There's a ton of interesting findings, facts, and figures in the 2026 Stanford AI Index Report which came out a few weeks back. Here's a few of the more remarkable ones 🧵 First of all, the remarkable speed of diffusion of GenAI. #Signalsforchangingworlds 39

#Signalsforchangingworlds 38

"Netcompany Ineos" with yada-yada about AI. Feels like the partnership between AI and fossil fuels is a rather explicit symbol of our time.

Nye data fra SIPRI som viser at - desværre og ikke overraskende - at miltærudgifterne stiger globalt. Se flere detaljer på på SIPRI's profil eller i de næste opslag

The total Nordic #population continues to grow, but with a growing gap between growing & shrinking regions. 🔵 Strong growth in and around capital regions & urban centres 🟠 Shrinking populations across rural & remote areas 🗺️ Map: nordregio.org/maps/total-p... 📙 More: nordregio.org/publications...

"I Speak For The Trees (and they say: get your act together)". From the presentation of Future Generations Commissioner of Wales Derek Walker at #PolyFutures here today and tomorrow in Brussels.

"A powerful dust storm disrupted the first weekend of the Coachella music festival as blustery winds swept over the sprawling grounds and enveloped concertgoers in a whirlwind of desert sand." The writers are not subtle.

Demand for new data centres in the Nordic countries is not without societal risks: 1) Rising electricity prices for all, 2) More profitable industrial Investments crowded out by the massive Investments in low-margin foreign-owned data centres. Very little political discussion on this topic.

Every Interrail-travel should include a trip to Kemijärvi.

In Sweden, women born to foreign-born parents is now the group most likely to attend tertiary education. Then comes women (born abroad) who immigrated to Sweden as kids. After that, men and women with a Swedish background. #Signalsforchangingworlds 37. www.iffs.se/nyheter/kvin...

Still thinking about this note I found in the children’s section of the public library when I worked there back in 2018. This kid tried to warn us…

the future is already here it's just unevenly distributed. the USA will have gone from being a leading edge EV maker in the early 2010s to a global laggard by 2030, mostly because we elected Trump twice (and it'll probably kill the US auto industry)

If you think the world is too chaotic today, I would not recommend you to read Anthropic's new report about Claude Mythos, their newest large language model: www-cdn.anthropic.com/53566bf5440a...

SERRALUTION! #ksdh

I feel like “the world passed peak gas-powered car sales in 2017” is not a widely known fact

ESPAS Signals of Change, March 2026: "The question remains: will we prioritise depth and complexity in our culture and education, or continue down the path of simplification?" #Signalsforchangingworlds 36

"How Russia and China are winning the war in Iran." A remarkable analysis: www.piie.com/blogs/realti... #Signalsforchangingworlds 35

Update from today: "Since the war started, the stock market valuation of each of China’s three biggest battery companies has increased by roughly 20 percent, or $70 billion altogether." Maybe betting on electrons ain't that bad an idea.

Good piece here from @jmingle.bsky.social on the effects of Trump's war. The short-term effect on the world's poor & emerging economies: immense suffering. The long-term effect: an acceleration of the turn away from fossil fuels.

Rumsfeld, 2002: Watch out for unknown unknowns Hegseth, 2026: We are the unknown unknowns

New 310 MW data centre for AI to be built in Finland. For reference, that one building alone would at any given time use 5% of the total Danish electricity consumption. nebius.com/newsroom/neb...

»Den viser, at den mest angivne kilde til at levere de maskingenererede svar, var YouTube. Samlet set var to tredjedele af de angivne kilder fra institutioner uden sundhedsfaglige, evidensbaserede standarder.« 🤦‍♂️ 🎁

Gotta love Scandinavian confidence. "Our lives are so great and we are so happy we just don't need the cathartic release of pop music like you trodden down Americans" www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

The plot of the next Oceans movie has just dropped.

How can one not admire history’s exquisite dark sense of humor? As part of a “delegation” of sanctioned Russian State Duma deputies visiting the United States, there was none other than the actual grandson of USSR's Vyacheslav Molotov, there to discuss a Trump–Putin pact.

We're three days from April 1 and 2 weeks out from April 10. We may be about to live in interesting times. #Signalsforchangingworlds 34

Highly recommended (free to read but might take around 15 mins).

Incredibly warm March after such a cold Jan-Feb. The month will go down in history as the first March in Finland with nationwide mean temperature above freezing (0 °C). Practically all weather stations will set new March mean temperature record, except those located further out in the Baltic Sea.

The wildest prediction from a 🇩🇰 economist, you're likely to see all year. Maybe all decade.

The worst, but least talked about part of the war in Iran: 2025 was probably the hardest year for hunger in decades. "Now, with new wars, and fertiliser prices soaring, the estimated total of 318 million people worldwide facing food insecurity could jump to a record, projects the WFP. "

Reading this today, thinking of what I was doing last week. Serendipity.

It was the worst of times it was the stupidest of times

Not surprised to see these figures from my adopted (🇫🇮) and home (🇩🇰) countries, but puzzled that it's apparently so different in 🇧🇻 and 🇸🇪. Would never have guessed, and now I'm wondering about the reasons behind this Nordic cleavage. Hmm.

This is wild. What a read, what a world. no01.substack.com/p/march-19-2...

Quite some bangers in Oliver Moody's (excellent, topical, timely!) 2025-book "Baltic: The Future of Europe".

A cover that was a year ahead of its time

It's not just high oil prizes. This, in itself, will have major consequences leading many people to suffer, and from that political turmoil could very well follow. Ouch.

We have a book chapter on the metaverse coming out in May. Great timing, great foresight. Yes, yes.

I see it is time for the annual "That can't be right!" discussion in Finland. 😀

In January, Denmark prepared to counter a US military attack in Greenland, flying in explosives for blowing up airfields and bags of blood for treating potential victims. Three more years of Trump. Who knows what's still needed? #Signalsforchangingworlds 33 www.dr.dk/nyheder/indl...

Strategy trendslop. #Signalsforchangingworlds 32 hbr.org/2026/03/rese...

The future will be stupider than you can possibly imagine.

They’re telling me a great empire will be destroyed if I attack Persia. Even the oracles who don’t like me very much, very nasty, they all said to me, “Sir, it’s one of the great empires, and it’ll be destroyed. And all because you attacked Persia.” That’s what they’re telling me.

Well-received 🇩🇰 documentary Oscar win.

Good overview. I’m very skeptical of the prospects of #electricity generating #SMR s: renewable technologies are much easier to build and their costs keep coming down. Pure heat generation *may* be a different story. A Finnish startup Steady Energy is developing a simple “atomic boiler” for that.

Yesterday, the Finnish government put a proposal to parliament to revise the Nuclear Energy Act. 2 major shifts underway. The government wants to: 1) Pave the way for Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) in 🇫🇮. 2) Modify the total ban on nuclear weapons on 🇫🇮 territory. #Signalsforchangingworlds 31.