Sign in

Stefanie Sirén-Heikel

@mssiren.bsky.social
722 followers 1.3K following 563 posts

Doctoral/Project Researcher 🕊️@helsinkiuni.bsky.social Inter(dis)secting #journalism #AI #sociomateriality Big picture, middle ground, grey area. Rev2. Views mine.

PostsRepliesMedia
Stefanie Sirén-Heikel @mssiren.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Google didn’t wait for approval before they started chopping forests ahead of their massive data center builds in Finland. Sadly, I think the response will be quite toothless. Austerity narratives allows for exploitation to be accepted as inevitable.
011
Stefanie Sirén-Heikel @mssiren.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Mac users! What is up with Spotlight! 😱 My life depends on finding my stuff, and now … it behaves like a PC! Amnesia! Tell me there’s another fix than the toggling of access. Cause it ain’t working. Don’t. “Fix”. Something. That. Isn’t. Broken.
110
Stefanie Sirén-Heikel @mssiren.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
To all journalists out there (and everyone else as well), read this brief.
121
Reposted by Stefanie Sirén-Heikel
Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 11/09/2026
I'm excited to share this preprint by my wonderful MSc student Yihsin who's thought deeply about how psychological & neurocognitive theories relate to different types of evidence. Beyond Empirical Success: Evaluating Theoretical Virtue Across the Computational Modeling Chain doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

Beyond Empirical Success: Evaluating Theoretical Virtue Across the Computational Modeling Chain
Authors/Creators

    Chuang, Yihsin
    ORCID icon
    Guest, Olivia1
    ORCID icon

Description

Computational models in psychology are typically judged by a single standard: empirical fit. Unfortunately, fit is insufficient, even misleading as a sole criterion, as the same result can arise from fundamentally different situations: theoretically faithful models, mathematically flexible ones, miscalibrated operationalizations, or implementations that compute something other than intended. Distinguishing between these is vital. Our evaluative metatheoretical account recognises that models stand in three distinct relations: a) toward the theory whose causal commitments it purports to capture, b) toward the specification and implementation it purports to compute, and c) toward the phenomenon it purports to explain. Each relation can succeed or fail independently, governed by criteria local to that stage. Importantly, relations are ordered such that theoretical content is transmitted or lost, and losses at earlier transitions are irrecoverable downstream. What a model's empirical success implicates about its theoretical commitments, therefore, depends on whether transitions are secured. Some success or failure profiles support explanatory claims; others only prediction; others establish theoretical coherence without empirical contact. Our account diagnoses what a given model shows, replacing the implicit assumption that empirical success transfers automatically to theoretical understanding with an explicit conditional rendition of what models can and cannot establish.
a figure that looks like a cloud that stays "cognitive capacity" with an arrow pointing to a lozenge with "theory" which points to a lozenge with "specification" which points to the same with "data" which is pointed to by a cloud that says "phenomenon"
616241
Stefanie Sirén-Heikel @mssiren.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Feeling splintered. Eerily schizophrenic serendipitous experience at the MAK in Vienna, first the brilliant Brute Force by Felix Lenz et al., followed by opulent Van Cleef & Arpels upstairs (this particular one belonging once to princess Faiza of Egypt). Post #ECC26
000
Reposted by Stefanie Sirén-Heikel
Alexander Etkind @sashaetkind.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
A wonderful guidebook, highly recommended. Thank you from all of us, Andrea Peto
094
Reposted by Stefanie Sirén-Heikel
Alex Hanna @alexhanna.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
My first long-form video is up: Myths Around AI and Productivity! Based on the work we’ve been doing at @dairinstitute.bsky.social with The Luddite Lab, we dispel 5 common myths around AI and labor by looking at what studies actually say about AI’s impact on labor. youtu.be/3BO0iy91lfU
youtu.be
Myths Around AI and Labor
YouTube video by Dr. Alex Hanna
715850
Reposted by Stefanie Sirén-Heikel
Mike Ananny 🇨🇦 @mikeananny.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Big congrats @janniehartley.bsky.social on this phenomenal new book! It looks fantastic (and gorgeous), am looking forward to digging in. I recall fondly you talking about it @annenberg.usc.edu ~a year ago, wonderful to see it in the world.
022
Stefanie Sirén-Heikel @mssiren.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
First day of #ECC2026 wrapped! Great stuff by Yanshu Wang, Gael de Haan, Juho Ruotsalainen, @linardsudris.bsky.social & @amyrossarguedas.bsky.social in Audiences & AI. Plus 🍦 #Brno
041
Reposted by Stefanie Sirén-Heikel
Pekkaa pahempi Mervaala @mervaala.eurosky.social · 02/05/2026
Tekoäly on alkanut maksaa yrityksille ihmistyötä enemmän. Vuonna 2026 IT-investointien odotetaan kasvavan maailmanlaajuisesti 5,4 biljoonaan euroon (+13,5 % vrt. 2025). Varhaisimmin tekoälykelkan kyytiin loikanneet maksanevat lopulta eniten palveluntarjoajiston nostaessa hintojaan. #AIkamoista
forbes.com
AI Compute Surpasses Human Costs: Enterprise Budgets Shift
AI compute spending is surpassing human labor in enterprise budgets, forcing companies to prove ROI as rising costs challenge long-term value and strategy.
2116
Stefanie Sirén-Heikel @mssiren.bsky.social · 22/12/2025
Sci-fi writers are going out of business.
020
Stefanie Sirén-Heikel @mssiren.bsky.social · 22/12/2025
Jolly times! Holiday music turns into (most likely) right wing AI-slop after a few songs on Spotify. You can imagine the lyrics. Have to pull out the vinyls.
A screen grab from Spotify showing a generated image of a grey haired man in a Santa hat and with a bow tie of evergreen. Vintage 50’s feel. The song is titled “White Christmas” and the lyrics are about the “all white Christmas”, you can imagine the rest. After a few songs by Frank Sinatra. Below are images that are generated of more AI-slopic.
030
Stefanie Sirén-Heikel @mssiren.bsky.social · 21/12/2025
Erinomainen 🎅🧵 Eilen juteltiin lapsen kanssa siitä, miksi lasten näkemyksiä ja tarpeita pitää huomioida—ja miksi aikuiset unohtavat lapset päätöksenteossa. Esim Helsingin päiväkotipolitiikka viesti vahvasti, että lapsia ei tarvitse huomioida eikä arvostaa.
000
Stefanie Sirén-Heikel @mssiren.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
The weakening of the FCC will have global ramifications. “… if I could persuade the leaders of the EU of anything is that this is the time to be fierce.”
010
Stefanie Sirén-Heikel @mssiren.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
I’ll start using this term and @rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social you should pin it down in an article 👇🏼
000
Stefanie Sirén-Heikel @mssiren.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
“Newsroom morale soared” sounds to me like a an absolute HR success!
000
Stefanie Sirén-Heikel @mssiren.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
Travelling to the US is out of the question for me anyways, so I can share this. It breaks my heart, and I’m so worried for friends and colleagues.
010
Stefanie Sirén-Heikel @mssiren.bsky.social · 18/12/2025
My brain has since childhood been shaped by Apple logics—but Tahoe ..?! A simple basic rule in UX design, DO NOT ADD STEPS. Spotlight is … what’s going on there? What on earth happened?
000
Reposted by Stefanie Sirén-Heikel
Johanna Vehkoo @vehkoo.bsky.social · 18/12/2025
Suo, jossa olen viime viikot rämpinyt: erikoinen Suomi-slop, joka leviää Facebookissa, koska Meta ihan itse maksaa tällaisista tekoälysisällöistä nykyään. yle.fi/a/74-20197424
yle.fi
Somessa leviää hellyyttäviä Suomi-postauksia, joissa kaikki ei ole kohdallaan: Yle selvitti, mistä on kyse
Yle löysi verkoston, joka tekee rahaa julkaisemalla positiivisia Suomi-valheita.
3153
Stefanie Sirén-Heikel @mssiren.bsky.social · 18/12/2025
Take note 👇
010
Stefanie Sirén-Heikel @mssiren.bsky.social · 17/12/2025
As a Finn, I hope this controversy will finally open the 🥫of 🪱 that this is a deeply racist country. Quiet internalised racism is now perceived as okay to vent, almost something to strive for in some circles. The data showed this already in 2023. www.euronews.com/2023/10/25/s...
071
Reposted by Stefanie Sirén-Heikel
Becca Lewis @beccalew.bsky.social · 15/12/2025
New article out from me and Angèle Christin in the Annals of the AAPSS! In "The Politics of Engagement in Platform Governance," we unpack and historicize the concept of "social media engagement," an idea that has dominated debate over platform politics in recent years. doi.org/10.1177/0002...
doi.org
The Politics of Engagement in Platform Governance - Becca Lewis, Angèle Christin, 2024
In recent years, the concept of user engagement has dominated debate over the governance of online platforms, and critics use the term to assign crass commercia...
2228
Stefanie Sirén-Heikel @mssiren.bsky.social · 17/12/2025
This is a really interesting piece, where @g-piechota.bsky.social points out how news media might be pulling the rug under their feet by focusing on “content”. Do we need humans for content? www.inma.org/blogs/confer...
inma.org
AI and the creator economy are transforming news in Africa
During the recent INMA Africa Audience Development Summit, INMA Researcher-in-Residence Greg Piechota discussed how two global forces on news media — AI and the creator economy — are on full display i...
010
Reposted by Stefanie Sirén-Heikel
Philipp Heimberger @heimbergecon.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
New paper on the fatal consequences of job loss using 🇫🇮 administrative data: "For every 100,000 displaced men, there are 1,100 additional deaths. 60% accrue to the displaced worker, 40% are due to excess spousal mortality.. no such dire consequences are observed after a woman’s job loss"
22310
Stefanie Sirén-Heikel @mssiren.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
Today is the annual tax day in Finland when media indulge in stories about who paid the most taxes. Commentators will go on saying that Finland has one of the highest tax rates globally, often without any explanation needed. It’s a bit more complicated than that. www.euronews.com/business/202...
euronews.com
Personal average tax rates in Europe: Increases and cuts in 2024
The tax burden on workers, composed of income tax and social security contributions, varies widely across Europe. In 2024, this burden changed significantly in some countries, with notable rises and f...
031
Reposted by Stefanie Sirén-Heikel
Hannes Cools @hannescools.bsky.social · 07/11/2025
✨ Audiences doubt the benefits of AI-generated imagery in news are worth the risks, new study finds. @andrewdeck.bsky.social wrote an article on our latest study in @digitaljournalism.bsky.social 🙏 w Dina Strikovic www.niemanlab.org/2025/11/audi... @aimediademlab.bsky.social @ddc-sdu.bsky.social
niemanlab.org
Audiences doubt the benefits of AI-generated imagery in news are worth the risks, new study finds
What do readers really think of AI-generated images in their news? There has been substantial research on how audiences respond to AI-generated text, but far less dedicated research on image generator...
096
Stefanie Sirén-Heikel @mssiren.bsky.social · 06/11/2025
Oh my, Finland is choosing AWS for parliamentary election data. Because it’s cheaper. Love to hear thoughts from @evgenymorozov.bsky.social @alexhanna.bsky.social @eff.org @meredithmeredith.bsky.social @zephoria.bsky.social etc etc. I mean we do like to trust things.
041
Stefanie Sirén-Heikel @mssiren.bsky.social · 06/11/2025
Tänään oli @yle.naamio.social aamussa keskustelua tekoälyn hyödyistä elinsiirroissa. Jos sellaiseen lähdetään, on opittava miten ei pidä tehdä. Esimerkkinä Iso-Britannian karut kokemukset. www.normaltech.ai/p/does-the-u...
normaltech.ai
Does the UK’s liver transplant matching algorithm systematically exclude younger patients?
Seemingly minor technical decisions can have life-or-death effects
020
Stefanie Sirén-Heikel @mssiren.bsky.social · 05/11/2025
Read this thread today 👇🏼 If you use any form of automation, verify verify verify. You can’t not do your job.
120
Reposted by Stefanie Sirén-Heikel
Damon Beres @damonberes.com · 04/11/2025
NEW: Common Crawl, the massive archiver of the web, has gotten cozy with AI companies and is providing paywalled articles for training data. They’re also lying to publishers who have asked for material to be removed. “The robots are people too,” CC’s exec director told us when we asked about this.
theatlantic.com
The Nonprofit Feeding the Entire Internet to AI Companies
Common Crawl claims to provide a public benefit, but it lies to publishers about its activities.
27893511
Reposted by Stefanie Sirén-Heikel
Eryk Salvaggio @eryk.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
Some context on Will’s post: Mitchell and Pistilli were being mass blocked not because they were “pro-AI” (they are fairly critical) but because they were falsely *labeled* as pro-AI by lazy blocklist creators. Opt out all you want — I do! But be careful about who/what you trust to filter for you.
4154
Stefanie Sirén-Heikel @mssiren.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
Skimming @niemanlab.org predictions for 2025, and what strikes me is the idea that people want to be active. We see this in pedagogy too, that we should activate. Students often hate it, bc it’s cognitively heavy! Sometimes we just want to sit by the 🔥and listen. www.niemanlab.org/2024/12/ai-t...
niemanlab.org
AI turns news into a conversation
"The future of news is moving beyond the written word. With AI at its core, it's conversational, spoken, interactive, responsive, and deeply personal — the very essence of meaningful human communicati...
010
Stefanie Sirén-Heikel @mssiren.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
More books for the wicked! This one flew under my radar for too long.
010
Reposted by Stefanie Sirén-Heikel
Mark Riedl @markriedl.bsky.social · 29/10/2025
Authors’ class action suit against OpenAI moves forward www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...
publishersweekly.com
Authors’ Class Action Lawsuit Against OpenAI Moves Ahead
A New York judge dismissed an attempt by OpenAI to throw out a class action lawsuit that consolidates suits from a number of authors charging the company with copyright infringement.
436594
Reposted by Stefanie Sirén-Heikel
Alderik @alderik.eurosky.social · 31/10/2025
“In a study of some 20,000 election-related posts in the Netherlands, researchers [..] found that over 400 posts were AI-generated. The party of far-right leader Geert Wilders, the Party for Freedom (PVV), came out on top in its use of AI.” www.politico.eu/article/elec...
politico.eu
The week that AI deepfakes hit Europe’s elections – POLITICO
Dutch and Irish elections show voters now have to worry if the political content they consume is real.
2128
Stefanie Sirén-Heikel @mssiren.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
Rakas media, muistutuksena taas, auton alle ei jäädä. Autot ajavat päälle. www.voice.fi/ilmiot/a-240...
voice.fi
Alaikäinen tyttö jäi auton alle Espoossa
Henkilöauton kuljettajaa epäillään muun muassa törkeästä liikenneturvallisuuden vaarantamisesta ja törkeästä vammantuottamuksesta.
110
Reposted by Stefanie Sirén-Heikel
Alex Hanna @alexhanna.bsky.social · 29/10/2025
This is sounding more and more like the Council of Nicea who meet behind closed doors and poke the chatbot until it says it feels something. arstechnica.com/information-...
arstechnica.com
Expert panel will determine AGI arrival in new Microsoft-OpenAI agreement
New deal extends Microsoft IP rights until 2032 or until AGI arrives.
710421
Reposted by Stefanie Sirén-Heikel
PJ Coffey - They/Them @homebrewandhacking@mastodon.ie @homebrewandhacking.bsky.social · 28/10/2025
I'm not sending Wired clicks; obvious hit piece is obvious. Expert, qualified critics of AI goonery: @timnitgebru.bsky.social @emilymbender.bsky.social @abeba.bsky.social @baldurbjarnason.com @irisvanrooij.bsky.social @olivia.science @wolvendamien.bsky.social You should follow them. Learn!
35722
Reposted by Stefanie Sirén-Heikel
Hannes Cools @hannescools.bsky.social · 28/10/2025
✨ New publication: 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐲 𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬' 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐀𝐈 𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐯𝐬. 𝐭𝐞𝐱𝐭. Especially relevant after yesterday's news of AI-generated images in political campaigns 👇 Together with Dina Strikovic (@ascor.bsky.social, @aimediademlab.bsky.social) 🧵
121
Reposted by Stefanie Sirén-Heikel
Meredith Whittaker @meredithmeredith.bsky.social · 27/10/2025
The question isn’t "why does Signal use AWS?" It’s to look at the infrastructural requirements of any global, real-time, mass comms platform and ask how it is that we got to a place where there’s no realistic alternative to AWS and the other hyperscalers. 3/
61419239
Reposted by Stefanie Sirén-Heikel
Erika Hall @erikahall.bsky.social · 27/10/2025
Today's wikipedia page (their traffic is down due to people using LLM chatbots boo) is the history of paper, because your Sunday scaries might require an absorbing distraction. Fun fact: US letter size is related to Dutch papermakers having a 44" arm span. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History...
en.wikipedia.org
History of paper - Wikipedia
05116
Stefanie Sirén-Heikel @mssiren.bsky.social · 24/10/2025
Universities need independence, and that means independent funding for basic research. Companies are reluctant to produce research critical of their own products. Important 🧵
040
Reposted by Stefanie Sirén-Heikel
David Schindler @david-schindler.de · 23/10/2025
I just received an email informing us about safety measures to take when traveling. Five years ago, I would not have imagined seeing these countries named together: "Countries classified as high risk in terms of knowledge security are: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and the United States."
111630
Stefanie Sirén-Heikel @mssiren.bsky.social · 22/10/2025
Just a kind reminder. It can turn Miss Minutes on you.
050
Stefanie Sirén-Heikel @mssiren.bsky.social · 22/10/2025
It’s crucial that people are given the knowledge that they *have to verify* all information they get from assistants. This can be a boon for journalism, if harnessed the right way.
120
Stefanie Sirén-Heikel @mssiren.bsky.social · 21/10/2025
Here it is, with compliments from the @hulib.bsky.social. 💎let’s see!
A picture of the cover of the book “the AI con, how to fight big techs hype and create the future we want” by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna.
140
Stefanie Sirén-Heikel @mssiren.bsky.social · 20/10/2025
This is such idiocy I don’t even know where to start. When there is information vacuum, it will be filled with all sorts of random misinfo. Kids deserve knowledge on the functioning of their bodies. If the govt won’t allow it, we need NGOs providing reliable, accessible knowledge in Italian.
1273
Reposted by Stefanie Sirén-Heikel
Philip Mai @philipmai.com · 19/10/2025
So much of what's on display at the Vienna City Museum doesn't read like it's history. If you have been paying attention... "Never again" is happening again. #NoKings
22815
Stefanie Sirén-Heikel @mssiren.bsky.social · 20/10/2025
We should dare ask ourselves though, what does productivity mean—more of what? And does it make any sense? Is for example academia better off with more papers? Whilst we are rushing towards complete lock-in and giving away our data.
000
Stefanie Sirén-Heikel @mssiren.bsky.social · 14/10/2025
I think a lot about my grandparents generation and the hard work and tenacity they put in to build a society renowned for its know-how and educational system. What’s our vision?
010