Asad Sayeed (also @asayeed[@zirk.us])
@asayeed.bsky.social
Thought leader, whose main act of thought leadership is to declare myself thought leader. Computational psycholinguist at the University of Gothenburg.
Reposted by Asad Sayeed (also @asayeed[@zirk.us])
oh no not This .
November 18, 2025 at 2:48 PM
oh no not This .
Reposted by Asad Sayeed (also @asayeed[@zirk.us])
Yes, Jeffrey Epstein was a terrible person. But he did more to undermine Americans' faith in capitalism than anyone from DSA ever did.
November 14, 2025 at 3:20 PM
Yes, Jeffrey Epstein was a terrible person. But he did more to undermine Americans' faith in capitalism than anyone from DSA ever did.
I've been saying this for a while.
on a meta level, i think it is a bad idea for people who are opposing tech-fascism to marry that opposition to specific positions on philosophy of mind
this is because you presumably want allies who might disagree with you about those things
this is because you presumably want allies who might disagree with you about those things
November 18, 2025 at 4:55 PM
I've been saying this for a while.
Reposted by Asad Sayeed (also @asayeed[@zirk.us])
By that point, though, the heavy lifting of the Radch was already done. And to date, I have only read CP and the Hydrogen Sonata.
By the same token, people who were immersed in Banks' work almost never read CJ Cherryh, because her work wasn't widely available in the UK.
By the same token, people who were immersed in Banks' work almost never read CJ Cherryh, because her work wasn't widely available in the UK.
November 18, 2025 at 1:51 PM
By that point, though, the heavy lifting of the Radch was already done. And to date, I have only read CP and the Hydrogen Sonata.
By the same token, people who were immersed in Banks' work almost never read CJ Cherryh, because her work wasn't widely available in the UK.
By the same token, people who were immersed in Banks' work almost never read CJ Cherryh, because her work wasn't widely available in the UK.
shaka, before the walls fell
November 18, 2025 at 4:15 PM
shaka, before the walls fell
I just cut a cake with a cookie @datatherapist.bsky.social
November 18, 2025 at 9:52 AM
I just cut a cake with a cookie @datatherapist.bsky.social
Reposted by Asad Sayeed (also @asayeed[@zirk.us])
We need our policymakers everywhere to be attuned to the needs of the people, not the whims of CEOs -- and especially not CEOs in the grip of TESCREAList fantasies.
Thank you @abeba.bsky.social and @krisshrishak.bsky.social for speaking up
www.techpolicy.press/ai-hype-is-s...
Thank you @abeba.bsky.social and @krisshrishak.bsky.social for speaking up
www.techpolicy.press/ai-hype-is-s...
AI Hype Is Steering EU Policy Off Course | TechPolicy.Press
Kris Shrishak and Abeba Birhane say policymakers should stop peddling in unscientific discourse about "AGI" and "superintelligence."
www.techpolicy.press
November 17, 2025 at 2:41 PM
We need our policymakers everywhere to be attuned to the needs of the people, not the whims of CEOs -- and especially not CEOs in the grip of TESCREAList fantasies.
Thank you @abeba.bsky.social and @krisshrishak.bsky.social for speaking up
www.techpolicy.press/ai-hype-is-s...
Thank you @abeba.bsky.social and @krisshrishak.bsky.social for speaking up
www.techpolicy.press/ai-hype-is-s...
Reposted by Asad Sayeed (also @asayeed[@zirk.us])
For anyone who's struggled with variable spelling practices before modern printing, there's a summary of what's "interchangeable" in Thomas Wright's Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English. 2 vols. London, 1857.
#orthography #English #language #dialect #manuscripts #medieval
#orthography #English #language #dialect #manuscripts #medieval
November 16, 2025 at 2:58 PM
For anyone who's struggled with variable spelling practices before modern printing, there's a summary of what's "interchangeable" in Thomas Wright's Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English. 2 vols. London, 1857.
#orthography #English #language #dialect #manuscripts #medieval
#orthography #English #language #dialect #manuscripts #medieval
Reposted by Asad Sayeed (also @asayeed[@zirk.us])
While the media often focuses on identity, any election with a socialist / progressive candidate will come down to class and capital accumulation.
November 6, 2025 at 12:40 AM
While the media often focuses on identity, any election with a socialist / progressive candidate will come down to class and capital accumulation.
Anyone interested in spending a semester to a year as a guest prof in Gothenburg? Let me know...
November 15, 2025 at 5:44 PM
Anyone interested in spending a semester to a year as a guest prof in Gothenburg? Let me know...
Reposted by Asad Sayeed (also @asayeed[@zirk.us])
This is as bad as anything proposed by Reform.
Leaving refugees in permanent limbo and unable to build a new life in the UK would be a complete abdication of our humanitarian responsibilities
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Leaving refugees in permanent limbo and unable to build a new life in the UK would be a complete abdication of our humanitarian responsibilities
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
UK set to limit refugees to temporary stays
Shabana Mahmood is expected to say the era of permanent protection for refugees is over, in major changes to the UK's asylum and immigration system.
www.bbc.co.uk
November 15, 2025 at 6:43 AM
This is as bad as anything proposed by Reform.
Leaving refugees in permanent limbo and unable to build a new life in the UK would be a complete abdication of our humanitarian responsibilities
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Leaving refugees in permanent limbo and unable to build a new life in the UK would be a complete abdication of our humanitarian responsibilities
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
SACing for EACL this year and pleasantly surprised by how many papers on my docket have the proper 3 reviews by this point. Just to cut through the doominess and grousing (which are perfectly legit).
November 15, 2025 at 4:23 PM
SACing for EACL this year and pleasantly surprised by how many papers on my docket have the proper 3 reviews by this point. Just to cut through the doominess and grousing (which are perfectly legit).
someone signed me up as a reviewer for a conference in OpenReview, I actually emailed them to remove me, but instead what they're doing is a fishing net sort of thing where they keep everyone signed up and just hope that some people actually do a review. So they never deleted me.
November 15, 2025 at 3:45 PM
someone signed me up as a reviewer for a conference in OpenReview, I actually emailed them to remove me, but instead what they're doing is a fishing net sort of thing where they keep everyone signed up and just hope that some people actually do a review. So they never deleted me.
Reposted by Asad Sayeed (also @asayeed[@zirk.us])
I looked her up, it seems likely she was brutally murdered by the criminal network she was involved with.
November 14, 2025 at 3:44 PM
I looked her up, it seems likely she was brutally murdered by the criminal network she was involved with.
Reposted by Asad Sayeed (also @asayeed[@zirk.us])
More broadly, when all these clowns said Tyrannical Wokeness Has Gone Too Far, they specifically meant e.g. effective mass campaigns against elite impunity for sexual offending; the police murdering citizens in broad daylight, and allied governments being overthrown in the Arab Spring.
As @flyingrodent.bsky.social has pointed out repeatedly, the Harvey Weinstein scandal directly challenged the elite impunity and degeneracy that Jeffrey Epstein typified, and the response was a deranged, all-channels backlash to make clear such uppity behaviour wouldn’t be tolerated from the plebs.
Extra maddening because we are currently living through the backlash to #MeToo, which was attempting to address precisely behaviours and attitudes like this! We are living in the reaction to a movement that attempted to confront this mysterious behaviour head on!
November 13, 2025 at 9:33 AM
More broadly, when all these clowns said Tyrannical Wokeness Has Gone Too Far, they specifically meant e.g. effective mass campaigns against elite impunity for sexual offending; the police murdering citizens in broad daylight, and allied governments being overthrown in the Arab Spring.
Reposted by Asad Sayeed (also @asayeed[@zirk.us])
My university is promoting Qualtrics new “synthetic data” initiative that “simulates human behavior so enable quicker experiments” and it is HORRIFYING that a UNIVERSITY promotes this “as transformative for how we collect data” and I don’t know who to scream at 😭😭😭😭
November 12, 2025 at 10:35 PM
My university is promoting Qualtrics new “synthetic data” initiative that “simulates human behavior so enable quicker experiments” and it is HORRIFYING that a UNIVERSITY promotes this “as transformative for how we collect data” and I don’t know who to scream at 😭😭😭😭
Reposted by Asad Sayeed (also @asayeed[@zirk.us])
It was custom for dinosaurs to fossilize their dead
November 10, 2025 at 1:42 PM
It was custom for dinosaurs to fossilize their dead
There's a lot of this going on in political science too. I went to a couple of sessions at #APSA2024 in Philly led by graduate students very excited at being cool and new by using LLMs to substitute for opinion research. My boring actual-AI-researcher objections were kind of glossed over...
This NeurIPS workshop claims that LLMs "provide an important foundation for exploring human cognition, emotion, and social interaction"
This is flawed logic, as @lmesseri.bsky.social and I argue here:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
This is flawed logic, as @lmesseri.bsky.social and I argue here:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
November 11, 2025 at 6:54 AM
There's a lot of this going on in political science too. I went to a couple of sessions at #APSA2024 in Philly led by graduate students very excited at being cool and new by using LLMs to substitute for opinion research. My boring actual-AI-researcher objections were kind of glossed over...
Reposted by Asad Sayeed (also @asayeed[@zirk.us])
I received this email about Democrats caving to end the shutdown from one of the SNAP recipients I spoke to:
November 10, 2025 at 2:17 PM
I received this email about Democrats caving to end the shutdown from one of the SNAP recipients I spoke to:
Reposted by Asad Sayeed (also @asayeed[@zirk.us])
A Sharon Begley byline, almost 5 years after her death.
Upon hearing the news James Watson had died, a STAT reporter said in our Slack, "I wish I could read what Sharon would have written."
Incredible news: Sharon in fact did pre-write a Watson obit. And it is masterful and excoriating.
🧪🧬🧫
Upon hearing the news James Watson had died, a STAT reporter said in our Slack, "I wish I could read what Sharon would have written."
Incredible news: Sharon in fact did pre-write a Watson obit. And it is masterful and excoriating.
🧪🧬🧫
James Watson, dead at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers
James Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA who died Thursday at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers.
www.statnews.com
November 8, 2025 at 1:39 PM
A Sharon Begley byline, almost 5 years after her death.
Upon hearing the news James Watson had died, a STAT reporter said in our Slack, "I wish I could read what Sharon would have written."
Incredible news: Sharon in fact did pre-write a Watson obit. And it is masterful and excoriating.
🧪🧬🧫
Upon hearing the news James Watson had died, a STAT reporter said in our Slack, "I wish I could read what Sharon would have written."
Incredible news: Sharon in fact did pre-write a Watson obit. And it is masterful and excoriating.
🧪🧬🧫
"There exists any state of affairs other than one in which we have something that is other than chicken served in a non-soup way with something other than noodles."
November 8, 2025 at 11:14 AM
"There exists any state of affairs other than one in which we have something that is other than chicken served in a non-soup way with something other than noodles."
Reposted by Asad Sayeed (also @asayeed[@zirk.us])
He renamed it “GNU York” and now every time you enter city limits a nerd will spend two hours explaining why the GPL is better than BSD.
November 8, 2025 at 5:06 AM
He renamed it “GNU York” and now every time you enter city limits a nerd will spend two hours explaining why the GPL is better than BSD.
Reposted by Asad Sayeed (also @asayeed[@zirk.us])
if the first human on earth had been immortal and earned $1,000 every day of their entire life, they still would not have this much money
Tesla CEO Elon Musk scored a resounding victory on Thursday as shareholders approved a pay package of as much as $878 billion over the next decade, endorsing his vision of morphing the EV maker into an AI and robotics juggernaut.
Tesla shareholders approve $878 billion pay plan for Elon Musk
Tesla CEO Elon Musk scored a resounding victory on Thursday as shareholders approved a pay package of as much as $878 billion over the next decade, endorsing his vision of morphing the EV maker into an AI and robotics juggernaut.
reut.rs
November 7, 2025 at 12:46 PM
if the first human on earth had been immortal and earned $1,000 every day of their entire life, they still would not have this much money
Reposted by Asad Sayeed (also @asayeed[@zirk.us])
It has arrived.
November 6, 2025 at 12:48 AM
It has arrived.