iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

"It feels like the talk about hallucinations has somewhat died down" – this observation from my friend @kirstenaeddy.bsky.social who hosted me at @pewresearch.org today for a talk got me thinking. At least to me, it feels like she is right.

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Didn't expect a shoutout when I read this great FT Alphaville piece which takes a good look at open-weight models. In a nutshell, 1) locally run models see some real demand growth because they are a) good enough, b) cheaper, and c) don't come with IP security concerns (see OpenAI's mathematics news)

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

While I cannot be at @ecreaeu.bsky.social this year to co-present, please check out our AI work presented by great colleagues @richardfletcher.bsky.social, @amyrossarguedas.bsky.social and @waqasejaz.bsky.social.

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Finally, one of the more buried nuggets in the interview are three insights, the first being, that digital technology – including AI but not just – has really enabled a form of investigatory work that was very difficult to do at scale and speed previously.

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

While Brown points to the challenges of AI for investigations, it’s also incredibly interesting to see how he elaborates on some of the possibilities that come from the use of AI for the exact work he and colleagues the world over are doing.

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Brown’s emphasis on showing their process (& hope that audiences will see this as a sign of quality) fits what we’ve termed the provenance premium: that reliable and transparent actors become more important as credibility anchors and will be more trusted, at least by some

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Brown highlights the increasing uncertainty over what is real and the challenge to the indexicality of images and audio as a result of very capable GenAI tools.

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Slightly befuddled by Google doing this but equally irritated by claims that this is going to be a disaster, misinformation wise: x.com/Google/statu... Some thoughts below…

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

On the labour creation effects of a new technology, here Gutenberg’s printing press: “Finally, printing required more workers and more division of labor than scribing” (from Ann Blair’s magisterial “Information in Early Modern Europe).

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

But also: "Given these risks, various participants argued for better independent evaluation and testing but noted that transparency around model evaluation and leaderboard claims (which are currently being wildly used to assess model and agentic capabilities) is thin"

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

"Interaction risks also compound at a system level. Panellists warned that components that look safe in isolation may, when networked, amplify vulnerabilities: multiagent configurations can jailbreak each other; data-gathering agents may breach implicit bounds"

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Last summer, I co-organised a small symposium on AI agents which in light of the OpenAI/Hugging face news feels prescient. Some quotes from the symposium report: "Several of those present argued that many of the most pressing risks are systemic."

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

In September I'll be spending three weeks at the Institute for Advanced Study of the Research Alliance Ruhr – the @college-uaruhr.bsky.social in Essen – as an Invited Fellow, by kind invitation of Julika Griem. Would be great to meet people in the area while I’m there.

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

For four years, AI has reigned supreme – and lots of news organisations have jumped on the bandwagon/caught on/thought deeply about how they, too, could make use of it. What do they (want to) use it for? Increasingly for content creation. Full post here: open.substack.com/pub/felixsim...

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

AI coverage 1, Climate coverage 0: In comparison to AI, climate change barely received any media coverage as of late. open.substack.com/pub/felixsim...

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

Fuller piece here: substack.com/@felixsimon/...

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

8) 42% say they always/often click through to original sources, but lower than for search/social/video; but recall bias! Those who do click through are motivated more by verification than by wanting more detail 9) Concern about fake news up 4pp to 62%

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

7) Trust in AI chatbot news answers low: 20% globally vs 37% trust in news overall; UK lowest at 6%

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

3) Higher adoption where search/social/aggregator/video use is already high; lower where direct access dominates 4) Top use: follow-up questions (42%), latest news (35%), summarisation (34%), easier-to-understand news (30%).

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

So what are the main DNR AI findings? 1) AI chatbot use for news up to 10% (from 7%), but only 1% cite it as main news source 2) Usage skews toward news-interested, AI-trusting, and younger audiences (16% of under-35s) South Korea, Spain doubled YoY; USA, UK, Germany flat

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

✨ 🤖 A brief summary of the AI findings of the Digital News Report 2026, a 48-country survey of news use and attitudes, now out by the @reutersinstitute.bsky.social.

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

5) The UK public mostly seems to care about health, immigration, the economy/cost of living if you trust YouGov and ONS polling.

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

3) UK media generally covered AI generally on par with topics like immigration, climate change, cost of living/the economy, but somewhat below health and the NHS.

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

1) It's not true that leading UK media did not cover the story. 2) It's true that it was not top of the list (but it wasn't exactly buried either)

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

Against my better judgment, I wrote something short on the claim that UK news isn't paying enough attention to the Claude Fable quagmire and AI more broadly.

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

✨ 🤖 New pre-print: Is realism dead and do people distrust everything, now that synthetic media is ubiquitous? It’s a bit more complicated.

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

Not entirely sure I agree with everything argued in this short commentary pre-print on AI slop, but I do think the authors get one thing right: It’s too easy to dismiss AI slop.

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

Today in something that might not be entirely surprising but is still worth stating clearly: When we ask people to think about the what AI will do to news and their experience of it, their answers do not emerge from a vaccuum of perfectly rational and neutral observation.

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

Interesting work by the New York Times' Ted Alcorn, letting you dig into publication trends at the the NYT between 2000–26. Notable that the paper publishes significantly fewer words per month (and fewer articles) than 20 years ago. tedalcorn.github.io/nyt/

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

I am happy to announce that @politicsoxford.bsky.social has awarded me a grant to study how agentic AI systems can be better aligned with democratic values in the domain of news and public-affairs information.

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

At the @journalismfestival.com next week? If so, come and join me, @marinaadami.bsky.social and Agnes Stenbom if you want to talk about AI ✨🤖 Details below. (And hit me up if you want to get a coffee or aperitivo to chat some more in Perugia).

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Speaking of German military ships, it will never not be funny that all four ships of the F125 frigates – notorious because the first ship was overweight & had a persistent 1.3° list to starboard so basically swum in circles – are all named after landlocked federal states. Peak German humour.

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Nominally an article about Germany’s military procurement issues, this paragraph speaks to a deeper truth about the country – antiquated practices that drive people (including many Germans) up the wall. www.ft.com/content/124c...

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

Interesting piece in the NYT on Iran’s propaganda efforts but the paragraph below strikes me as an odd statement. Online information operations as consequential as blocking the Strait of Hormuz? Surely that’s a bit exaggerated? www.nytimes.com/2026/03/28/b...

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 28/03/2026

In research with colleagues @risj_oxford we documented a consistent comfort gap. In the US: 43% comfortable with news made mostly by a human with some AI help. Only 25% comfortable with news made mostly by AI. Not catastrophic but not a ringing endorsement either.

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 28/03/2026

Another week, another AI-in-news flare-up. First WIRED on journalists incl. Kevin Roose & Taylor Lorenz on their AI use, then a WSJ’s Isabella Simonetti on a journo churning out 100s of AI-assisted stories. Polarised responses to both but no mention of the audience? Some thoughts…

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

Seems like QuitGPT was (predictably) no more than a blip...

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

You can’t spell “AGI” without advertising it seems. The WSJ reports that OpenAI has hired a Meta advertising exec: “The high-profile hire underscores OpenAI’s urgent push to generate new revenue streams to support its enormous funding requirements” (www.wsj.com/tech/ai/open...)

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

*chants rhythmically* Summer, Summer, Summer

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

Yesterday, I hosted a panel on AI and Society as part of the Reuters Institute’s conference on AI and news. We had a fab cast with Natali Helberger (UvA), Max Kasy (Oxford), Keegan McBride (TBI) and Carina Prunkl (Inria & Oxford), and an impossibly large set of questions.

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

Going to open a coffeehouse and call it “Jürgen”

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

If you are in Perugia and would like to have a chat about the nexus of AI, information, news, misinformation, and tech or just say “Hi” over coffee/aperitivo, hit me up! Contact details here: www.felixsimon.net

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

Not long now until the @journalismfestival.com. I will be there with two panels. The first is organised by Giulia Lucchese, featuring David Caswell, @natalihelberger.bsky.social & myself on the future of journalism in times of AI (Details here: www.journalismfestival.com/programme/20...)

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

Just as if people had enough of generic content that they can easily find elsewhere, including through AI. (via Semafor's Max Tani)

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

And if you throw in searches for “chatgpt free” or “chatgpt app” these other searches get completely dwarfed in comparison. Would be curious to see what happened on the install/uninstall front and if there was any lasting or significant effect (colour me sceptical for now).

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

And while they all ticked up after a bit of a curious drop, they seem to be below the levels of the last three months (I tried this for “Worldwide” but the picture looked similar for the US).

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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

I was curious to find out more about the QuitGPT campaign (ChatGPT uninstalls after OpenAI’s Department of Defense deal) which had surged by 295% according to Sensor Flow data: techcrunch.com/2026/03/02/c...

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