Shin Asayama
@shinasayama.bsky.social
I'm not a geographer but I'd like to think like geographers | Ambivalence & ambiguity is my intellectual gravity | Doing #climate social science at NIES, Japan | Views my own | https://researchmap.jp/shinichiro.asayama/?lang=en
What to Know About ‘Gen Z Protests’ Around the World
youtube.com/shorts/Eyh2V...
youtube.com/shorts/Eyh2V...
What to Know About ‘Gen Z Protests’ Around the World
YouTube video by The New York Times
youtube.com
October 18, 2025 at 3:36 AM
What to Know About ‘Gen Z Protests’ Around the World
youtube.com/shorts/Eyh2V...
youtube.com/shorts/Eyh2V...
How this TikTok deal puts US media control into the hands of the super-rich youtube.com/shorts/lEWwp...
How this TikTok deal puts US media control into the hands of the super-rich
YouTube video by The Guardian
youtube.com
October 5, 2025 at 12:18 AM
How this TikTok deal puts US media control into the hands of the super-rich youtube.com/shorts/lEWwp...
"If you wanted to get a paper published in Science from 2015 to 2020, your odds were 70% lower if you were in China than in the United States. But being at an elite institution anywhere in the world may have given you an edge."
www.science.org/content/arti...
www.science.org/content/arti...
Whose papers have an edge at Science? In unusual study, journal looks in the mirror
Confidential data show being in the U.S., at a prestigious institution, and in a large team all may help
www.science.org
October 4, 2025 at 6:55 AM
"If you wanted to get a paper published in Science from 2015 to 2020, your odds were 70% lower if you were in China than in the United States. But being at an elite institution anywhere in the world may have given you an edge."
www.science.org/content/arti...
www.science.org/content/arti...
Reposted by Shin Asayama
How can the #IPCC navigate generative AI?
What does it mean for scientific assessment more broadly?
New working paper looks at scenarios for AI adoption & resistance, w/ @dralaaclimate.bsky.social @shinasayama.bsky.social and Oliver Geden
Reflections welcome!
www.swp-berlin.org/publications...
What does it mean for scientific assessment more broadly?
New working paper looks at scenarios for AI adoption & resistance, w/ @dralaaclimate.bsky.social @shinasayama.bsky.social and Oliver Geden
Reflections welcome!
www.swp-berlin.org/publications...
www.swp-berlin.org
October 1, 2025 at 3:45 PM
How can the #IPCC navigate generative AI?
What does it mean for scientific assessment more broadly?
New working paper looks at scenarios for AI adoption & resistance, w/ @dralaaclimate.bsky.social @shinasayama.bsky.social and Oliver Geden
Reflections welcome!
www.swp-berlin.org/publications...
What does it mean for scientific assessment more broadly?
New working paper looks at scenarios for AI adoption & resistance, w/ @dralaaclimate.bsky.social @shinasayama.bsky.social and Oliver Geden
Reflections welcome!
www.swp-berlin.org/publications...
Reposted by Shin Asayama
New working paper out: "Four scenarios for an @ipcc.bsky.social navigating Artificial Intelligence"
Led by @hollyjeanbuck.bsky.social, with @shinasayama.bsky.social and Oliver Geden
Thread 🧵
1/13
Led by @hollyjeanbuck.bsky.social, with @shinasayama.bsky.social and Oliver Geden
Thread 🧵
1/13
September 29, 2025 at 11:36 AM
New working paper out: "Four scenarios for an @ipcc.bsky.social navigating Artificial Intelligence"
Led by @hollyjeanbuck.bsky.social, with @shinasayama.bsky.social and Oliver Geden
Thread 🧵
1/13
Led by @hollyjeanbuck.bsky.social, with @shinasayama.bsky.social and Oliver Geden
Thread 🧵
1/13
"Given all this, we are not advocating deploying geoengineering today. But if policymakers decide that it is needed, a more modest approach would be to run a small, carefully scaled program ... to compensate for the loss of cooling as sulfur pollution is eliminated."
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/21/o...
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/21/o...
Opinion | Turns Out Air Pollution Was Good for Something
www.nytimes.com
September 24, 2025 at 1:01 PM
"Given all this, we are not advocating deploying geoengineering today. But if policymakers decide that it is needed, a more modest approach would be to run a small, carefully scaled program ... to compensate for the loss of cooling as sulfur pollution is eliminated."
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/21/o...
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/21/o...
"Younger children are more likely than their older counterparts to judge relationally, physically & phylogenetically distant others as worthy of help or protection. These findings suggest ... that development may not widen our moral circle but may sometimes narrow it."
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
When development constricts our moral circle - Nature Human Behaviour
Although many believe our moral circles expand with age, this Perspective discusses an early-emerging tendency to care for others.
www.nature.com
September 18, 2025 at 5:18 AM
"Younger children are more likely than their older counterparts to judge relationally, physically & phylogenetically distant others as worthy of help or protection. These findings suggest ... that development may not widen our moral circle but may sometimes narrow it."
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
"Hallucinations are a result of the fundamental way in which LLMs work. As statistical machines, the models make predictions by generalizing on the basis of learnt associations, leading them to produce answers that are plausible, but sometimes wrong."
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Can researchers stop AI making up citations?
OpenAI’s GPT-5 hallucinates less than previous models do, but cutting hallucination completely might prove impossible.
www.nature.com
September 16, 2025 at 10:35 AM
"Hallucinations are a result of the fundamental way in which LLMs work. As statistical machines, the models make predictions by generalizing on the basis of learnt associations, leading them to produce answers that are plausible, but sometimes wrong."
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
"Researchers are scrutinizing AI-generated sentences while implicitly enabling these systems to choose which scholars are cited ... which research directions might be promising. They are accepting the outputs even though the underlying information has been distorted."
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
AI chatbots are already biasing research — we must establish guidelines for their use now
The academic community has looked at how artificial-intelligence tools help researchers to write papers, but not how they distort the literature scientists choose to cite.
www.nature.com
September 16, 2025 at 10:08 AM
"Researchers are scrutinizing AI-generated sentences while implicitly enabling these systems to choose which scholars are cited ... which research directions might be promising. They are accepting the outputs even though the underlying information has been distorted."
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
"many academic journals .. requir[e] authors to disclose whether they had used artificial intelligence (AI) to help write their papers. But .. 4 times as many authors use AI as admit to it—and that peer reviewers are using it, too, even though they are asked not to."
www.science.org/content/arti...
www.science.org/content/arti...
Far more authors use AI to write science papers than admit it, publisher reports
Finding highlights promise, questions about detectors of AI-generated text
www.science.org
September 16, 2025 at 6:07 AM
"many academic journals .. requir[e] authors to disclose whether they had used artificial intelligence (AI) to help write their papers. But .. 4 times as many authors use AI as admit to it—and that peer reviewers are using it, too, even though they are asked not to."
www.science.org/content/arti...
www.science.org/content/arti...
"One major problem is that regulatory ... requirements force researchers to spend nearly half of their research time on paperwork associated with receiving federal grants ... The administrative tasks are unnecessarily complex, duplicative, and ... contradictory."
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Unburden American science
Science is one of the greatest engines of health, prosperity, and security across the world. Yet, in the United States, the enterprise is now under tremendous stress from an array of pressures, includ...
www.science.org
September 16, 2025 at 3:34 AM
"One major problem is that regulatory ... requirements force researchers to spend nearly half of their research time on paperwork associated with receiving federal grants ... The administrative tasks are unnecessarily complex, duplicative, and ... contradictory."
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
What Counts as a ‘National Emergency’? youtube.com/shorts/IOn1e...
What Counts as a ‘National Emergency’?
YouTube video by The New York Times
youtube.com
September 2, 2025 at 4:14 AM
What Counts as a ‘National Emergency’? youtube.com/shorts/IOn1e...
"Automation involves a transfer of knowledge from humans to machines. [Then], human skills are lost, perhaps irrevocably ... Every time a scientist abdicates their work to an AI tool, that is a tacit admission that the work is not worth being done by the scientist."
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
AI, peer review and the human activity of science
When researchers cede their scientific judgement to machines, we lose something important.
www.nature.com
August 27, 2025 at 3:15 PM
"Automation involves a transfer of knowledge from humans to machines. [Then], human skills are lost, perhaps irrevocably ... Every time a scientist abdicates their work to an AI tool, that is a tacit admission that the work is not worth being done by the scientist."
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
"We’ve built machines that sound like they care. Now, we must ensure that they don’t hurt the very people who turn to them for support. That means giving emotionally responsive AI not just more capabilities, but clearer boundaries."
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Why we need mandatory safeguards for emotionally responsive AI
Virtual chatbots that simulate conversations with famous actors or sci-fi characters can have real-world consequences.
www.nature.com
August 27, 2025 at 8:54 AM
"We’ve built machines that sound like they care. Now, we must ensure that they don’t hurt the very people who turn to them for support. That means giving emotionally responsive AI not just more capabilities, but clearer boundaries."
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
"Conferences today tend to be “deeply shaped by Western and European traditions” ... If they moved to a more diverse set of locations, a wider range of scientists could go, which would benefit science itself by integrating diverse knowledge and experience." @nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Where is the best place to hold a scientific conference right now?
An immigration crackdown makes the United States less attractive. These locations could steal its crown and make conferences more globally inclusive.
www.nature.com
August 27, 2025 at 7:48 AM
"Conferences today tend to be “deeply shaped by Western and European traditions” ... If they moved to a more diverse set of locations, a wider range of scientists could go, which would benefit science itself by integrating diverse knowledge and experience." @nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
"But progress always involves reaction and revision. Historical nostalgia may be helping a younger generation to harness the benefits of new technology while preserving the virtues of the tangible, physical experiences that remain essential to human flourishing."
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/24/o...
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/24/o...
Opinion | Why Gen Z Is Resurrecting the 1990s
www.nytimes.com
August 25, 2025 at 5:29 AM
"But progress always involves reaction and revision. Historical nostalgia may be helping a younger generation to harness the benefits of new technology while preserving the virtues of the tangible, physical experiences that remain essential to human flourishing."
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/24/o...
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/24/o...
"this is not a call to revive the fatally flawed 20th-century notions of “development.” Rather, it means that we need to learn from what worked and what was poisonous ... to create a concept that actually accomplishes what “development” imagined it was about..."
www.compactmag.com/article/the-...
www.compactmag.com/article/the-...
The Long, Slow Death of ‘Development’
Over the past several months, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s manifesto Abundance has set off a wide-ranging debate about the future of progressive politics and governance.
www.compactmag.com
August 22, 2025 at 4:25 AM
"this is not a call to revive the fatally flawed 20th-century notions of “development.” Rather, it means that we need to learn from what worked and what was poisonous ... to create a concept that actually accomplishes what “development” imagined it was about..."
www.compactmag.com/article/the-...
www.compactmag.com/article/the-...
"If reviewers typically favor submissions from their own countries, but reviewers from only some countries are well represented in the reviewer pool, this can create a “geographical representation bias” favoring authors from those well-represented countries."
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Geographical diversity of peer reviewers shapes author success | PNAS
Scientific institutions like funding agencies and journals rely on peer reviewers
to select among competing submissions. How does the geographical ...
www.pnas.org
August 20, 2025 at 3:15 AM
"If reviewers typically favor submissions from their own countries, but reviewers from only some countries are well represented in the reviewer pool, this can create a “geographical representation bias” favoring authors from those well-represented countries."
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
"Now, simulations with ... virtual users generated with [AI] may have revealed why social media tends to become so polarized ... The results suggest that just the basic functions of social media—posting, reposting, and following—inevitably produce polarization."
www.science.org/content/arti...
www.science.org/content/arti...
Don’t blame the algorithm: Polarization may be inherent in social media
In simulations, AI-generated users of stripped-down social media without content algorithms still split into polarized echo chambers
www.science.org
August 18, 2025 at 11:45 AM
"Now, simulations with ... virtual users generated with [AI] may have revealed why social media tends to become so polarized ... The results suggest that just the basic functions of social media—posting, reposting, and following—inevitably produce polarization."
www.science.org/content/arti...
www.science.org/content/arti...
"Scholarly publishing relies on peer review to identify the best science. Yet finding willing and qualified reviewers to evaluate manuscripts has become an increasingly challenging task, possibly even threatening the long-term viability of peer review as an institution."
arxiv.org/abs/2507.10734
arxiv.org/abs/2507.10734
Will anyone review this paper? Screening, sorting, and the feedback cycles that imperil peer review
Scholarly publishing relies on peer review to identify the best science. Yet finding willing and qualified reviewers to evaluate manuscripts has become an increasingly challenging task, possibly even ...
arxiv.org
August 10, 2025 at 5:06 AM
"Scholarly publishing relies on peer review to identify the best science. Yet finding willing and qualified reviewers to evaluate manuscripts has become an increasingly challenging task, possibly even threatening the long-term viability of peer review as an institution."
arxiv.org/abs/2507.10734
arxiv.org/abs/2507.10734
"There’s an obvious fix to the problem of reviewer overwhelm: do less peer review. Some researchers have raised the prospect of more selective use of organized peer review ... there isn’t enough capacity in the system to do high-quality peer review of everything."
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
The peer-review crisis: how to fix an overloaded system
Journals and funders are trying to boost the speed and effectiveness of review processes that are under strain.
www.nature.com
August 10, 2025 at 4:44 AM
"There’s an obvious fix to the problem of reviewer overwhelm: do less peer review. Some researchers have raised the prospect of more selective use of organized peer review ... there isn’t enough capacity in the system to do high-quality peer review of everything."
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Mike Hulme & Arthur Petersen: "The upcoming [AR7] of the IPCC has an opportunity to be better attuned to the world’s religious faiths as holders of knowledge about human meaning, ethics and behaviour, and to incorporate such knowledge explicitly in its assessments."
mikehulme.org/the-ipcc-and...
mikehulme.org/the-ipcc-and...
The IPCC and Religious Knowledge – Mike Hulme
mikehulme.org
July 31, 2025 at 6:44 AM
Mike Hulme & Arthur Petersen: "The upcoming [AR7] of the IPCC has an opportunity to be better attuned to the world’s religious faiths as holders of knowledge about human meaning, ethics and behaviour, and to incorporate such knowledge explicitly in its assessments."
mikehulme.org/the-ipcc-and...
mikehulme.org/the-ipcc-and...
"Publication rates rise sharply during the tenure-track, peaking just before tenure. However, post-tenure trajectories diverge: Researchers in lab-based fields sustain high output, while those in non-lab-based fields typically exhibit a decline." @pnas.org
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Tenure and research trajectories | PNAS
Tenure is a cornerstone of the US academic system, yet its relationship to faculty
research trajectories remains poorly understood. Conceptually, t...
www.pnas.org
July 31, 2025 at 4:52 AM
"Publication rates rise sharply during the tenure-track, peaking just before tenure. However, post-tenure trajectories diverge: Researchers in lab-based fields sustain high output, while those in non-lab-based fields typically exhibit a decline." @pnas.org
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
"Conservatives consistently disfavored purchasing both Teslas and EVs, irrespective of their perceptions of Musk. Liberals showed declining intentions to purchase Teslas compared with other EVs, and, to a lesser extent, declining intentions to purchase EVs in general."
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Liberals are less willing to buy Teslas than other electric vehicles, moderated by perceptions of Elon Musk - Humanities and Social Sciences Communications
Humanities and Social Sciences Communications - Liberals are less willing to buy Teslas than other electric vehicles, moderated by perceptions of Elon Musk
www.nature.com
July 29, 2025 at 9:45 AM
"Conservatives consistently disfavored purchasing both Teslas and EVs, irrespective of their perceptions of Musk. Liberals showed declining intentions to purchase Teslas compared with other EVs, and, to a lesser extent, declining intentions to purchase EVs in general."
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Piers Forster: "Yeah, I’m a stammerer, and I’ve done quite well in lots of really supportive environments ... If people see me doing my job and think, ‘Oh, perhaps I can do that sort of thing,’ then that would make me feel chuffed." @science.org
www.science.org/content/arti...
www.science.org/content/arti...
This scientist advises the U.K. government on climate policy—and it has to hear him out
As Piers Forster steps down as chair of the influential Climate Change Committee, he chats with Science about his role in guiding the country toward decarbonization
www.science.org
July 29, 2025 at 3:32 AM
Piers Forster: "Yeah, I’m a stammerer, and I’ve done quite well in lots of really supportive environments ... If people see me doing my job and think, ‘Oh, perhaps I can do that sort of thing,’ then that would make me feel chuffed." @science.org
www.science.org/content/arti...
www.science.org/content/arti...