I fixed the title

Hallo nieuwe volgers (die mij vanmiddag bij @buitenhof.bsky.social gezien hebben, neem ik aan!) Ik schrijf niet alleen hier, maar voornamelijk op mijn wekelijkse nieuwsbrief over AI, epistemologie, onderwijs en meer, zie hier: www.felienne.nl/2025-45/

How does something get a public release, even as a pilot, with this level of failure? www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

50 year mortgage is so crazy. to put it in perspective, 2016 was 50 years ago

Leuke middag bij de boekpresentatie van @jimjansen.bsky.social en @dolfjansen.bsky.social. Podium voor muziek en wetenschappers zoals @jpvdschaar.bsky.social en @felienne.bsky.social. Dankzij Felienne zijn er dit keer ook 27 letters ipv 26. 👍 Kleine deeltjes bij de Y van Yukawa

Zondag in #buitenhof defensie-onderzoeker @michellehaas.bsky.social; @ministerbz.bsky.social David van Weel; hoogleraar Informatica @felienne.bsky.social Hermans; en vz. Nationaal Klimaat Platform @keesvendrik.bsky.social. 12:10 op NPO1. Lees meer: bit.ly/buitenhof-9-...

As a white man, I hate AI for appropriating my culture of being confidently wrong about things while using Reddit as a primary source.

Fed's Jefferson: The Fed is developing internal use cases for AI, researchers have access to an internal agent.

long list of upcoming bridges he thinks he can sell you

The jokes write themselves

ffs, @nytimes.com

Checking in on Rudy Giuliani, I see he's having an insane one

The haters said they couldn't do it. And they were right. Honestly, great call from the haters.

Every single woman you know has had this happen to her. Even the goddamn president of Mexico.

I love that Mamdani is what the right claimed Obama was: A Muslim socialist born in Africa. The right practically manifested Mamdani into existence.

The New York Times quickly sending out Douthat to argue that Mamdani’s victory doesn’t really matter is so predictable it borders on self-parody. Remember, folks: Every time the Right wins an election, it’s an undeniable expression of the will of the people. If a lefty wins, it’s just a blip.

oh my god they actually did it lmao

this looks like a trick daffy duck would put up to get bugs bunny into "the oval office"

we can chalk it up to youth and inexperience but the biggest mistake the mamdani campaign made was winning by 8.8% and not 1.5%, which is the margin needed for the media to say it’s a total mandate

Once more, for old times’ sake

I used to worry if notebooks would harm coding skills, meanwhile my uni www.ru.nl/en/radboud-i...

roses are red big laughs are hearty

And for the Dutch people here, yesterday I wrote a piece on AI and chess in @trouw.nl www.trouw.nl/opinie/opini...

New week, new newsletter, filled with all sorts of AI critique, such as the (maybe?) coming model collapse, LLMs that serve you as Aladdin's Genie, when to stop the use of AI in education, and my struggle with digital textbooks. English version here: www.felienne.nl/2025-44/#eng...

it's utterly wild how the Heritage Foundation president talks about other people if you found a guy talking like this outside, you'd probably call the cops

Some.

The grift must be getting difficult for Geoffrey now that he’s turning to spouting off with little actual insight on something he once dismissed as unimportant because it wasn’t existential like the threat of AGI ruling over us or whatever.

«Silicon Valley isn’t building apps anymore. It’s building empires.» The Authoritarian Stack: A mapping of firms, funds, and political actors turning core state functions into private platforms, by @francescabria.bsky.social et. al. for @fesonline.bsky.social www.authoritarian-stack.info

Again, this precise use case is why these systems exist-to proliferate people’s racist (transphobic, misogynistic…) imaginary at scale. This should not be seen as a “misuse” but rather the product being used exactly as intended.

Marking in 2025

$18 Mocktail Satisfies Craving To Waste Money https://theonion.com/18-mocktail-satisfies-craving-to-waste-money-1851449216/

France should have kept its language at home then.

OK, regardless of source, credit where due: That's a great headline.

A little telling that these dudes see a robot taking out the trash and immediately are like “well I clearly can’t compete with that”

Let the campaigning begin.

Between this and the Louvre prosecutor describing the suspects’ statements as “minimalist” while bragging that they had worked on the case over a weekend it’s an absolutely incredible week for Frenchness

Over de invloed van talkshow: (citaat afkomstig uit @volkskrant.nl)

Ow how I miss the good old days of Twitter! Yesterday I went to a conference and was mourning the days where in the train you could share where you were going and people would reply with "see you there!" Just a simple thing that made going to a conference and socializing there so much easier!

Obvious to say this, but the actual function of the smear job isn't to make us ask about his aunt, it's to show us the words "hijab" and "9/11" in a headline with his photo.

it’s kind of funny that the New York Times, which is probably at least 50% Ivy League on the editorial side, is one of the primary drivers of contemporary anti-intellectualism, but not really funny in a good way

I like how Zohran Mamdani scandals are like "He called his old cousin his aunt one time" and Andrew Cuomo scandals are like "He sexually assaulted 13 women."

One year ago

As the single most important news story this year, I can't wait to see the detailed and central coverage this will get in every media outlet we have

No regular newsletter this week, only a special on systemic critique starring David Graeber and @juliusgoat.bsky.social www.felienne.nl/special-grae...

Rendering letters at @acm.org, the largest CS publisher, going great! If the machines ever do rise, simply hold up some printouts of non-ASCII characters and you will be safe!

I spend a year plotting a mystery novel and then this happens.

How LLMs ruined my reading pleasure... Bear with me, this is a long thread! Last week in my newsletter I talked about Ta-Nehisi Coates and so I stumbled upon his beautiful piece "My president was Black". The piece explains how Obama, growing up in a white family...