Bogdan Kulynych @bogdankulynych.bsky.social · 3hNew preprint on differentially private synthetic data: 000
Reposted by Bogdan KulynychA. Feder Cooper @afedercooper.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Our large-scale study of memorization of books in open-weight LLMs (e.g., Llama, Qwen) will appear at the 2026 Conference on Language Modeling as an oral. We made a website for exploring our results on 200 books and 14 models: books-memorization.github.iobooks-memorization.github.ioHow much do open-weight LLMs memorize specific books?Open-weight LLMs memorize books far more than previously believed. Memorization varies by model family, model size, and book. In extreme cases, entire books are memorized, and we can generate them eff... 26336
Bogdan Kulynych @bogdankulynych.bsky.social · 18/09/2026New paper: There's a huge push to deploy language models in medicine. When dealing with patient data, you'd have to use local models to not leak the data. But, the models that could be deployed on reasonable hospital infra (<24B) struggle with even the most basic tasks: www.jmir.org/2026/1/e86453/jmir.org 021
Bogdan Kulynych @bogdankulynych.bsky.social · 03/09/2026Got excited about a couple of papers just to see they are slop with slop math and text. Logged in to see paper review discussions to see slop responses. Talking about projects with colleagues getting their chats with Claude instead of thoughts about a problem. AI slop is killing academia for me. 0423
Reposted by Bogdan KulynychEmily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 18/08/2026Preparing for a workshop on teaching critical thinking in STEM in light of current, let's say pressures, and decided I should start my talk with a slides that lays out the values that form my premises: 12520135
Reposted by Bogdan Kulynychmichael veale @michae.lv · 07/08/2026meta fears a google 'glasshole' style catchy moniker situation for their unpleasant new tech. perhaps it's time to strike fear into their corporate partner and make 'raybanned' a verb? 47425
Reposted by Bogdan KulynychMaria Antoniak @mariaa.bsky.social · 09/07/2026hot take: don’t even use it for polishing your reviews. as an AC and SAC, the last thing i care about is your grammar, spelling, or formatting. i get the presentation issues with papers, where you might face reviewers’ language biases, but you really don’t need to worry about this for reviews. 3394
Reposted by Bogdan Kulynyche.w. niedermeyer @niedermeyer.online · 27/06/2026whether you're bombarded by slop, or losing your job, or acquiring new forms of psychosis, or killing yourself trying to keep up with an endless treadmill of perceived hyperproductivity, the AI future has a flavor of misery for everyone! 627137
Bogdan Kulynych @bogdankulynych.bsky.social · 19/05/2026The supply chain effects are really weird — Ukrainian and Russian war drone makers have been struggling with getting fiber optic cables since recently because tech companies building AI data centers are hoarding all the supply. 000
Reposted by Bogdan KulynychTed @desfontain.es · 18/05/2026✨ New guest blog post ✨ by Bogdan Kulynych on how to report differential privacy guarantees for ML deployments, explaining the relationship between DP definitions and attacker success along the way: desfontain.es/blog/reporting-privac… 🌈desfontain.esGuest post: Goodbye (ε,δ), hello μ! Reporting privacy guarantees in machine learning - Ted is writing thingsWhy is Gaussian DP a much better compact representation of privacy guarantees than (ε,δ)-DP. 054
Reposted by Bogdan Kulynychwill pooley @willpooley.bsky.social · 15/05/2026absolutely wild to see people out here saying that it is responsibility of peer reviewers to check for hallucinated references. it is hard enough to persuade people to read articles and provide reviews. expecting them to spend hours cross reffing literature is unreal. 32975151
Reposted by Bogdan Kulynychangela zhou @angelamczhou.bsky.social · 09/05/2026@toph.me has a lovely essay on histories of statistics and eugenics observablehq.com/@tophtucker/...observablehq.comInferring chart type from autocorrelation and other evilsFirst I will consider a concrete problem for which I sought to use correlation; then, being not much of a statistician, I will refresh my memory of how it works; finally, I will consider the history o... 143
Reposted by Bogdan KulynychBogdan Kulynych @bogdankulynych.bsky.social · 23/03/2026A Gaussian mechanism with ε = 6 can be less private than one with ε = 8. This points to a problem with how we report privacy guarantees in machine learning. A thread 🧵 194
Bogdan Kulynych @bogdankulynych.bsky.social · 23/03/2026Here's a paper with all the details: arxiv.org/abs/2503.10945 Presenting on Mar 24 at #SatML w/ Felipe Gomez, Borja Balle, Jamie Hayes, @fcalmon.bsky.social, @ahonkela.bsky.socialarxiv.orgGaussian DP for Reporting Differential Privacy Guarantees in Machine LearningCurrent practices for reporting the level of differential privacy (DP) protection for machine learning (ML) algorithms such as DP-SGD provide an incomplete and potentially misleading picture of the pr... 001
Bogdan Kulynych @bogdankulynych.bsky.social · 23/03/2026We've built a new Python package gdpnum to compute non-asymptotic GDP guarantees and estimate their precision for many practical algorithms: github.com/interpretabl...github.comGitHub - interpretable-dp/gdpnum: Numeric computation of the privacy parameter in Gaussian Differential PrivacyNumeric computation of the privacy parameter in Gaussian Differential Privacy - interpretable-dp/gdpnum 111
Bogdan Kulynych @bogdankulynych.bsky.social · 23/03/2026But when it fits, it solves both problems: correct comparison via μ, and easy and precise mapping to full privacy profiles and attack success rates. We should use it to report guarantees in DP-SGD or other mechanisms that are Gaussian-like! 101
Bogdan Kulynych @bogdankulynych.bsky.social · 23/03/2026GDP isn't always the right choice. Some algorithms can't be precisely represented by it (e.g., Randomized Response) or we do not yet know how to (e.g., Report-Noisy-Max). 101
Bogdan Kulynych @bogdankulynych.bsky.social · 23/03/2026How precise? We can measure it with a metric called "regret." For the DP-SGD instance above, GDP has regret of 0.1%, and a single (ε, δ) pair has regret of 21%. Rule of thumb: with noise σ ≥ 2 and iterations T ≥ 400, GDP is very accurate for DP-SGD. arxiv.org/abs/2406.08918arxiv.orgBeyond the Calibration Point: Mechanism Comparison in Differential PrivacyIn differentially private (DP) machine learning, the privacy guarantees of DP mechanisms are often reported and compared on the basis of a single $(\varepsilon, δ)$-pair. This practice overlooks that ... 101
Bogdan Kulynych @bogdankulynych.bsky.social · 23/03/2026Here's an example for a specific instantiation of DP-SGD in terms of f-DP trade-off curves (an equivalent operational version of privacy profiles). As we see, a non-asymptotic GDP trade-off curve fits the DP-SGD trade-off curve almost exactly. 101
Bogdan Kulynych @bogdankulynych.bsky.social · 23/03/2026Many ML algorithms, especially those involving many compositions like DP-SGD, can be very precisely characterized with GDP. This is a *non-asymptotic* result, not just a central limit approximation! 101
Bogdan Kulynych @bogdankulynych.bsky.social · 23/03/2026GDP characterizes the entire privacy profile ε(δ) of a Gaussian mechanism exactly using a single number μ. Interpretation: if a mechanism satisfies μ-GDP, then running membership inference against it is as hard as distinguishing N(0,1) from N(μ,1) based on a single observation. 101
Bogdan Kulynych @bogdankulynych.bsky.social · 23/03/2026Can we do better without reporting an entire privacy profile? Yes! With Gaussian differential privacy (GDP). 101
Bogdan Kulynych @bogdankulynych.bsky.social · 23/03/2026As the convention sets δ in a data-dependent way, this matters whenever you compare models across datasets or papers. 101
Bogdan Kulynych @bogdankulynych.bsky.social · 23/03/2026Issue 2: You can't properly compare two mechanisms by ε if their δ values differ. A Gaussian mechanism with ε = 6 at δ = 10⁻⁵ is less private than one with ε = 8 at δ = 10⁻⁹. This is because you cannot properly compare ε if δ is different. 101
Bogdan Kulynych @bogdankulynych.bsky.social · 23/03/2026No attacker in the universe can achieve that 98% rate: It's purely an artifact of compressing the entire privacy profile into one pair (ε, δ). My colleagues and I detailed on this problem in detail in this NeurIPS'24 paper: arxiv.org/abs/2407.02191arxiv.orgAttack-Aware Noise Calibration for Differential PrivacyDifferential privacy (DP) is a widely used approach for mitigating privacy risks when training machine learning models on sensitive data. DP mechanisms add noise during training to limit the risk of i... 101
Bogdan Kulynych @bogdankulynych.bsky.social · 23/03/2026Issue 1: A single (ε, δ) pair can massively overstate privacy risk. Example: DP-SGD with ε = 8 at δ = 10⁻⁵ suggests a worst-case membership inference accuracy of ~98% using standard conversions. But using the full privacy profile, the actual maximum is only ~68%. 101
Bogdan Kulynych @bogdankulynych.bsky.social · 23/03/2026The standard way is to report is to use a single (ε, δ) pair for a small δ. The community has developed informal conventions, e.g., ε < 10 is generally considered OK in privacy-preserving machine learning. But this convention has two big issues. 101
Bogdan Kulynych @bogdankulynych.bsky.social · 23/03/2026A Gaussian mechanism with ε = 6 can be less private than one with ε = 8. This points to a problem with how we report privacy guarantees in machine learning. A thread 🧵 194
Reposted by Bogdan KulynychKatie Mack @astrokatie.com · 11/02/2026My doomer-worry about AI is not that the LLMs become omnipotent and take over the world but that the wealthy and powerful use it as a means to consolidate power and marginalize or lay off skilled workers and also everything about our technological and political and social life gets worse 1054032793
Reposted by Bogdan KulynychYatong Chen @yatongchen.bsky.social · 01/12/2025I'll be @neuripsconf.bsky.social presenting Strategic Hypothesis Testing (spotlight!) tldr: Many high-stakes decisions (e.g., drug approval) rely on p-values, but people submitting evidence respond strategically even w/o p-hacking. Can we characterize this behavior & how policy shapes it? 1/n 1173
Reposted by Bogdan KulynychCarl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 11/11/2025What do you do after you’re done jumping the shark? Whatever it is, Nature Careers is all in. 4132751
Reposted by Bogdan KulynychKris Shrishak @krisshrishak.bsky.social · 10/11/2025Scientists and scholars in AI and its social impacts call on von der Leyen to retract #AIHype statement. @olivia.science @abeba.bsky.social @irisvanrooij.bsky.social @alexhanna.bsky.social @rocher.lc @danmcquillan.bsky.social @robin.berjon.com & many others have signed www.iccl.ie/press-releas...iccl.ieScientists call on the President of the European Commission to retract AI hype statementExperts in AI call on the President of the European Commission to retract unscientific AI hype statement she made in the budget speech. 4216146
Reposted by Bogdan KulynychEmrys Schoemaker @emrys.eurosky.social · 03/11/2025Russia’s success in poisoning LLMs with lies, and the effects it has on both AI and politics, reflects Russia’s much deeper understanding of how societies operates than much of Silicon Valley - and how important social sciences are in understanding and waging information warfare 101
Reposted by Bogdan KulynychDare Obasanjo @carnage4life.bsky.social · 01/11/2025arXiv will no longer accept review articles and position papers unless they have been accepted at a journal or a conference and complete successful peer review. This is due to being overwhelmed by a hundreds of AI generated papers a month. Yet another open submission process killed by LLMs.blog.arxiv.orgAttention Authors: Updated Practice for Review Articles and Position Papers in arXiv CS Category – arXiv blog 201568594
Reposted by Bogdan KulynychOlga Byrska @obyrska.bsky.social · 23/10/2025Pretends to be shocked www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/... 317778
Reposted by Bogdan KulynychMichael Saxon @saxon.me · 18/10/2025The viral "Definition of AGI" paper tells you to read fake references which do not exist! Proof: different articles present at the specified journal/volume/page number, and their titles exist nowhere on any searchable repository. Take this as a warning to not use LMs to generate your references! 615536
Reposted by Bogdan KulynychLora Kolodny @lorak.bsky.social · 16/10/2025imho — anyone who equates a human with an app or a machine today is just dehumanizing people and stripping people of their (dwindling, already eroding, not well respected) rights. 67018
Reposted by Bogdan KulynychMaria Antoniak @mariaa.bsky.social · 09/10/2025Keynote at #COLM2025: Nicholas Carlini from Anthropic "Are language models worth it?" Explains that the prior decade of his work on adversarial images, while it taught us a lot, isn't very applied; it's unlikely anyone is actually altering images of cats in scary ways. 28022
Reposted by Bogdan KulynychSuresh Venkatasubramanian @geomblog.bsky.social · 03/10/2025I said a thing :). 26215
Reposted by Bogdan KulynychBen Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 26/09/2025OpenAI's rapid rush into education has been achieved by habituating users through training programs, institutional lock-ins, strategic marketing partnerships, and third party integrations that together are helping it become infrastructural to teaching and learning. It's going to be hard to get out. 621282
Reposted by Bogdan KulynychOlivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 12/09/2025"We are told that AI is inevitable, that we must adapt or be left behind. But universities are not tech companies. Our role is to foster critical thinking, not to follow industry trends uncritically." www.ru.nl/en/research/...ru.nl‘Opposing the inevitability of AI at universities is possible and necessary’ | Radboud UniversitySince the widespread release of ChatGPT in December of 2022, AI has taken over much of the world by storm – including academia. Most of this happened with very little pushback, despite a myriad of iss... 12971416
Reposted by Bogdan KulynychA. Feder Cooper @afedercooper.bsky.social · 10/09/2025After 2 years in press, it's published! "Talkin' 'Bout AI Generation: Copyright and the Generative-AI Supply Chain," is out in the 72nd volume of the Journal of the Copyright Society copyrightsociety.org/journal-entr... written with @katherinelee.bsky.social & @jtlg.bsky.social (2023)copyrightsociety.orgTALKIN' 'BOUT AI GENERATION: COPYRIGHT AND THE GENERATIVE-AI SUPPLY CHAIN | The Copyright SocietyWe know copyright 1144
Reposted by Bogdan KulynychBen Recht @beenwrekt.bsky.social · 08/09/2025In a new paper, I try to resolve the counterintuitive evidence of Meehl’s “clinical vs statistical prediction” problems: Statistics only wins because the game is rigged.arxiv.orgThe Actuary's Final Word on Algorithmic Decision MakingPaul Meehl's foundational work "Clinical versus Statistical Prediction," provided early theoretical justification and empirical evidence of the superiority of statistical methods over clinical judgmen... 3299
Bogdan Kulynych @bogdankulynych.bsky.social · 06/09/2025I wonder if this is about a recent preprint on hallucinations making rounds on social media. 100
Reposted by Bogdan KulynychHoratio Pornviewer @stuntbirdarmy.bsky.social · 09/08/2025If kids’ schools trained them for work based on what everyone thought the hot new technology was going to be, both my kids would have spent the past several years learning about the blockchain. This is why schools don’t attempt to do workplace training: life is pretty long. 191074200
Bogdan Kulynych @bogdankulynych.bsky.social · 09/08/2025There are many similarities with the AI discourse now and the early web. There too were some utopian visions of the future like in this famous Barlow's declaration. 20 years after, the www is a great technology, yet here we are now with all the dopamine-driven design and social polarization.eff.orgA Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspaceby John Perry Barlow Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us ... 020
Bogdan Kulynych @bogdankulynych.bsky.social · 09/08/2025From claims of "Ph.D. level" intelligence about generative models and calls for knowledge work to be replaced by these models, to Musk's claim that there is no research only engineering, to — all are manifestations of anti-intelluctualism. 1337