A new interpretability tool lets developers look inside LLMs and trace the circuits behind their answers, and even intervene. The interesting shift is here, we move from explaining outputs after the fact to shaping how they are produced. www.technologyreview.com/2026/04/30/1...

Help me understand: China helps Iran targeting US bases with their satellites, but we cannot help Ukraine against Russia. The reason given is "russia nuclear weapons". What about US nuclear weapons? Are they less scary? www.ft.com/content/1fdd...

This looks like institutionalized post disinformation. Not just contesting results, but weakening the conditions that make outcomes binding. In 2020 institutions still closed the conflict. Now the risk is a system where closure no longer holds.

There’s a crucial angle that’s rarely discussed: what is the U.S. Congress actually doing to protect NATO? Everyone is focused on Trump, but what are Democrats and Republicans doing to support the Alliance? Their silence speaks volumes. www.dw.com/en/trump-lea...

I wonder how historians will cover this period of time in the future.

Hybrid networks exploit vulnerable urban contexts, using low-skill actors, minimal costs, and online platforms like Snapchat. A pattern of outsourced, scalable micro-terrorism is emerging, changing how violence is organized. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Iran’s information warfare and disinformation campaigns largely predated the current war. It was the best-kept open secret that everyone chose to ignore. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/28/b...

The informational ecosystem is becoming increasingly fluid, with boundaries dissolving. The rise of DAOs points to a deeper shift: the emergence of self-organized systems that can define and enforce their own rules, without relying on shared institutional authority. www.wired.com/story/a-dang...

What’s striking here is that Fuentes is employing the same tactics Russia has used against Western democracies for the past 20 years. He knows that each side will only latch onto the parts of the message they agree with and dismiss the rest. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

If relevance no longer accumulates in a stable way, then recognition becomes less reliable as a foundation. What worked yesterday does not extend into today. The system still registers the past, but it no longer translates it into durable position. 🔗

We thought the shift from celebrities to creators explained how the media ecosystem works today. That is no longer enough. Relevance does not accumulate and hold as it once did, it is continuously recalculated. 🔗

How should we treat FIMI when it comes from inside the EU? How should we treat EU governmente that directly cooperate with an hostile enemy country? www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/0...

For centuries, producing knowledge required time. The effort of research, reading, and writing also created understanding. Generative AI changes that balance. Results can now appear before the reasoning behind them has fully settled in the mind. 🔗

When we read a book, the mind spends hours engaging with a single topic. Connections emerge, and ideas slowly reshape the way we think. AI can now produce analyses in seconds. The interesting question is what happens between those two speeds. 🔗

Generative AI can now produce analyses and structured arguments almost instantly. Human understanding still grows through slower cycles of reading, reflection, and connection. What happens when ideas appear before the mind has had time to absorb them?

Much of the debate on disinformation still assumes that manipulation spreads through public platforms. When people increasingly turn to conversational systems to interpret events, political influence can move from public feeds into private dialogue 🔗

Last week I presented the latest developments of my research on AI companions and disinformation. Synthetic friends raise uncomfortable questions about how influence works when it moves from public feeds into private conversations. 🔗

If Iran regime falls, Russia loses one of its key allies in the aggression against Ukraine.

A new hybrid front Is opening on European western front. We should update the list of FIMI actors and start protecting citizens from disinformation narratives coming from where we did not expect.

I think it's sadly time to expand the list of FIMI actors beyond Russia and China. www.ft.com/content/f869...

Hold on, this thing has a name... it was called co... col... colo... ah, I can't remember. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/28/u...

[surprised pikachu] www.ft.com/content/674b...

Bitchat is a reminder of something we keep forgetting: the internet is not a switch, it’s a network. It was built to route around damage, even extreme disruption. You can shut down access points, but the network logic adapts. www.reuters.com/business/med...

I keep saying this: tech companies cannot be trusted with public health. Without oversight, they will always push boundaries in their own interest. mashable.com/article/goog...

Strong analogy, but the damage goes deeper. In markets, broken contracts create instability. In politics, broken contracts erase obligation. Trump isn’t just extracting value from politics, he’s showing that political commitments no longer bind.

What if the core democratic challenge today isn’t fixing information, but preserving the ability to decide together under conditions of permanent disagreement? The last Future Frontiers issue of 2025 is a reflection on orientation, not prediction.

We talk a lot about misinformation and polarization. But 2025 revealed many of the frameworks we still rely on no longer help societies translate disagreement into shared decisions. 📬 This is the last issue of Future Frontiers for 2025. See you next year!

The so-called “global censorship-industrial complex” is a tiny world of academics and NGOs, journalists, and disinformation researchers who for the last decade have been trying to understand the power and reach of the tech platforms and how they are invisibly manipulating our information spaces.

We are in a post-disinformation phase where the core problem is no longer false content, but the collapse of shared standards for knowledge and collective action. This matters for security too. I connect these dots in this week’s Future Frontiers.

The US willingness to act alone is not new. What’s new is the reason behind it. Democratic values once justified unilateral action; today they are treated as constraints. 📬 This week in Future Frontiers, I try to explain why that matters, especially for Europe.

When Merz says the “American peace” as Europeans knew it is over, he’s pointing to a long shift, not a sudden break. 📬 This week in Future Frontiers, I look at how US security thinking evolved from post-9/11 universalism to today’s far narrower logic. open.substack.com/pub/massimof...

I wrote about the strange sensation of knowing more while understanding less, and how this shapes the future of journalism. The piece is less a verdict and more an open question. How do we build shared reality in a fragmented information climate.

Media debates often ask how to fix newsrooms or regulate platforms, but what if the real crisis is that stories no longer stay. This week Future Frontiers reflects on journalism as a space where orientation might still be built.

Sometimes it feels like we are living inside an information climate rather than an information system. 📬 This week Future Frontiers explores what happens when journalism can no longer guarantee a shared foundation for public understanding. open.substack.com/pub/massimof...

That's what a russian asset would do. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

The real challenge today is not the volume of information but the pathway it follows through our minds. This week in Future frontiers I look at how attention and identity now guide the first steps of understanding.

Hey, but what about Hunter and his laptop? www.ft.com/content/952f...

I have been thinking about how attention works today. Not the usual story of distraction, but the deeper shift in how ideas reach us. Emotion sets the tone, identity frames the reaction and reasoning negotiates what remains.

I keep returning to the idea that the feed does not only show us things. It sets the order in which we feel, align and only later think. 📬 This week in Future Frontiers a piece about this quiet shift in public understanding. open.substack.com/pub/massimof...

Russia’s move in Armenia follows a tested script. Undermine an independent government, flood the infosphere, then escalate when soft pressure fails. Georgia showed the pattern. So did Ukraine. The goal remains a return to old borders. www.dw.com/en/russias-d...

And Remigration, a common political stance from the far-right, linked to the conspiracy theory of the "Great Replacement", enters once more into governments' policies. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

The real #AI battle isn’t just about money or state laws. It’s about who controls the window through which we all see the world. When a few actors shape the models, the platforms and the cues we rely on, the concentration stops being economic and becomes epistemic. www.wsj.com/tech/ai/tech...

There’s a growing market of synthetic friends. The problem is the silent shift they trigger in how people form bonds, seek validation, and outsource judgment. We’re still underestimating the structural impact of this tech. I explored this in more detail here: 🔗 open.substack.com/pub/massimof...

Still not convinced about the web enshittification? 🇺🇸 Americans looking for ACA plans on Google are met with for-profit telemarketing companies. www.bloomberg.com/features/202...

💭 One thing that surprised me in this research: people often describe stability, not novelty, as the main value of AI companions. The appeal isn’t in the tech. It’s in the emotional predictability. If you’ve seen this trend, how do you interpret it?

Working on AI companions has made me wonder: what happens when emotional support becomes a personalised service? Not in theory, but in everyday life. If you’ve seen people rely on these systems, how does it look from your side? 🧠 Curious to hear thoughts.

#AI companions are not just tools. They’re shaping how people build emotional worlds. This shift touches loneliness, identity and the way shared reality is formed. If you study democracy, tech, mental health or culture, this one is for you.

Beyond diplomacy and targets, COP30 is a test of whether societies can still cooperate in good faith. The ecology of information and the ecology of the planet are now inseparable. Without rebuilding trust, even the best agreements remain suspended. 🔗

🗺️ Each COP repeats the same cycle of urgency, hope, and disappointment, but something deeper is breaking. The moral narrative that once inspired action now exhausts it. 🔗

As #COP30 begins in Belém, leaders will talk about carbon and finance, but the hardest task is to restore belief. People are tired, skeptical, and flooded with noise. The real question is whether we still trust each other enough to act. 🔗 open.substack.com/pub/massimof...