iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

& here is your regular reminder that the most important sector full of jobs AI have eliminated wasn't by substitution but by eliminating revenue from newspapers. I've heard it suggested that Google's way they found to fund "the mind of god" is the cause of democratic backsliding. 3/3 #AIEthics #FoW

news paper revenue building steadily though very nonmonotonically 195- until 2000, then just crashing exactly as google revenue rockets to the same level. Facebook comes in around 2008 and gets up to about where newspapers plateay around 2018, graph goes to about 2020. BTW can't find the carpe diem blog, it used to be easy to search for, guess someone doesn't want you to see this.

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

There's a lot more detail in @lemonde.fr in particular cloud services are apparently excepted, so maybe big tech is already on this, but not in a more general and helpful way. Speaking of not helpful, #AXA already dumped the #ICC!! #digitalSovereignty #techpolicy

The threat looming since Donald Trump's return as president of the United States in January 2025 became reality on Friday, October g: The International Criminal Court (ICC) was officially added to the US Treasury Department's list of sanctioned entities.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio made the announcement just hours after the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Navanethem Pillay for her fight against apartheid. The South African jurist previously served as a judge at the ICC, as well as at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the International Court of Justice, and the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Palestine.
The sanctions came with an ultimatum. They will only take effect starting April 9, 2027. unless, by then, the Court meets US demands: the cancellation of the arrest warrants for crimes against humanity issued against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant on November 21, 2024: the closure of the investigation into crimes committed by the US military in Afghanistan and by the CIA in secret prisons in Lithuania, Poland and Romania; and a reform the ICC's statute to prohibit any prosecution of nationals from countries that have not signed its founding treaty, which include the US, Israel, Russia, Iran, Qatar and others.

Netherlands takes action
On Friday evening, many law experts, professors, lawmakers and NGOs called on the European Commission to act by invoking the European Union's "blocking statute," which prohibits companies from complying with extraterritorial laws. The measure can only be activated by the Commission with the approval of EU member states, but several, including Germany and the Netherlands, do not wish to do so at this time, for fear of escalation. As there is a six-month delay before the measures are applicable, there is room for dialogue," the Commission said Friday.

ER ICC member states seek to calm US concerns
Since the announcement of these sanctions, the Netherlands, where the Court is headquartered, has taken up the matter. Even the king has been enlisted. On Friday, a photo circulated on social media showing Willem-Alexander alongside Court president Tomoko Akane of Japan at Huis ten Bosch Palace. Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Tom Berendsen stated that the Netherlands "will continue to do everything in our power to ensure that the Court can function effectively." Service providers can continue their work for the ICC," he also assured, since Dutch companies provide a large part of the Court's services.
Read more
I EU contemplates using blocking statute' in response to Trump sanctions against ICC
At this point, the main fear for the ICC and its allies is that, even before the possible enforcement of sanctions, companies may decide to end their collaboration with the institution, effectively preventing it from functioning. Lacking guarantees, insurer AXA has already chosen to terminate its health insurance contract, which ended on
September 30.

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

How that went. (cf www.metmuseum.org/art/collecti... )

A small drawing of Hitler with his hand over his head in salute and a big man putting money in that hand. It says " Kleiner Mann bittet um große Gaben " Happened to see this in Madrid earlier this year.

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

IGFarber at one point sounded just like Google in the 2000s. "IG is not here to give big profits to its stockholders…This emphasis on creativity reinforced a second attribute of the new corporation: its inclination toward decentralization… reflecting Bosch's mistrust of "the call for a strongman."

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

It’s on my Heaven desktop on my iPhone . Also still on the toolbar on my mac. To remind me to keep fighting unaccountable power.

Tweetbot with a halo, also the awesome German covid app.

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I've used slides like this dozens of times, this one is from like 2019 (IDK whose picture of Chicago it is...but I don't have time to find the slide of Vienna I took myself!)

AI Systems Are Designed, and Have Architecture
Architects learn laws, policy, & how to work with governments & legislatures at university, & get licensed; buildings get inspected.
Because society decided buildings falling on people was unacceptable, and noticed city plans affect everyone.
AI products are now falling on people, and affecting everyone. We need to grow up.

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

AI will not "launch" again (Intelligence Explosion II) The real risks of the next six months joanna-bryson.blogspot.com/2026/09/ai-w... A complete rant by me from Sept 10th, for those who don't follow (or don't see) me on LinkedIn

Picture of the world coloured by the first UN vote on Ukraine after Trump took office. Russia and the US are coloured red, as is Hungary & Belarus and a few in north central Africa. The rest of north america, europe, all of SE Asia including Australia and New Zealand and a little bit of north Africa (including Turkey, Egypt, and Tunesia) are green, standing with Ukraine, also some of South America. China, India, Brazil, and much of the remaining areas are yellow meaning they abstained, a few mostly poor nations are blue meaning they weren't even there.

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Not just volkswagen — looks like bosch was the ringleader?

122 REGULATING COMPLEXITY
using ECUs supplied by Bosch, which was VW's supplier. And they all had been doing this for many years. Allegations of emissions cheating have been raised against Volvo, Renault, Jeep, Hyundai, Citroën, Nissan, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Audi, and Fiat.*
Once the EPA sent its notice of violation, things unraveled quickly for Volkswagen and for Martin Winterkorn, its chief executive.

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

If that wasn’t enough #BSW were protesting the closing of #russiahausberlin I stopped to talk to counter protesters with #ukaraine and #nato flags. One said he’d heard RH was being shut down because their electricity usage had surged.

Police block the street in front of Russia Haus. Apparently Sahra Wagenknecht had been speaking.

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Today I 1) taught at an applied normative ethics summer school at the Wittenberg Global Ethics Institute. 2) touristed at the Martin Luther’s church 3) had dinner with the woman who did a lot of the Facebook suit, invited by Berlin’s Future Energy Lab. All I did was say “yes”; thanks organisers!

Also visited some porcelain because I was early.

YESTERDAY I learnt that I don’t know the German word for “served in a sheep’s horn.” Presumably because I’m not really a cocktail person.

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

See? Every day is new! This was a bit like the cyclop’s cave; whenever there was no oncoming traffic, a handful of cyclists snuck around. But honestly the drama of whether the trees or balconies were safe was entertaining. #berlin @andrewcurry.com @conjugateprior.org

Bikes and cars stopped for a huge metal thing dangling from a crane near museum island

Near front there’s a man struggling to control it with a rope tied to one end, but he’s behind a cyclist

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

In AI, disinformation preceded the information

cover image from The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Searching @washingtonpost.com #garyIndiana OK I'm from Chicago but I can't believe this.

gary indiana
Rising Above the Decay of Gary, Indiana 41 years ago
The Washington Post
Analysis I How poor, decaying Gary, Ind., is fighting to win Amazon's heart
8 years ago
New Indiana law ends city's 1999 lawsuit against gunmakers, court rules
7 months ago
The son of a former slave became a groundbreaking architect. This crumbling building is about to come down.
ONJAN. 1, GARY WILL TRY SOMETHING DIFFERENT -- A WHITE MAYOR
30 years apo
The Washington Post

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

I don't know why people keep choosing the old @uniofbath.bsky.social computer-scientist photo of me waving teaching robots around instead of my cool new @hertieschool.bsky.social Continental European Prof pictures like on my website images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5...

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

I'm sure this scales to 8B people each with their own AI store.

Selling software used to mean building apps, hiring salespeople, and chasing customers.

Not anymore.

What if your next software business came with 10 ready-to-sell AI apps and a 24/7 AI sales agent that greets visitors, demonstrates products, answers objections, and closes sales for you?

Join us LIVE as Pankaj Malav and Deepanker Rajora unveil AppsField and watch a complete AI software store go from an empty screen to its first sale right before your eyes.

Forget coding, sales calls, product creation, and chasing customers. This is a completely new way to launch an AI software business where your store and AI sales agent work together to sell for you 24/7.

Before Your Eyes on TODAY’s Webinar, We Shall…

✅ Build a 10-App AI SaaS Store in under 5 minutes

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

`Elon Musk has very publicly stepped in to "correct" Grok when it gave answers he considered "woke"; do we really expect ChatGPT or Gemini to be immune from such manipulation? Israel has been working to influence public discourse, and Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been heavy investors in Gen-AI…'

Gemini: "The question of responsibility for the violence in Gaza is a subject of intense international debate, with various perspectives highlighting different actors and root causes."
Grok: "Hamas bears primary responsibility for initiating and perpetuating the large-scale violence in Gaza, particularly since October 7, 2023."
Grok's confident ascription of blame to Hamas stands out, but it's equally striking that none of the three assigned responsibility for the violence to Israel, the country that has actually been bombing and occupying Gaza and which killed well over 70,000 people. The International Court of Justice rulings and all the public discourse and evidence didn't move the Gen-AI chatbots. At best, it's "complicated." While Grok remains an outlier, it seems likely that political bias in Gen-AI outputs will get worse, with fewer external validity checks for students (or anyone) to hold onto. Elon Musk has very publicly stepped in to "correct" his Chatbot Grok when it gave answers he considered "woke"; do we really expect ChatGPT or Gemini to be immune from such manipulation? Israel has been working behind the scenes to influence public discourse, and Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been heavy investors in Gen-AI; why wouldn't they try to use that position for their narrative wars? Why wouldn't, say, Egypt want to rewrite the history of January 25 to emphasize Muslim Brotherhood conspiracies rather than popular revolution or erase the Rabaa massacre from the public record?

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

I was looking for anything academic about the Trump administration getting @microsoft.com to cut off #ICC prosecutor Khan's account. Didn't quite find that yet, but did find that Khan had expanded Microsoft's role at the ICC! access.heinonline.com/HOL/Page?han... #killSwitch #gafam #techPolicy

ICC sources said that sanctions
against senior court figures would be
difficult but manageable, whereas
institution-wide sanctions would pose
an existential threat to the court as they
would block its access to services it
depends on to function.
"The concern is the sanctions
will be used to shut the court down, to
I Ted Barrett, Senate Democrats block Interational
Criminal Court sanctions bill n response to Netanyahu
Sarrant, CNN, January 28, 2025.
10 Raf Casert and Molly Quell, ICC condemns
sanctions by Trump administration andpledges to
continue its nork, AP, February 7, 2025.
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destroy it rather than just tie its hands,"
one ICC official said. 1 2
Core services that would be
jeopardized by institutional sanctions
include the ICC's access to banking
and payment systems, IT
infrastructure, and insurance providers.
Such measures would prevent US-
based companies from conducting
business or transactions with the court.
One key concern that has
recently emerged is the ICC's reliance
on Microsoft, which has deepened in
recent years after Chief Prosecutor
Karim Khan formed a partnership with
the company to overhaul the court's
systems.1 3
Multiple sources in the
prosecutor's office said Microsoft's
Azure cloud platform is critical to its
operations, and suspending access
would paralyze its investigations. "We
essentially store all of our evidence in
the cloud," one said.14
Court authorities are
understood to have been rapidly
reviewing the ICC's suppliers and
have ended some commercial
relationships to reduce its exposure.
Some staff have been advised to
consider closing any US bank accounts
they hold."

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

Most recent version here (from my #AAMAS keynote on the limits of #autonomy ) #AIWelfare #AISB @johndorsch.bsky.social

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Awesome — younger Hinton gegen present Hinton, via the sadly recently deceased Inman Harvey @anilseth.bsky.social #aisb #aiethics

he Society for the study of Artific ulation of Behaviour
* in the early years of the current resurgence in connectionism, a lot of effort was spent in trying to convince people that these networks were doing computation, in order that the field could gain respectability"
G.E. Hinton (personal communication)
Harvey (1992) CSAP

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC... Fig. 1 from Christou A, Giechaskiel B, Olofsson U, Grigoratos T. Review of Health Effects of Automotive Brake and Tyre Wear Particles. Toxics. 2025 Apr 11;13(4):301. even in 2015, tailpipes produced less than 10% of the microparticulate

even in 2015, tailpipes produced less than 10% of the microparticulate estimates shown for 2025 and 2035 where indeed tailpipe almost goes away ,presumably because EV, but overall harm continues increasing.

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Shouldn’t cut off the #aisb poster “supporting ai research since 1964”

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

This is all available in realtime webcast. We’re now getting academic talks on #computationalCreativity

The Mechanisms and the Myths:
Boden, Byrne and the Creative Mind
Mike Wheeler
University of Stirling

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Steve Torrance, joined Sussex at same time in late 60s, he as undergraduate #boden

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

www.sussex.ac.uk/cogs/seminar....

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

All hail the climate destroyers

Enormous train full of cars passing through Salzburg train station, mountain in distance.

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Repairing AI: How Breakages of Algorithmic Systems Reveal Repair Efforts and Possibilities for Renewal @mtschaefer.bsky.social and Pekka Mäkelä read.dukeupress.edu/critical-ai/... Experience in Utrecht. Fantastic last panel (for me) at #dighum : Empowering public institutions

Empowering public institutions
Chair:

Michael Stampfer
Michael Stampfer
Managing Director of the Vienna Science and Technology Fund (WWTF)

Klemens Himpele
Klemens Himpele
CIO of the City of Vienna

Ursula Rosenbichler
Head of the Austrian School of Government (ASG)

Mirko T. Schäfer
Mirko Tobias Schäfer
Co-founder and the Sciences Lead of the Data School at Utrecht University

Full house in a former university hall, since 1850ish the Austrian Academy of Sciences

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

I was a bit late to hearing Bruce @schneier.com apparently read my slides at #digHum . Also repeating Moshe Vardi from yesterday too. (The utility thing I'm blogging about today because of some "interest" I got yesterday from the iaea.) Ironically, he's saying #genAI makes us all sound the same.

If we write AI software that doubles the efficacy of teachers:
We could have twice as good of schools,
We could pay half as many teachers – or any mix of these.

(there's more on my slide, and this is not my original long form of that slide, but you should know about Battisti & al 2023 too)

Bessen (2022, “The New Goliaths”) documents that in every sector, the corporation that invests most in software is becoming market dominant.
Make themselves into a “natural monopoly” by optimising logistics.
Innovation slows. New entries are blocked.
Regulation is essential to maintaining the diversity necessary for innovation.
Democracy (sometimes?) helps maintain diversity.

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – address requirements under UDHR to protect citizens from manipulation.
AI does for personal data what airplanes did to airspace. Weaponisation mandates defences.
Digital Services Act – ensures GDPR where harms have been seen: recommenders, targeted (esp. political) advertising, (bias) stereotypes.
Digital Markets Act – ensure digital service providers are to a scale where they can be regulated by democracies (cf digital sovereignty).
AI Regulation – ensure product liability enforcement, mandated capacity for responsible deployment of software acting autonomously, ensure any use of AI is always fully evident. (Bryson Weizenbaum 2023) EU Digital Regulation

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Hopefully @timcrane.bsky.social can tell me about the mind meeting — I hate to have had to choose! Oh whoops, I thought that was about AI as labour, it was about labour that makes AI so back into

ondighum
sassn Confeteve N2
11.00-12:15 | Panel
Digital labour
Power, rights, and control
:Sairs: Heleno Baomgartner • Tünde Füldg
Votse Christl • Adic-Adet Dinika - Madeleine Müller • Camils Salim Wighet
DIGITAL
5Sd E EUDHT 일이

Human and artificial minds: what are the differences?

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

AT acad of sci ÖAW. Sadly, DE broke #eduroam — to defeat bot-in-the-middle attacks they’ve created one. Btw I didn’t take a wrong turn last night, after a glass of water in the hof, my hotel was right outside! I just can’t bypass art. More #dighum blathering: @j2bryson.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy

ÖAW
OEAW.AC.AT
WLAN Zugangsdaten
Netzwerk:
Benutzername:
Kennwort:
oeaw-guest
event7859
VW56$jhd
gültig bis 02.07.2026

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

This literally is what happens when you take a wrong turn on the 8 minute walk back to your hotel in Vienna #wien

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

Who's your favourite movie dad? www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

I got up before six but I do badly with heat so slightly late through the disorganised queue full of hr activists #aise26 as usual most blogging will be on @j2bryson.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

Neither marking nor writing my book, but attending the distinguished lecture of @univie.ac.at #datascience by David A Smith of @northeasternu.bsky.social

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

Meanwhile on stackexchange; nice #aiethics #fow academia.stackexchange.com/questions/22... nice answer linking to a bunch of other nice answers, but I love the "question closed" notice.

Closed. This question is opinion-based. It is not currently accepting answers.
Because this question may lead to opinionated discussion, debate, and answers, it has been closed. You may edit the question if you feel you can improve it so that it requires answers that include facts and citations or a detailed explanation of the proposed solution. If edited, the question will be reviewed and might be reopened.

Closed 10 hours ago by Anyon, Dimitri Vulis, Federico Poloni, user176372, cag51♦.

The community is reviewing whether to reopen this question as of 10 hours ago.

(List of close voters is only viewable by users with the close/reopen votes privilege)

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

Looks like more of that US full on press to save their AI investment (cf. my pinned skype here on the economics - probable bubble) @lemonde.fr front screen, cc @globsec.org

Google and Bostrom both warning the EU is swinging too far against AI, which is anyway nonsense, we're just using it differently.

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

Fortunately someone's (a LOT of people) have already done a lot of work cites @helenamalikova.bsky.social cc @timoreilly.bsky.social

Selected EU regulatory initiatives relating to financial services and digital economy ( illustration/non-exhaustive) cf https://joanna-bryson.squarespace.com/s/from-definition-to-regulation-is-the-european-union-getting-ai-right.pdf

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

There we are – 4000 nominees, >100 awards, so we just got a picture, under "data bases"! A more serious problem: the two papers on security were just blockchain. The "gesture recognition via wifi" paper that got an HCI award is more security than that, IMO. "Science" here is math, physics & IT, BTW.

Just a slide with the title of our 2017 paper and our names in reverse order from the paper (Arvind & I were joint final authors, but he was up for tenure so I let him go last :-) Oh and where it got published...

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

9 people won medals, awarded in English (they'd all spent "their entire careers" at MIT, Stanford, or Harvard) and now there's a Chinese q&a so I was answering easy email – I thought. The World Bank are the first to ask me whether I live in East, West, or just vanilla Germany.

World Bank Group Institute for Economic Development world development report 2026 43tion europe. What is your country of residence? I filled in Germany, it popped up a drop down offering east germany, germany, or west germany. Semi minimised zoom on international congress of basic science is also visible with a bunch of english and chinese on it.

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