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axel cleeremans

@axc.bsky.social
2.9K followers 1.3K following 122 posts

Brain, minds, & consciousness. Also interested in design, visual arts, biology, space, typography, and anticipation. Also known as « Axel from Belgium »

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axel cleeremans @axc.bsky.social · 9h
When did Google get so f-ing weird? (by way of @daringfireball.bsky.social ) sancho.bearblog.dev/google-weird/
sancho.bearblog.dev
When did Google get so f-ing weird?
I recently had an experience while doing a simple Google search that was so profoundly weird that it stopped me in my tracks. Understanding this Google se...
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John Stott @jpsastro.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Had a UKRI funded grant proposal rejected at the "AI triage stage". "This AI-based triage was used only to identify approximately 50% of the strongest proposals to take forward to full human review." 🧪 #academicsky
I am writing to let you know that, unfortunately, your application was not successful.

Review process

As part of the initial triage of the 179 proposals submitted to this call, each was assessed using an AI-based review. Every proposal was read independently by several different AI models against the same seven criteria used to shape this call (including cyber security relevance, research quality and novelty, importance of the problem addressed, feasibility of the project plan, likely outputs and impact, value for money, and responsible research practice), with each model asked to give a score and a written justification with supporting quotations from the text. To guard against any one model's idiosyncrasies, we also ran a second, independent process in which different AI models debated the merits and weaknesses of each proposal before reaching a judgement, again against the same criteria. Scores from both processes were combined to produce an overall ranking. 

This AI-based triage was used only to identify approximately 50% of the strongest proposals to take forward to full human review.  Projects selected for funding were drawn from those that progressed to the full human review stage. We recognise that AI-assisted assessment is a new and evolving part of the review process, and we are continuing to evaluate how well it aligns with the judgements of human reviewers on this call. We will soon produce a document detailing our method, so that others can build upon it and improve it.

Feedback on your application

Your application was not selected to progress beyond the AI triage stage.  To provide transparency on the outcome of this assessment, we are sharing below the scores (out of 5) from each of the two AI review processes described above, together with the mean score across the two processes.
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William Gibson @greatdismal.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
I’ve now lived so much longer than I would ever have expected to that I feel I’m living in the future. This is when I imagined Neuromancer happening. And now the creators of today’s AI warn us that it threatens humanity.
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M.J. Crockett @mjcrockett.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
I used to love this time of year, hearing from students applying to work in my lab. No more. Every day a fresh batch of nearly identical emails with nonsensical remixes of the text on my lab website. It makes me so sad.
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axel cleeremans @axc.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
We’re having a recursive lab meeting #Iamastrangeloop
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Iris van Rooij 💭 @irisvanrooij.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
🚨 You can still sign 🖊️ the open letter! If you do, don't forget to confirm the email, otherwise your name won't show up. All signatures help
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axel cleeremans @axc.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
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axel cleeremans @axc.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
“Writing is a technology for thinking” - Ronald T. Kellogg What Do Students Lose When They Stop Writing? www.nytimes.com/2026/08/17/u...
nytimes.com
What Do Students Lose When They Stop Writing?
Educators are worried that many students can no longer write essays without A.I. And it’s costing more than just grammar skills.
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axel cleeremans @axc.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Hunting for old programs of conferences of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness I stumble upon the 1984 french translation of Krutch’s 1981 book about AI on small computers. I learned a lot of things going through that book!
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axel cleeremans @axc.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
@doctorow.pluralistic.net The enshittification has begun …https://ads.openai.com
ads.openai.com
Advertise in ChatGPT | OpenAI Ads
Reach people as they explore options, compare choices, and make decisions in ChatGPT, with relevant ads that fit naturally into the experience.
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David Soto @dsotob.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
@axc.bsky.social @theassc.bsky.social @liadmudrik.bsky.social @smfleming.bsky.social
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Renzo Lanfranco @renzolanfranco.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
1/11 New preprint! Can we register eye contact before we consciously see gaze direction? We flashed faces for just 1–5 ms and found that direct gaze facilitates face detection before explicit gaze awareness. 🧵 doi.org/10.64898/202... Work with: @axc.bsky.social & @arvidguterstam.bsky.social
doi.org
Conscious and unconscious eye contact at the limits of vision
Eye contact is one of the most potent social signals, but it remains unclear how little visual input is sufficient to register direct gaze, and whether such registration requires conscious awareness. ...
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Alex Wild @alexwild.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
I get angry when people talk about "declining trust in science" as though there weren't a coordinated effort by billionaire criminals to smear science as a way to decrease regulations, spread propaganda, and enrich themselves. Scientists are being scapegoated and we should not play along.
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axel cleeremans @axc.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
I think this time I am the only attendee of assc26.bsky.social who also attended ASSC1. In 2016 in Buenos Aires I made a presentation of the history of ASSC, you can download it from here: axc.ulb.be/posts/20-yea...
axc.ulb.be
Axel Cleeremans
This is the personal website of Axel Cleeremans, a cognitive psychologist working as a research director of the Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, where ...
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axel cleeremans @axc.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
thank you jdsitt.bsky.social & co-organizers for such an auspicious assc26.bsky.social start 👍
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ERC EXPERIENCE @erc-xp.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
We are really happy to be able to share a lot of our team work in #ASSC29! 4 talks and 2 posters... details below! 1. Starting tomorrow (1/07) with @leamoncoucy.bsky.social during the CONCURRENT SESSION 4, (14h-15h), a talk on the "Dimensions of the phenomenal space and dynamics of its structure" ⬇️
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axel cleeremans @axc.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
assc26.bsky.social #ASSC29
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axel cleeremans @axc.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Congrats Lena - it’s a great first paper!
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Wiktoria Kozyra @wiktoriakozyra.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Absolutely honoured and excited to join the first-ever AI Sentience Scholars! ❤️ Thank you @neuromatch.bsky.social! 😍Looking forward to working with @axc.bsky.social on reinforcement learning and subjective experience of pleasure! #neuroAI #aisentience
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axel cleeremans @axc.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
and we’re off ! @assc26.bsky.social #ASSC29
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Earthling @ziyatong.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
🎯
@nluewmist / I’m finally reading Dune. This quote which in the first few pages hit hard; “once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only let other men with machines to enslave them.”
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European Research Council (ERC) @erc.europa.eu · 12/06/2026
The ERC's 2025 Annual Report is out. Inside: ERC in figures, emerging research trends, policy impact, outstanding publications, Choose Europe for Science, and much more. Read it here: buff.ly/39it7zD
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Keisuke Suzuki @ksks.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
1/ New paper out today in Frontiers in Psychology 🧠 "Beyond the reducing valve: a computational neurophenomenology of altered states via deep neural networks" A unified framework for hallucinations, psychedelic experience & ego dissolution 🧵 doi.org/10.3389/fpsy...
doi.org
Frontiers | Beyond the reducing valve: towards a computational neurophenomenology of altered states via deep neural networks
Altered states of consciousness, including hallucinations, psychedelic experiences, and ego dissolution, differ qualitatively, yet no unified computational f...
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axel cleeremans @axc.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
What kind of flower do you recommend for the pancakes? @adriandoerig.bsky.social
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Iris van Rooij 💭 @irisvanrooij.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
Meet the academics refusing to use generative AI Researchers say they have their reasons for avoiding AI tools — and they’re sick of arguing about it. www.nature.com/articles/d41... h/t @maartenp.bsky.social
nature.com
Meet the academics refusing to use generative AI
Researchers say they have their reasons for avoiding AI tools — and they’re sick of arguing about it.
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axel cleeremans @axc.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
This is apparently making the rounds on Linkedin 😵‍💫
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axel cleeremans @axc.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
Yay 😃 well done @adriendoerig.bsky.social Aaron & Michael !
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Alison Fisk @alisonfisk.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
Reasons recorded for worker absence on this 3,250 year-old ancient Egyptian attendance register include ‘brewing beer’🍺 ‘stung by a scorpion’ 🦂 and ‘embalming brother’! 🤯 From Deir el-Medina, royal tomb worker’s village 📷 by me #Archaeology
My photo shows a dark beige coloured fragment of limestone measuring 38.5 cm in height and 33 cm max width, from Deir el- Medina, the royal tomb worker’s village, near ancient Thebes, Egypt. The fragment of limestone, known as an ostracon, was used as a cheap alternative material to papyrus, to record the attendance of 40 workers over a period of 280 days. The lines of text are written in hieratic script. Names and dates are written in black pigment, with reasons for absence written in red pigment
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ARC ETHOS @arcethos.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
People of Sussex! See @peterlush.bsky.social and @axc.bsky.social from the ETHOS team at the implicit workshop tomorrow (May 7th) sites.google.com/view/implici...
sites.google.com
implicit workshop
Thursday May 7th (preceded by socialising evening May 6th) No registration needed. Lunch and coffee provided. Venue: Meeting House, University of Sussex. The campus can be accessed via Falmer railway ...
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axel cleeremans @axc.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
Termination Shock en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Termina...
en.wikipedia.org
Termination Shock (novel) - Wikipedia
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Johannes Fahrenfort @fahrenfort.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
Why on earth would the @apastyle.bsky.social allow citing LLMs if there is no way to find out where the LLM got its information from and/or whether the information is factual? We don't cite Google searches either, we cite actual sources 🙄 pfff halfwhits apastyle.apa.org/blog/cite-ge...
apastyle.apa.org
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megan peters 🧠 @meganakpeters.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
The @neuromatch.bsky.social #AISentience Scholars program applications close in 6 days, 28 April 11:59pm anywhere on Earth! Head to neuromatch.io/ai-sentience... for application instructions and project descriptions! We can't wait to read all your brilliant applications 🥰
neuromatch.io
AI Sentience Scholars - neuromatch.io
The program supports early-career researchers investigating questions at the intersection of AI, consciousness, and ethics. Through global collaboration and rigorous, empirically grounded inquiry, it ...
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axel cleeremans @axc.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
Christof Koch speaking at the 15th Symposium of the BIAL foundation / www.fundacaobial.com/en-GB/sympos...
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Audrey Mazancieux @audreymazancieux.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
📢 Excited to share our new paper in Cortex! "Frequency-tagging as a measure of conscious face perception" with @axc.bsky.social & Adélaïde de Heering www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
Frequency-tagging as a measure of conscious face perception
Steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEPs) from frequency-tagging (FT) paradigms are widely used to investigate visual processing. Yet their assoc…
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Bolt451. He's Our Bastard ❤️ @bolt451.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
This quote from Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell has been in my head the last few days
You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch
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axel cleeremans @axc.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
An amazing opportunity - I am proposing a project dedicated to the thorny question of synthetic pleasure, but I am competing with stellar colleagues with equally fascinating topics!
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Kevin Mitchell @wiringthebrain.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
I really enjoyed the #COSYNE2026 (comp neuro) meeting - amazing talks and fantastic poster sessions! 👏 Still surprised how little mention there was of either evolution or development, though. It's worth keeping in mind that things are the way they are because they got that way! 😉
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megan peters 🧠 @meganakpeters.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
check out the faculty supervising *funded fellowship projects*! (yes, me included!) you won't want to miss this opportunity folks. seriously, it will be fabulous.
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megan peters 🧠 @meganakpeters.bsky.social · 13/10/2025
📣 BIG NEWS EVERYONE. I am so excited to announce… 🎉 I’m moving to University College London @ucl.ac.uk to join the Experimental Psychology department in @uclpals.bsky.social! 🎉 The big move happens in spring/summer. So I’m already exploring recruiting staff & students at UCL for fall 2026!
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ERC EXPERIENCE @erc-xp.bsky.social · 19/02/2026
🎉The XP team is so glad to present a symposium at #ESCAN2026 in Roma on the need to consider affect to understand the function of consciousness! Inès Mentec and Gabriel Brandolini will be joined by @ashenhav.bsky.social and Benedetto De Martino. 😁See you there!😁https://escan2026.eu/
escan2026.eu
Home - ESCAN 2026
ESCAN 2026 is the 9th ESCAN Conference, the biennial meeting of the European Society for Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.
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axel cleeremans @axc.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
Very happy to see this come out 😃
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Dr Keith Wilson 💭 @keithwilson.eu · 10/03/2026
🤦‍♂️ #GenAI #Academia
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ERC EXPERIENCE @erc-xp.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
✨What is the relationship between aesthetic preferences and consciousness?✨ We are so very excited to welcome Richard Prum to discuss this question with us in Brussels. Do not miss this event! 📅 18 of March, 2026 🕒 16h-18h 📍 Brussels, ULB campus Solbosch, Solvay
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Razvan Jurchis @razvancj.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
Out in PNAS: Repetitions trigger illusory awareness in implicit statistical learning www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... We find that the presence of repetitions in sequences that follow a hidden, complex regularity makes participants think they consciously figured out the real regularity... 1/n
pnas.org
PNAS
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...
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axel cleeremans @axc.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
« [AI systems] delegitimize knowledge, inhibit cognitive development, short-circuit decision making processes, and isolate humans by displacing or degrading human connection. »
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Tyler, from the Internet @tylerfromtheinternet.com · 04/02/2026
Sometimes if you cut it down correctly, you can still see the last meal a tree had in its stomach when it died
A tree cut down and felled next to its fellow trees but this tree's rings have an oddity to them and the shape and texture and color it makes it look like a fish drawing
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jorgeaavila.bsky.social @jorgeaavila.bsky.social · 02/02/2026
I laughed out loud when I saw “AI use statement The author used Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.5 for research purposes and for editorial feedback after the drafting process.” #neuroskyence
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axel cleeremans @axc.bsky.social · 31/01/2026
Consider this: You ask chatGPT to compose the eulogy for a deceased friend. After you speak at the funeral, someone tells you how moved she was. Do you reveal chatGPT wrote the speech? If you don’t, you are cheating. But if you do, the words lose their meaning and you are a fraud. What would you do?
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axel cleeremans @axc.bsky.social · 31/01/2026
outsourcing thinking itself is unquestionably a catastrophic way forward for humanity
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