoet zijn betoog niet aan serieuze standaarden voor goed debat – en dat is geen incident. Lees hier mijn reactie op Substack: open.substack.com/pub/hofhuis/...

Leo Lucassen en de grenzen van eerlijk debat

Mijn repliek op Lucassens NRC-opinie en wat dit zegt over het migratiedebat

open.substack.com

The EU wants to ban words like “burger” + “sausage” from plant-based foods. So get ready for “protein tubes” + “alternative discs.” 🙃 Nobody’s confused — except Brussels. Consumers + the planet deserve better. #NoConfusion substack.com/home/post/p-...

Will the EU now ban 'sausage' and 'burger' from plant-based alternatives?

Could Europe get any dumber?

substack.com

🚨 Next week the EU votes on banning words like burger, sausage & chicken from plant-based foods. This is nothing short of government engaging in cartel behaviour with the meat industry right as we need to transition away from animal agriculture to fix the climate crisis. Act now!

Stop the EU’s Ban on “Meaty” Words for Plant-Based Foods

Sign now

weplanet.yourmovement.org

I just got a copy of this new book from Emily Adlam (with whom I did my masters, so this is the first book I'm reading written by a former classmate!). I'm going to try the thing where I tweet about it as I go.

AGI is not inevitable, and if you are American, you may consider getting active to stop its development. Great piece by @garrisonlovely.bsky.social. In contrast, crying "AI hype" makes people complacent and only plays into the hands of the industry.

Garrison Lovely@garrisonlovely.bsky.social · last yr.

Artificial general intelligence is not inevitable. My latest for The Guardian challenges one of the most popular claims made about AGI. Among those who believe AGI is possible, it's common to think it's unstoppable, whether you're excited or terrified of the prospect 🧵

Again, so much for "AI hype": An OpenAI experimental reasoning LLM has performed at gold medal level at the International Math Olympiad (IMO): x.com/alexwei_/sta... (To be clear, I personally find this quite depressing.)

Alexander Wei on X: "1/N I’m excited to share that our latest @OpenAI experimental reasoning LLM has achieved a longstanding grand challenge in AI: gold medal-level performance on the world’s most prestigious math competition—the International Math Olympiad (IMO). https://t.co/SG3k6EknaC" / X

1/N I’m excited to share that our latest @OpenAI experimental reasoning LLM has achieved a longstanding grand challenge in AI: gold medal-level performance on the world’s most prestigious math competition—the International Math Olympiad (IMO). https://t.co/SG3k6EknaC

x.com