iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Nicholas Weller @nichweller.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

more proof the best renditions of the national anthem involve a trumpet. see also, Arturo Sandoval www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISMy...

youtube.com

Arturo Sandoval, Trumpet, National Anthem 1/1/09 Orange Bowl

YouTube video by Heb1228

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Eugene Vinitsky 🍒 @eugenevinitsky.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Now that LLMs are good at math, we can solve other long-standing verifiable problems like the law, institution building, community, and management

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 21/09/2026

one thing that is worth remember apropos this useful piece is that novel technologies do not necessarily require novel political solutions. americans have had to deal with fast-moving, disruptive technological change in the past, and they did so through collective, democratic action.

nytimes.com

Opinion | Bernie Sanders, Steve Case and Others on What Washington Should Do Now on A.I.

How can the government reel in the technology? Here are six ideas.

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Jack Stilgoe @jackstilgoe.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

NTSB reports aren't evidence for legal liability. They are about social learning. In this paper, I discuss how NTSB ended up investigating the first self-driving car death. Their recommendations have been systematically ignored since. A failure of social learning.

papers.ssrn.com

Machine Learning, Social Learning and the Governance of Self-Driving Cars

Self-driving cars, a quintessentially ‘smart’ technology, are not born smart. The algorithms that control their movements are learning as the technology emerges

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Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Rest of the letter details other changes (some of which have already been announced): -an Office of Metascience -consolidating NOFOs -use of different funding mechanisms & longer time horizons -participation in the Genesis Mission -" some scientific goals require new forms of institutions"

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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Under pressure, the DOD just released the text of its secret 10-year agreement with the NIH. Here are the biggest revelations from the document 🧵

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Nicholas Weller @nichweller.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Off the top of my head, I don't have strong feelings about the organization of social sciences at NSF--whether it should be a separate entity or one distributed across the agency in some manner. That said, I think the original substack I linked in this thread makes a good point. 5/n

screen shot reading:
"I’m skeptical of breaking up a social science unit and using it to improve multidisciplinary projects because the primary benefit of social science research is not through interdisciplinary work with the physical and natural sciences. It’s through answering society’s most pressing questions. This piece on children’s height is a great example of this. Many of the questions that currently vex Americans can be answered, or at least better understood, through social science research:

What is the impact of AI on the labor market?
How did the COVID-19 pandemic affect children’s development?
Why are people getting married at lower rates, and why are they having fewer children?
Why do young people seem to be struggling with mental health issues? Is it all the screens?"

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Nicholas Weller @nichweller.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Anyway, check out my colleague @zpirtle.bsky.social's write up of a recent CSPO workshop on social sciences in NSF. 4/n cspo.org/wp-content/u...

cspo.org

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Nicholas Weller @nichweller.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Worth noting that Vannevar Bush and others viewed social sciences as inherently connected to politics, which he wanted to avoid to create a foundation for the natural scientists outside of the political economy, one firmly under the control of natural scientists themselves. 3/n

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Nicholas Weller @nichweller.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Senator Kilgore, in advocating for the inclusion of social sciences in NSF in the 40's, advocated for connecting social science with social and economic needs, reflecting his very New Deal politics. Perhaps social science could never escape this connection. 2/n www.jstor.org/stable/27757...

jstor.org

Client Challenge

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Nicholas Weller @nichweller.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Nice commentary about social sciences in NSF in this. My hunch is that since the debate about NSF's funding, social science has always been seen--in some way--as connected to programs to address social challenges. (1/n) www.macroscience.org/p/what-weve-...

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Nicholas Weller @nichweller.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

"The NBA’s cap did defend itself, publicly, and at no little expense. The other cap, the one putatively propping up so many planted trees, turns out never to have existed at all. And no one, but no one, has yet been made to buy the missing tonnes back."

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Zachary Gallagher Pirtle, Ph.D. @zpirtle.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

How the U.S. organizes and funds Social, Behavioral, and Economic (SBE) Sciences matters for getting good science policy outcomes. The recent President’s Budget proposed eliminating NSF’s SBE directorate/budget See a new memo by me on implications and key design goals: cspo.org/research/sbe...

cspo.org

Design Choices for the Future of Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences at the National Science Foundation and Beyond - CSPO

Memorandum: Design Choices for the Future of Social and Behavioral Sciences at NSF and Beyond On July 13th 2026, CSPO brought together participants from a variety of policy, scientific, and institutio...

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Nicholas Weller @nichweller.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Eligibility: PIs in the "natural sciences, mathematics, computer science, engineering, and related fields." No love for social sciences??

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Nicholas Weller @nichweller.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Why Claude choose red for gains, green for losses 🤷

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Nicholas Weller @nichweller.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Biggest losses by amount: California Massachussets New York Colorado DC Biggest gains by amount (35 states gained): Florida Ohio South Carolina Kentucky West Virginia

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Nicholas Weller @nichweller.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Asked Claude to estimate NSF funding per state if Sen. Kilgore's plan for geographic distribution was in place today (10% of funding split evenly among states, 15% split by population; assumed rest was just merit based) Disclaimer: Didn't double check this closely yet.

Chart showing projected losses and gains for Harry Kilgore's plan for distribution of NSF funds. Why it choose red for gains, green for losses... I'm not sure

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Nicholas Weller @nichweller.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Anyone know of a good resource on this issue in the US?

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D. Hicks @danhicks.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

btw can't recommend highly enough this way of walking through the syllabus on the first day of class

Screenshot of a slide with the title "Syllabus: Distributed reading" and the following text:
- 10 tables = 10 teams
- 5* sections → Each team gets 1 section → Each section has 2 teams

- 10 minutes to prepare a 3-minute summary of your section
- Find your slide: tinyurl.com/2yjgs6jz
- 1-2 key points about your section
- 1-2 questions about your section

- For each section, I’ll randomly choose a team to share their summary
- And then the other team can add whatever points or questions they’d like

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Nicholas Weller @nichweller.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Great analysis from Vincent (as usual): The DOE's plan for lifecycle innovation campuses may constructively deal with important challenges for managing nuclear waste. But it's undercut by regulatory changes and the outright gutting of regulatory staff.

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Nicholas Weller @nichweller.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Oh, and we're hosting deliberative forums about the scientific enterprise in a few weeks. We'll ask the public to weigh in on some of the debates in the original thread about the founding of NSF (among other things). Excited to share what we learn! cspo.org/research/ame...

cspo.org

American Science@250: Rethink, Reimagine, and Redesign - CSPO

Overview Rethinking the Role of Science in Society As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, the American scientific enterprise faces an inflection point. Longstanding concerns about the ...

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Nicholas Weller @nichweller.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Selfishly, I will pitch mechanisms that integrate participatory input from citizens alongside experts, congress, agencies, special interests, etc. doi.org/10.1016/j.te...

doi.org

Redirecting

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Nicholas Weller @nichweller.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Nice thread. I haven't had time to read through all the Boston Review articles yet. As referenced later in the thread, there are other mechanisms for thinking about democratic accountability within science that might be more effective than citizen juries for research agendas

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Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Finally, this has gone a bit under the radar, so I want to highlight it: The social, behavioral and economic sciences directorate (SBE) has simply ceased to deliver grants to many of its subareas. Any topic not specifically OK'd by the Trump administration is receiving zero new awards.

All of the NSF’s directorates are awarding fewer new grants, but the hardest hit is the social, behavioural and economic sciences (SBE) directorate, which the White House proposed eliminating in its 2027 budget request to Congress. SBE has so far awarded 84 new grants this year, about 11% of its average, mainly in areas of artificial intelligence, cognitive neuroscience and decision-making. Much of its portfolio, such as sociology, archaeology, political science, economics and geography, has received zero new awards. “I don’t think they’ve realized yet that there’s no awards,” one NSF staff member says of researchers in those fields. “That’s going to be clear soon.”

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The Wall Street Journal @wsj.com · 14/08/2026

Exclusive: World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s flagship crypto venture, says its trust company has received preliminary approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to become a bank. on.wsj.com/4wyvwat

on.wsj.com

Exclusive | Trump Family’s World Liberty Financial Gets Preliminary Approval to Launch a Bank

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency gives the flagship crypto venture a conditional approval to be a trust bank.

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Nicholas Weller @nichweller.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Nice thread and interesting analysis here. Someone on Bluesky (I can't find it yet) wrote how AI might make the failings of academic grants and publishing more obvious. Pushing grant applications closer to recently funded work certainly suggests AI use might make merit review more conservative.

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Nicholas Weller @nichweller.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Alright I know ChatGPT hallucinates and flatters, but there are way worse things Tuberville could be listening to. Maybe OpenAI can do us a solid and slowly tweak the model towards a less insane Tuberville

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Nicholas Weller @nichweller.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

This is cool!! I really like the paper discussion threads. Such a nice way to look at all the discussion around specific publications.

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Nicholas Weller @nichweller.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

I find this reflection about NIH reform and Bhattacharya insightful in the ways actors focused on 'improving science' miss the political milieu in which they're operating (perhaps could be extended to the author as well). www.thenewatlantis.com/publications...

thenewatlantis.com

Does MAGA Actually Want American Science to Win?

Reflections on the revolution in Bethesda

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Nicholas Weller @nichweller.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Great read. Dispute isn't 'pro' or 'anti' in many ways. It's about what counts as science, for whom, etc. Also relevant to thinking about Bhattacharya at NIH or indiv researchers talking about COVID origins. Lots of actors failing to recognize they are in a larger political dispute.

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Paul Cohen @paulecohen.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

a political struggle over science at play -- over defining what science is, what it is for, who should "do" it, within which kinds of institutions it should be conducted, the kinds of relationships that those who do science should enjoy with political authority, and how we should understand science

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Nicholas Weller @nichweller.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Good thread on proprietary AI's incompatibility with the tenets of transparency in social science research.

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Robert Borden Stan Account @bordenstan.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

If the academy gets pulled into coming out swinging against the biggest adaptation of Homer in probably a couple generations off the back of one prominent scholar deciding to be Reviewer 2 to Nolan's work, it will say, IMO, pretty damning things about academia's ability to foster public engagement.

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Simon Allison @simonallison.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

BREAKING NEWS: There's been a major development this month in the war between darkness and light. 1/

Illustration from The Atlas newspaper, showing an astronomical observatory perched on a mountaintop. It's night, and the sky is full of stars, except for a beam of bright light shining down on the observatory itself.

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Nicholas Weller @nichweller.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

TBC, this seems like a good use case for AI in supporting research work. I wonder how these types of tools/approaches will play out in the very heterogeneous landscape of university research.

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Nicholas Weller @nichweller.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

I don't know the details about their involvement here, but the lead author works for Google Gemini--meaning it's probably a lot easier for them to put together this AI environment and workflow than it is for most researchers/orgs.

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Nicholas Weller @nichweller.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

This is a genuinely interesting article about integrating AI into scientific workflows (climate assessment). I suspect that such integration will come easier to fields with lots of computational expertise or via organizations that provide such expertise. arxiv.org/abs/2602.09723

arxiv.org

AI-Assisted Scientific Assessment: A Case Study on Climate Change

The emerging paradigm of AI co-scientists focuses on tasks characterized by repeatable verification, where agents explore search spaces in 'guess and check' loops. This paradigm does not extend to pro...

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Nicholas Weller @nichweller.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Link to the NIH statement from a few days ago about this: www.nih.gov/about-nih/ni... IT's also fair to ask if this policy meaningful changes anything since there's a clause in it about not prohibiting the development of medical products (which previous GOF research contributed to, I think)

nih.gov

Announcement: Release of the U.S. Government Policy for Stopping High-Risk Life Sciences Research

The comprehensive, risk-based framework is supported by strong enforcement, accountability, and transparency measures.

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Nicholas Weller @nichweller.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

NIH/Bhattachrya recently prohibited gain-of-function research that is meant to be government wide. But the politics of lab-leak theory are soooo far beyond the actual risk question at play here.

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Nicholas Weller @nichweller.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Love hearing people talk about their craft. My barber today was talking shit about whoever cut my hair last (had to get it cut during a work trip), pointing out all the shortcuts they took and how that was changing how she was cutting my hair today.

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Nicholas Weller @nichweller.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Also, the little vignettes at the beginnings of each section are a little strange. Someone tinkering with a fusion devise in a rusty shed in New Mexico sounds more like a post apocalyptic vision of Sandia/Kirtland than 'progress to all'

Screenshot from Kratios's report. Reads: MAKING PROGRESS AVAILABLE TO ALL
American innovation has never been confined to elite university laboratories. In
a local workshop, hobbyists young and old work together to retrofit a Computer
Numerical Control (CNC) machine to wind carbon-overwrapped pressure ves-
sels. At a private airstrip on the East Coast, a defense technology startup has
pitched a trailer at the end of the field, experimenting with new propellant mix-
tures. Out in the mesas of the New Mexico desert, a student tinkers in a rusty
shed, trying to harness the power of the sun through an inertial confinement
fusion device cobbled together from laboratory surplus. Innovation advances in
these places, far from major research campuses, through hands-on experimenta-
tion, the accumulation of craft knowledge, and a bias toward action.

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Nicholas Weller @nichweller.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Turning back to this Kratsios report. Illuminating that the "Making Progress Available to All" section solely focuses on work and building industry.

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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

TikTok has incredible moderation team. Our InfoWars video about Multiple Horse Theory — the idea that there are many horses in the world and not just one — has been fully deemed misinformation and lost the formal appeals process. Confirmed by Larry Ellison: There is only one horse on Earth.

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Nicholas Weller @nichweller.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

This is a nice read, and a helpful one as I try to make sense of the Science: A New Golden Era from Kratsios for a deliberative forum about future directions for science policy.

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Nicholas Weller @nichweller.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Some data from NCSES showing R&D (not just basic though) by industry and company size might help parse 'start ups' versus others but a quick search didn't turn up data on this over time. HEre's a 2023 snapshot. ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf25353

ncses.nsf.gov

Business R&D Performance in the United States Increases to $722 Billion in 2023 | NCSES | NSF

Businesses continued to increase their research and development (R&D) performance in 2023, spending $722 billion on R&D in the United States, a 4.4% increase from 2022. Funding from the companies’ own...

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Nicholas Weller @nichweller.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

I can't find a good ref on start-up firms in particular, but business performs about a third of 'basic research' and that portion has been growing since the 2000's. indicators.sciphil.org/rd-overview

Graph showing basic research spending by performer from 1953-2024. Share of business has been growing since about the 2000's, though early on in the data set (1950's) business accounted for about 30% of basic research performance.

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