iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

@nickseaver.website if you could pick some up for me I will stop telling people your facial hair makes me think of you as Ned Flanders

020

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Flashback to when I did a job talk and the host couldn’t get screensharing going for remote attendees and I was trapped in my personal hell: “you can give the talk to get this job but only if you physically push a department chair out of the way on a livestream”

140

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Amongst other things: thank you for reminding me of this book literally as I’m designing a course on political theory and AI!

110

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

You make fun of a guy in a paper one time (last week I had the chair of history at Berkeley inform me their data science program teaches one of my papers! It was the one with Henry Kissinger being carried off by a drone in it)

020

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Okay you have just clarified a line from a hip-hop song that’s like a decade old for me so thank you!!

100

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I was sat here like “they had the lead singer of the cruxshadows hyping AI? Well, seems. surprisingly plausible.“

100

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

my headcanon is now: OpenAI’s software is actually bad at maths, these proofs are because Grigori Perelman has spent the last decade amusing himself by poisoning training pools out of boredom.

030

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Wait. Rogue as in the musician?!

100

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Yeah personally if OpenAI approached me believing I could be useful to it my first act would be “critically revisit all of my public statements to work out where I am going wrong”.

120

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

yeah it was the muppet range of motion that did it: enabled pioneering research in being superpositionable (I’m sorry)

120

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

They offer a shareable readcube link! Which I, despite having a readcube account, cannot then use as a download button! This feels like a feature invented by some publisher employee desperate to be able to point to proof they do stuff at work.

010

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

At least 20 years ago I would've got a swish copy of the issue in the mail I could put on my shelf and use to signal to visitors that I am a Person who Does Things, now I'm hitting up grad students at Berkeley asking if I could please have a copy of my own paper.

030

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

BioSocieties officially published this today, and I can't get a copy of /my own article/ because my university is too poor to have a subscription, I love being an academic in this era in particular.

260

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Ditto (right now)! I'm teaching a reading lab where some students said they signed up because "I don't get to read much in my other classes and that's tragic and I want to fix it" and

static.klipy.com

Parks And Rec April Ludgate

ALT: Parks And Rec April Ludgate

020

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Sad for Jeff that he does not have a car to add a sticker or ten to.

010

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Obviously this is dependent on being able to have a class small enough that you can have that kind of dialogic discussion which excuse me i need to go scream in the supply closet.

130

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

It’s not shaming, but it does telegraph “hey this would be easier if you read next week” while also allowing for students for whom reading Does Not Work to have a different format for engaging.

120

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

If it’s a class as a whole I…have nightmares. If it’s individual students my approach has been to double down on expectations from them in discussion formats - basically prompting them to at least think on and ask questions about the questions and commentaries of other students.

130

Reposted by Os Keyes

A.R. Moxon @juliusgoat.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Hey, I’m just asking questions. Ignorant questions, bigoted questions, questions that have been repeatedly answered for many years. Sorry, but I’m not listening to answers right now; I’m far too busy asking questions. It’s called being intellectually curious.

5162721732

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

”intelligence is the ability to steer the future” is a tremendously convenient definition for them insofar as it naturalises and justifies vast concentrations of power. What a coincidence!

010

Reposted by Os Keyes

Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

some descriptive statistics here on the civility industrial complex on college campuses that I haven’t seen analyzed before www.uncivilcollective.org/resources

7943342

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Bringing my research interests together: this is also the origin story of the panoply of “experts” that right-wing orgs bring into court to create uncertainty around gender-affirming care.

0465

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Exactly what we’re seeing in AI in the life sciences: wine and dine a cluster of thinkers, then invite the ones who aren’t put off or critical to contribute to paid-off think tanks

115250

Reposted by Os Keyes

Kevin Gannon (now a Moo Deng fan account) @thetattooedprof.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

The Chronicle Review is just publishing Quillette's desk rejections now

423239

Reposted by Os Keyes

Yvonne Lam @yvonnezlam.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

read the thread

182

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

“Deadbeats with Live Betas” is one of those titles that I will leave to someone with tenure

030

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

amazing! Would love to hear all about it and happy to share materials once everything is wrapped up; we've got a big interview study going!

110

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Second talk went great except I forgot that the name of the big journal on the history of technology has Other Meanings and excitedly asked my co-presenter during the (recorded, live-streamed, Q&A) when we were "collaborating on doing something for ISIS". I am Definitely On Another Watchlist Now.

150

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

To paraphrase F.E. Smith, it’s amazing how thorough Marxian ethnographers can be cured through the application of a tenured HBS job

010

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

With the aid of Ed Hall! Those damn anthropologists, I dunno

021

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

events.berkeley.edu/bcnm/event/3... Anyone in the Bay, me and Jeff Nagy will be giving talks on AI and psychiatry and disability this evening (and one lucky attendee will get a free queer history relic!)

events.berkeley.edu

AI & Disability: A Roundtable Discussion feat. Jeff Nagy, Renée Cummings, and Os Keyes

Join BCNM for an AI and Disability roundtable feat.: Renee Cummings - AI, Data, and Tech Ethicist / Senior Fellow, Governance Studies, Brooki...

011

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I have no idea what you mean, it was simply the most natural abbreviation we came up with with no other implied meaning in mind 😇😂

020

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

high praise! Ooh how do you feel about Lakoff!

120

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

There seems to be an epistemic distinction at the heart of this, perhaps: I do not think that p(doom) and extreme hypotheticals are a useful way about reasoning around what to do in the world.

130

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

i did an interview study of the people writing these papers and I found precisely 0 biologists who think there’s some obvious path through either the design process or, vitally, labbing, with the AI threat.

120

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Yup! And also for me the. Discontinuity, at the heart of it? If it’s so viable, why is “KYC regulations for gene synthesis” as far as we’ll go? Personally if I thought I’d found a tech that would kill everyone my recs would involve “not making that tech” (although we have a paper on that soon too)

071

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

you should see what we got from the next one! full planning docs including the information that one tab of the file of attendees for this very serious policymaking workshop was literally called “rich people”.

260

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

It is extremely strange to be having a paper on AI and biosecurity doing the rounds while I recover from a talk on uhhh 60s kidney dialysis resource allocation decisionmaking. I contain multitudes (and confuse the hell out of committees)

0100

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Now far be it from me that giving someone sixteen million dollars and then quitting to be in charge of those sixteen million dollars does not look like independent and thoughtful processes for ensuring neutral expertise is provided to the state but.

140

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Yeah OPP is responsible for their largest donation in 8 years - 8m dollars - with just ONE of their grants. They've given over 16m since 2023.

100

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Part of it is a cycling of personnel - or a laundering of it. Their VP during this period’s previous role? Grantmaker and program director at open philanthropy.

120

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

NTI also makes a biiig appearance in a lot of this. I need to finish my west coast talk tour so I can finish this up!

220

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Yeah the interview study conclusions on this are basically: WOT makes RAND double headcount, goes away at the same time Sloan stops funding biosafety research, and RAND goes ”okay so who DOES have money…”. I am turning into a political scientist and I don’t know how I feel about it.

140

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Oh we have an interview study about that I’m finishing up!!

020

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Okay but what they could do is awkwardly back me into a corner at a party and try and sell me on the metaverse and tbh I’d rather the Boeing Medal.

120

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

motto “like around and share out”

030

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

And: if the risk is plausible, and the authors genuinely and sincerely believe it, surely your conclusion is “degauss all of SF” not “have we tried voluntary disclosures??”

270

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Yeah every time someone asks what I’m working on I’m like “they‘re TAKING OVER THE GOVERNMENT WITH FACEBOOK MONEY”. I Gotta find a framing that doesn’t make me sound like I’m about to be found pantsless in my office yelling about black helicopters.

140

Os Keyes @okeyes.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

You will be shocked to know that when me and Nick first started working together we bonded over (in part) “isn’t Martin super cool???”

180