iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Abbas K. Rizi @abbasrizi.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

"[with the advancement of AI] Very soon, the whole “credit system” will surely collapse, since finding an amazing proof will be no more of an intellectual achievement than when a citizen scientist spots through their telescope an object that turns out to be a new comet.

gowers.wordpress.com

Why I didn’t sign the Fields medallists’ letter

[This post has been cross-posted to Terence Tao’s blog.] When I was around 11 I heard for the first time about Fermat’s Last Theorem. I was immediately captivated by the problem stateme…

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Abbas K. Rizi @abbasrizi.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

"Try to learn something about everything and everything about something." Thomas Huxley

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Melanie Mitchell @melaniemitchell.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Hey @ericlipton.nytimes.com 👋 AI is not “evolving” on its own. *People* are choosing how to build it. *People* are choosing how to train it. *People* are choosing how to run it. Maybe the problem is that they are the *wrong people* to make these choices.

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Abbas K. Rizi @abbasrizi.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

I’m grateful to the Novo Nordisk Foundation for supporting this project. The fellowship gives me the opportunity to continue exploring how ideas from mathematical infectious-disease modeling can be connected more closely to the practical needs of public health.

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Abbas K. Rizi @abbasrizi.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Writing a paper [without chatbots] be like spending 8 hours reading 6 papers to write one sentence citing 2 references, and then deleting it the next morning! Or to quote Miranda; "And you write until the rust comes out of the faucet, and it's clear water, and then you write down the clear water."

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Abbas K. Rizi @abbasrizi.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

This reminded me of Susskind’s 2020 interview, back when things felt less broken. He was already worried that popular science was becoming performance: Scientific American, once “the real stuff” from working scientists, now increasingly unscientific, and dangerous because people still trust it!

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Eiko Fried @eikofried.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

In addition to a hiring PhD in ~October & hopefully some PhDs and postdocs ~February, if anyone would like to work with me as part of eg a Marie-Curie or something similar, please do get in touch. Topics include depression, classification, measurement, systems, time-series, & theory building.

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Abbas K. Rizi @abbasrizi.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Back in the good old Twitter days, people would attend conferences and share actual scientific highlights from talks and posters. Even if you couldn't be there, you could still follow along through thoughtful threads from colleagues reflecting on the science. 1/3

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ArXiv Paper Poster (cs.SI & ph-soc) @soc-net-bot.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

The Effect of Mobility Trajectory Sparsity on Epidemic Modeling Outcomes arxiv.org/abs/2605.31282 GPS mobility data are increasingly used in epidemic modeling, allowing the construction of co-location networks or population flows. These trajectories typically exhibit high temporal spa...📈🤖

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Abbas K. Rizi @abbasrizi.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

From today, science is dead. Or maybe not! Some reflections on how AI is changing the very practice of research or any other creative endeavour: abbas.sitpor.org/2026/05/28/f...

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Takayuki Hiraoka @takayukihir.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

New preprint on arXiv: “Message passing and cyclicity transition” arxiv.org/abs/2604.01201 I argue that message passing for percolation isn’t looking for the giant component; it’s just counting cycles. Comments and feedback welcome!

arxiv.org

Message passing and cyclicity transition

Message passing, also known as belief propagation, is a versatile framework for analyzing models defined on graphs. Its most prototypical application is percolation; yet, the interpretation of the mes...

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Athena Akrami @athenaakrami.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

Pasteur Institute of Iran, founded in 1920 now destroyed by Israel-US bombing😞 It played a pivotal role in developing vaccines & public health services, for over a century, now gone😞 A few days ago a pharmaceutical plant was bombed, accused of making anesthetic fentanyl #War #PasteurInstituteIran

Rubble and ruins -- Iran Pasteur Institute in Tehran, bombed by US-Isreal

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Abbas K. Rizi @abbasrizi.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

Freeman Dyson once said scientists fall into two types: birds and frogs. Birds fly high above the landscape, drawn to the horizon, looking for connections that tie distant ideas together. Frogs live close to the ground, digging into one problem at a time. Hilbert was a bird. Besicovitch was a frog.

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Athena Akrami @athenaakrami.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

A heartbreaking message from a brilliant med student in Iran, determined to pursue neuroscience. She graduated only one week before the war started and now is volunteering to care for the injured. What would you tell her? (Part #4, especially). Please share your thoughts and comments. #IranWar

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Abbas K. Rizi @abbasrizi.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

This is me in 2017 after the first workshop on complex systems for high school students at Allameh Helli High School in Tehran. Teenage boys and girls were sitting next to each other, curious and full of questions. I loved that school. Seeing it damaged by US and Israeli bombs is heartbreaking.

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Abbas K. Rizi @abbasrizi.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

What is emergence, after all? New PNAS Nexus paper: academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar.... In this paper, I clarify the scientific meaning of emergence as a measurable and physically grounded phenomenon through concrete examples, such as temperature, magnetism, and herd immunity in social networks.

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Abbas K. Rizi @abbasrizi.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

If you have an Iranian colleague or friend, this is likely how they feel theses days:

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Athena Akrami @athenaakrami.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

We're already in the phase that each of us (Iranians) by now know someone killed/injured in our circle of friends/family. And this is despite the continued internet blackout, when millions haven't still managed to hear from their family/friends since Thursday, January 8th. This tells a lot ... 😥😥

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Abbas K. Rizi @abbasrizi.bsky.social · 28/12/2025

How did we decide to call a tree “tree”? A bird “bird”? Not now, but in the early days, when there could have been different ways to name or define something. On Language & Poetry | A short post I wrote over the Christmas holidays; abbas.sitpor.org/2025/12/28/o...

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Abbas K. Rizi @abbasrizi.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

What if birds of a feather flock together, but only at specific group sizes? www.nature.com/articles/s41... This is the focus of our new paper, now published in Nature Communications. We introduce a new network model and show how to model and measure homophily to incorporate group variations.

nature.com

Homophily within and across groups - Nature Communications

People tend to connect with similar others in different groups, shaping how ideas and diseases spread. The authors introduce a data-validated model that captures homophily across group sizes and show ...

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Abbas K. Rizi @abbasrizi.bsky.social · 30/11/2025

“I have always tried to live in an ivory tower; but a tide of shit is beating at its walls, threatening to undermine it.” Doing science in contemporary academia, with its endless pressure to please grant committees, often feels like this Flaubert’s complaint in an 1872 letter to Turgenev.

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Abbas K. Rizi @abbasrizi.bsky.social · 14/11/2025

What you expect the least from the reviewers and the editor is exactly checking for the main claims!

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Abbas K. Rizi @abbasrizi.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

Being in #academia as someone not from the global north be like: #phdchat #phdlife

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Abbas K. Rizi @abbasrizi.bsky.social · 02/11/2025

“Physicists are very good and famous for getting the right answers for the wrong reasons.” Why? Here’s a clue: noisy philosophizing! Sean commenting on Nima's talk, Two Cheers for Shut Up and Calculate, at the Natural Philosophy Symposium 2025

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Juhi Kulshrestha @juhi153.bsky.social · 17/09/2025

We are hiring multiple PhD and postdocs for two newly funded projects at the intersection of mental health and political polarization at the CS Dept at Aalto, Finland. The PIs are Juhi Kulshrestha, Talayeh Aledavood, and Mikko Kivelä. Full call text and link to apply: www.aalto.fi/en/open-posi...

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Abbas K. Rizi @abbasrizi.bsky.social · 05/09/2025

We should switch from paper to screen posters—more eco-friendly and far more engaging. Elisa’s poster already showed us how creative this can be. @elisamurators.bsky.social @cssociety.bsky.social

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Abbas K. Rizi @abbasrizi.bsky.social · 01/09/2025

Excited to present 2 of our recent works at @css-conference.bsky.social “Social & Special Landscape of Covid-19 Immunity in Denmark” - Tue at 15:30, Room 13 - Thu at 12:30, Old Chapel Room “Homophily Within and Across Groups” - Thu at 10:30, Room 13, CSS Satellite

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New papers in Network Science @networkspapers.bsky.social · 15/08/2025

PNAS: Strength and weakness of disease-induced herd immunity in networks www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2…

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Abbas K. Rizi @abbasrizi.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

@jsaramak.bsky.social you will love this! Permanent link to this comic: xkcd.com/833/

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Abbas K. Rizi @abbasrizi.bsky.social · 23/07/2025

AI & Public Health: Between Hype and Hope — Interview with Samir Bahtt youtu.be/L-_pFPOZvV0 From outbreak forecasting to shaping public policy, AI promises transformative impacts—but what are its true capabilities and limitations? @sjbhatt.bsky.social

youtu.be

AI & Public Health: Between Hype and Hope — with Samir Bahtt

YouTube video by Abbas K. Rizi

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Takayuki Hiraoka @takayukihir.bsky.social · 19/07/2025

New paper in PNAS!🎉 doi.org/10.1073/pnas... Is herd immunity to infectious diseases effective when induced by natural infection? Earlier studies have suggested that population heterogeneity makes disease-induced herd immunity more effective than previously thought. Our work challenges this notion.

doi.org

Strength and weakness of disease-induced herd immunity in networks | PNAS

When a fraction of a population becomes immune to an infectious disease, the population-wide infection risk decreases nonlinearly due to collective...

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Abbas K. Rizi @abbasrizi.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

What if #herd_immunity isn’t just about how many people are immune, but how they’re 'spatially' connected? Our new PNAS paper explores this concept. We show how the topology and geometry of social networks influence the dynamics of herd immunity, whether it arises from infection or #vaccination. 1/2

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Yasser Roudi @yasserroudi.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

1/3 What happens if one repeatedly retrains a machine on data primarily generated from itself? For example when students use LLMs to write their essays that they then put online. And then profs use LLMs to write a paper on that topic and so on 😎 arxiv.org/abs/2506.20623

arxiv.org

Lost in Retraining: Roaming the Parameter Space of Exponential Families Under Closed-Loop Learning

Closed-loop learning is the process of repeatedly estimating a model from data generated from the model itself. It is receiving great attention due to the possibility that large neural network models ...

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Abbas K. Rizi @abbasrizi.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

What is #emergence, after all? arxiv.org/abs/2507.04951 We unpack its meaning across science & philosophy, drawing on examples ranging from physics to bird flocking & epidemics. We feature how #herd_immunity emerges as immune individuals form overlapping firewalls that grow into a dominant shield.

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Steven Strogatz @stevenstrogatz.com · 04/07/2025

My "Math, Revealed" series is freely available to anyone -- no paywall! -- in the thread below.

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Vedran Sekara @vedransekara.bsky.social · 28/06/2025

Are you interested in doing a PhD in data science in Denmark? The Danish Advanced Research Academy (DARA) has open PHD calls 👇 Reach out to me if you are interested in 1) ML/AI robustness 2) Algorithmic fairness 3) Intersection of Climate change and human behavior daracademy.dk/fellowship/f...

daracademy.dk

Dara

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Yan Xia @yanxxia.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

Presented our work with @c0rrad0.bsky.social, @bolozna.bsky.social, and Barbara Keller on user behavior change after cross-party interactions at #ICWSM today! Was a great experience and got a lot of interesting questions 🙌 Also: currently looking for postdoc opportunities - happy to chat!

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Abbas K. Rizi @abbasrizi.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

@sunelehmann.com got me thinking: Are there things that will always remain beyond human understanding, but not for AI? Is there a cognitive upper bound for us—due to our biology—much like a cat can't grasp the mathematics of spacetime curvature? Oh, and the reference totally sealed the deal 😄

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Abbas K. Rizi @abbasrizi.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

In this episode, @jsaramak.bsky.social shares his personal journey into Network Science. Jari talks about his motivation and research methods as well as how he selects interesting scientific questions. He emphasizes the importance of collaborative partnerships. youtu.be/HwdZS6Fy8X8

youtu.be

Crafting Questions & Linking Thoughts: Jari Saramäki on Network Science Research

YouTube video by Abbas K. Rizi

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Aaron Clauset @aaronclauset.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

Hurray! 🎉 @arash.network (left) is the 24th recipient of the Zachary's Karate Club CLUB prize. For his talk @netsciconf.bsky.social NetSci 2025, he was entrusted with the illustrious trophy 🏆 from @nwlandry.bsky.social #networkscience networkkarate.tumblr.com

A delightfully nerdy photo of @arash.network receiving a small karate club trophy from @nwlandry.bsky.social

An "action shot" of @arash.network during his award winning talk, with a TV in the background showing the famous karate club network

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Abbas K. Rizi @abbasrizi.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

Cool hypergraph approach for modeling homophily explicitly at each interaction size! Samantha told us how shifting homophily across hyperedge sizes can amplify inequality in who gets timely information—a perfect hypergraph companion to our clique-layer story. arxiv.org/abs/2412.07901 #netsci2025

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Abbas K. Rizi @abbasrizi.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

If you're looking for a quite handy multitype branching process framework for modeling diffusion in networks with communities check this work by @davidjpos.bsky.social and friends. @netsciconf.bsky.social #netsci2025

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Abbas K. Rizi @abbasrizi.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

🎶 Temporal networks as music? Jari’s audio demo makes temporal networks audible—and it’s oddly mesmerizing. Wild stuff—hear it for yourself and find more here: jarisaramaki.fi/2024/03/19/t... @jsaramak.bsky.social @netsciconf.bsky.social #netsci2025

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Abbas K. Rizi @abbasrizi.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

If Petter's talk sparked your curiosity, his blog will feed it: petterhol.me/blog And here's a great interview on why and how he writes: youtu.be/Wtjo7eWE76E @pholme.bsky.social deserves a best blog award @netsciconf.bsky.social!

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Abbas K. Rizi @abbasrizi.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

Homophily isn’t a uniform property—it varies within and across groups. Time to model that properly! Interested and at #NetSci2025? See you at 👇 - Tue at 15:00, Network Geometry Satellite, FPN Groene zaal or - Wed at 17:30, Multilayer Networks Parallel Session, 0.10 Sydney @netsciconf.bsky.social

Homophily—the tendency to connect with similar others—plays a central role in shaping network structure and function. It is often treated as a uniform, global parameter, independent from other structural features. Here, we propose a maximum-entropy framework that decomposes homophily into contributions within and across groups, with the stochastic block model emerging as a special case. Our exponential-family formulation, parameterized by group size, fits real-world social networks well and allows homophily to be captured with a single parameter per group size.

This decomposition shows that aggregate metrics often obscure group-level variation. We also find that the scale-dependent distribution of homophily has a significant impact on network percolation, influencing epidemic thresholds, the spread of ideas or behaviors, and the effectiveness of intervention strategies. Ignoring this heterogeneity can lead to distorted conclusions about connectivity and dynamics in complex systems.

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Abbas K. Rizi @abbasrizi.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

The US has long been an uneasy and unfair conference venue for researchers not from the global north! This time is more inclusive, tho! You know, "Then they came for the Jews, And I did not speak out. Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, And there was no one left, To speak out for me"

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