What a stat: Worsening wildfires have killed nearly a fifth of the world's mature sequoias just since 2020 www.nytimes.com/2025/09/08/u... / www.fs.usda.gov/about-agency...

HISTORIC HEAT WAVE IN EUROPE

FRANCE >42C with several records in secundary stations.

SWITZERLAND 35.5 Visp tied its August record.

Hundreds if not thousands of records will be pulverized in Western and Eastern Europe next week:
France might attack its national August record.

Everyone can prompt.

But can you convince yourself and others that the system is doing what it's supposed to do?

My conversation with Dr. Shea Brown, astrophysicist turned AI auditor.

open.spotify.com/episode/6Plj...

"...F.D.A. staff members concluded that the vaccines were safe and effective based on clinical trials of the shots tested in thousands of people. But Dr. Prasad wrote that there could still be vaccine-related injuries that have yet to be discovered."

Gift Link.

If any of these apply, check out the latest episode of my podcast:

You're into algorithms (esp. game theory)

You're in the Netherlands

Your child is soon starting high school/middelbare school

You're curious how algorithms shape society

Link in the comments!

New research from MIT found that those who used ChatGPT can’t remember any of the content of their essays.

Key takeaway: the product doesn’t suffer, but the process does. And when it comes to essays, the process *is* how they learn.

arxiv.org/pdf/2506.088...

If you're planning a course with mathematical methods content, or use such methods in your own work, please take a look at "Mathematics in Biology", by Meister, Lee, and Portugues, published at MIT Press. 1/2 @portugueslab.bsky.social mitpress.mit.edu/978026204940...

Many recent posts on free energy. Here is a summary from my class “Statistical mechanics of learning and computation” on the many relations between free energy, KL divergence, large deviation theory, entropy, Boltzmann distribution, cumulants, Legendre duality, saddle points, fluctuation-response…

Interviewt Dr. Remco Schoenmakers, senior director en AI strategy lead at Thermo Fisher Scientific.

open.spotify.com/episode/2CrW...

A few days ago, I shared a conversation (🔗🎧⬇️) with Mei-Li Nieuwland about how Gen-AI is affecting art and artists. Less than a week later, we are in the middle of a situation that has left one of the greatest filmmakers in animation history feeling “disgusted.”

#ai #genai #Miyazaki #StudioGhibli

Great that the Paris summit is surfacing some of our more nuanced thinkers.

www.youtube.com/live/W0QLq4q...

Worth listening to Mike Jordan in this panel.

My @TEDAI2024 talk is out!
www.ted.com/talks/surya_...
I discuss our work, spanning AI, physics, math & neuroscience, to develop a deeper scientific understanding of intelligence, both to understand biological intelligence and make better artificial intelligence. I focus on 5 gaps:

🎙️"Your Business Focus & Opportunity Is Trustworthiness" – Ger Janssen, Philips' #AI #Ethics Lead

In *Podcasts 4 Brainport*, Ger shares his journey & insights on AI's future: human-AI collaboration, bias, & trust.

🔗 Listen now: open.spotify.com/episode/3hLK...

I probably shouldn’t be saying this, but I believe that an academic career carves out a special place in being one of the few career paths that can have deep impact on the world, is societally respected, and is friendly to all sorts of disability. The vetting procedure which stands between you and

Please, for your sanity, spend some time setting up an RSS reader with sources you trust. Social media was never a good way to get the news, and it's only going to get worse.

I recommend Readwise, Inoreader, NetNewsWire, Reeder, and Feedly. I also use @flipboard.com as a supplementary algo feed.

Hello BlueSky :)