iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 29/09/2026

Jack Smith: "History teaches that the rule of law is rarely destroyed all at once. It's often weakened by attacks on the institutions and the public servants sworn to uphold it. Since January 2025, we have witnessed precisely such an effort."

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Anna Merlan @annamerlan.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

ALSO: Cyberselfish was born as an essay in Mother Jones! To celebrate the rerelease we’ve spiffed up the formatting, found the original art, and just generally made this and a followup piece look as shiny and new as they deserve. www.motherjones.com/politics/199...

motherjones.com

Cyberselfish

Silicon Valley, one of the country's biggest recipients of government largesse, would like to bite the hand that feeds it.

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Carolyn Dicey Jennings @cdj.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Why are people so confident that if the results of AI look like thinking that this means the thinking is being done by what’s in the box, rather than by what’s in the diagram as a whole? Are they just not considering this as a possibility? Don’t believe in the possibility of collective cognition?

Diagram borrowed from here: https://thinkfaith.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/aisystem-1024x853.jpg

It shows a box with the components of an AI system and then humans surrounding that box inputting data, designing algorithms, directing questions to the system, and assessing its outputs.

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Jérémie Beucler @jeremiebeucler.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

1/15 What do we actually do when we deliberate, and how does it change over time? New preprint with @wimdeneys.bsky.social : "Rhythm of Thought: Tracing the Dynamics of Deliberation in Reasoning". 🔗 doi.org/10.31234/osf... (yes, I like flashy titles 💅) A 🧵👇

Title page showing:

Rhythm of Thought: Tracing the Dynamics of Deliberation in Reasoning
Jérémie Beucler a,* and Wim De Neys a

a LaPsyDÉ, CNRS, Université Paris Cité, F-75005 Paris, France

Abstract

When an intuitive answer is uncertain, people are thought to engage in further reasoning. But what people actually do during this additional thinking, how it unfolds over time, and why it sometimes leads to better answers remain unclear. We scored think-aloud protocols with large language models to track, moment by moment, four possible functions of deliberation (generating candidate responses, justifying them, controlling intuitive responses, and regulating cognitive effort), together with expressed confidence. Deliberation showed a clear temporal organization: generation dominated early, whereas justification, control, and regulation became increasingly prominent as reasoning progressed. Correct responses involved more justification, control, and regulation than biased responses, and these evolving dynamics predicted accuracy for out-of-sample participants and items. Confidence and deliberation also showed reciprocal lagged associations: lower confidence predicted further generation, justification, and control, whereas regulation predicted subsequent increases in confidence. Deliberation, then, appears to involve not a single act of "thinking harder," but an evolving interplay of reasoning processes whose organization is linked to whether reasoning succeeds.

Keywords: deliberation; reasoning dynamics; verbal protocols; large language models; metacognition; dual-process theories

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Dr. S.A. Applin @anthropunk.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Hire Anthropologists

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Dr Ian McCormick @wokestudies.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Nearly 4m records of enslaved people in 20 former British colonies now searchable online “the most systematic set of archival documents we have on enslavement in the British Caribbean and British colonial world” www.theguardian.com/news/2026/se... #research #history #slavery #higherEd #edchat

theguardian.com

Nearly 4m records of enslaved people in 20 former British colonies now searchable online

Exclusive: Collection’s 300,000 pages record lives of enslaved people in countries including the Bahamas, Barbados, Jamaica, Mauritius, South Africa and Trinidad

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Luca @lucagalletti.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Still holds up today #MontyPython1975 IG: @thecinevoidclub www.instagram.com/thecinevoidc...

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Data Rescue Project #DataRescue @datarescueproject.org · 22/09/2026

The first keynote speaker of #iPRES2026, Sibyl Schaefer, has upped the meme game to ask: if we're in this intersection of of crises while still having to work, where do we go from here? and how do we get there together?

Venn diagram showing us in between having to go to work and the apocalypse

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Dr Ian McCormick @wokestudies.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

“As I have often said, England is in reality a despotism—this despotism consisting, not of an autocrat, but of an oligarchy—not of an individual, but of a few hundreds of aristocratic families.” --- G. W. M. Reynolds, The Necessity for the Ballot, Reynolds’s Newspaper, 22 June 1851.

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Juraj Medzihorsky @medzihorsky.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

A *fixed* effect. Another example of Slovakia's unusual population registration system at work, making its demographic stats challenging to compare, I'm guessing.

An Eurostat chart of Population change 1 January 2015-2025

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Jonathan Birch @birchlse.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

This is an amazing snapshot of consciousness science in 2026! My talk "To understand consciousness, study insects" - argues that our best chance of discovering the nature of consciousness within the next 50 years is through understanding the insect brain.

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Lauren Leek @laurenleek.eu · 10/08/2026

We have more data about ourselves than ever. So why is everything converging on the same? In my new post I use data on high streets, Billboard hits, a million films and my own AI personas to expose the algorithms behind the sameness and how to regulate them. laurenleek.substack.com/p/temperatur...

laurenleek.substack.com

Temperature Zero for Culture: Why Everything Is Starting to Look the Same

What 640 London shopping streets, 4,000 Billboard hits, a million films and synthetic AI personas tell us about why everything is flattening into sameness and how to regulate the algorithms behind it.

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Judith Beyer @judithbeyer.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Guten Morgen! Was lest ihr gerade und gern?

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David Gunkel @davidgunkel.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

It is publication day for my 19th book, "Understanding Artificial Intelligence" @politybooks.bsky.social. This one is an #AI primer for students in the humanities, social sciences and the arts. Available now in the UK and worldwide. US release will be 24 November 2026. tinyurl.com/5eucuxy5

tinyurl.com

Understanding Artificial Intelligence: A Critical Introduction for the Humanities and Social Sciences

Understanding Artificial Intelligence: A Critical Introduction for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Artificial intelligence is no longer confined to research and development in a handful of STEM di...

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Simon Columbus @simoncolumbus.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Our first speaker this week is Kasper Otten (WODC/Erasmus University Rotterdam): The co-occurrence of ingroup and outgroup prosociality across 121 societies Friday, September 18 15:00 UTC+2 (Vienna) / 9am NYT / 21 Beijing Sign up: list.ku.dk/postorius/li...

Abstract: In an increasingly interconnected world, prosociality across group boundaries becomes ever more important. Yet, a common premise in the behavioral and social sciences is that people are prosocial mainly toward their ingroup and not outgroups. So far, evidence for this premise comes mostly from studies in which people must choose between ingroup and outgroup prosociality, thereby precluding positive associations between the two types of prosociality. We study situations in which people make separate decisions regarding the ingroup and outgroup, allowing us to examine how ingroup and outgroup prosociality are related. Across six large-scale and cross-societal datasets spanning 743,402 individuals in 121 societies, we find a robust positive relationship between ingroup and outgroup prosociality. This relationship holds across societies, different group categorizations, and a diverse range of prosociality measures, including prisoner’s dilemmas, public good dilemmas, dictator games, and survey items on trust and tolerance. Although people are somewhat more prosocial toward their ingroup than the outgroup, those who are prosocial toward the ingroup also tend to be prosocial toward the outgroup. The results offer an optimistic message for prosociality across group boundaries. When people are not made to choose between the ingroup and outgroup, they are generally prosocial toward both.

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Kevin O’Neill @kevingoneill.github.io · 17/09/2026

New commentary! Are scientists and laypeople alike under persistent illusions of understanding? Shiffrin, Stigler, & Keil (2026) seem to think so. I argue this isn't the case w/ @sharonchungsl.bsky.social, Adam Harris, @davidlagnado.bsky.social & @singmann.bsky.social: rdcu.be/3swzbgH3ePva

rdcu.be

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Baptiste Hugot @baptistehugot.com · 15/09/2026

Au Royaume-Uni, une étude de l'Ofcom relève qu'1 adulte sur 5 utilise désormais des outils d'IA pour s'informer, et YouTube gagne rapidement du terrain sur Facebook en tant que plateforme de réseaux sociaux privilégiée pour s'informer. Intéressant à retenir.

ofcom.org.uk

One in five Brits using AI to keep up with news

One in five UK adults are now using AI tools such as ChatGPT to keep up to date with the latest news, according to Ofcom’s annual report on the nation’s news consumption habits.

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Reuters Institute @reutersinstitute.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Today's round-up of journalism stories around the world features insights on news use of Brits under 16, the tactics of Russian exiled media, and press freedom in Hong Kong, Nigeria and the West Bank. Click to read, share and subscribe www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-12...

linkedin.com

How 12-15s in the UK get their news

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Reuters Institute @reutersinstitute.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Out today. Our new report looks at how people define news, how that's changing and the factors shaping these changes. Some key findings in thread. It's based on: 1. media diaries and in-depth interviews in 🇦🇷 🇳🇴 🇬🇧 🇺🇸 2. online surveys in 🇦🇷 🇯🇵 🇳🇴 🇪🇸 🇬🇧 🇺🇸 reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/changing-def...

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Paul Harland @pabloredux.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

The end of a thread or... the start of something small?

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Yoïn van Spijk @yvanspijk.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

In a parallel universe, English might've had *thede instead of 'people', which is a borrowing from Old French 'pueple'. However, it could just as easily have been superseded by 'folk', which is what happened in Dutch with 'volk' and in German with 'Volk'. Both languages did away with 'diet':

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Adele Goldberg @adelegoldberg.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

very cool! Once their world extends beyond primary colors & shapes in a matrix to one w/ realistic scenes and situations incl social dynamics, will be esp cool to see how they extend meanings in new contexts, and ultimately develop a full range of constructions, almost as if they don't need UG

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Alison Fisk @alisonfisk.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

The Marine mosaic in the women’s changing room at the Central Baths in Herculaneum features Triton with a cherub and various sea creatures, including the spectacular octopus, dolphins and a cuttlefish.

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Paul Harland @pabloredux.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

"Perhaps the most striking finding, reliably reproduced across independent runs, is the behavioral divergence within the swarm." Despite largely sharing base weights etc, agents diverged into norm followers, breakers, etc. Latent priors, e.g. to get scientific credit, overcame orders to behave.

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Gavin Buckingham @drgbuckingham.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Pictorial cues to depth create a nice effect on this cabbage (found of Facebook)

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Paul Harland @pabloredux.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Every crowd has a silky lining.

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Matt Bors @mattbors.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

It was exactly ten years ago today, on my 33rd birthday, that I posted this comic online.

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Paul Harland @pabloredux.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

If this were only true, the public would've rejected being a mass consumer society. But I didn't, did I?

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Paul Harland @pabloredux.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

I'm late to this question but it still seems urgent to me.

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Alison Atkin @alisonatkin.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

I get it, yes, we need way more regulation and oversight (and no, I haven't read the report, just this article). But humans are making the AI. Humans are doing/using the AI. Humans are breaking these laws (which already exist). Hold humans accountable for their actions. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

bbc.co.uk

MPs and Lords call for new law to address AI threat to human rights

Existing laws are not equipped to address the risks to human rights being posed by artificial intelligence, UK politicians say.

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David Gunkel @davidgunkel.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

I call this "The Last Man Complex." And I will be talking about it (and my essay that develops the concept) at the Curran Symposium on the topic of Mary Shelley’s "The Last Man" (1826) that will be taking place at @notredame.bsky.social 24-25 September 2026. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

theatlantic.com

The Thrill of Wanting AI to Destroy the World

An Anthropic researcher quit his job because he believes AI will destroy humanity. His story is going viral because so many others want to believe too.

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Maria Antoniak @mariaa.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

The project that started my whitespace obsession... #EMNLP2025 While we've all been worrying about tokenizers, lurking in the background has been the preprocessing *before* tokenization. Poems break standard HTML-to-text linearization systems, and we find that multimodal models aren't a solution.

arxiv.org

so much depends / upon / a whitespace: Why Whitespace Matters for Poets and LLMs

Whitespace is a critical component of poetic form, reflecting both adherence to standardized forms and rebellion against those forms. Each poem's whitespace distribution reflects the artistic choices ...

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John Self @john-self.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

‘Allow me to put the record straight,’ she wrote to The Times letters page. ‘I am 46, and have been for some years past.’

When Brookner won the Booker Prize, she became a public figure, which led to one uncomfortable experience.
Before publishing her debut three years earlier, Brookner had altered her date of birth in the directory Who's Who from 1928 to 1938. After her Booker win, an eagle-eyed observer spotted the change and informed the press.
Private Eye (which referred to her winning novel as A Stroke du Luck) observed that 'nothing, it seems, can be more rejuvenating than winning the Booker Prize'. When the story was also covered in the Times, Brookner put pen to paper. 'Allow me to put the record straight, she wrote to their letters page. 'I am 46, and have been for some years past?

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Paul Harland @pabloredux.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

If your history wasn't recorded live and isn't still available unedited, it might be wrong...

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Paul Harland @pabloredux.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

"Nativist producerist deservism" - coming for an election near you! (In the UK, under Starmer, the Labour government clearly hadn't got their heads round this, while the Conservative opposition seems to have gone off its head. Will things improve with a change in PM? They'd better!)

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Ancestral Enquiries - Tony Smith 🌳 @ancestralenq.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

The Northern underground line extension to Morden celebrates its 100th birthday with a treasure hunt. The stations of South Wimbledon, Colliers Wood, Tooting Broadway, Tooting Bec & Balham were designed by architect, Charles Holden & built in a Modernist style. 👇 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

bbc.co.uk

Northern line extension to Morden holds centenary treasure hunt

The extension to Morden opened in 1926 and marked a new era of London Underground architecture.

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Paul Harland @pclh-blot.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Terrible poll invites great answers (in the quotes and comments). You can tell it's a wind-up from "Britons".

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

1) Everyone who quits big tech then bigs it up should disclose tech stocks they & their household own. 2) Is there a name for the derangement that comes from proximity to wildly disproportionate power and money? 3) "Displacement" is the name for thinking AI is a bigger threat than climate crisis.

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Paul Harland @pabloredux.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Nice idea. Dismembered, but not 'armless, by design.

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Paul Harland @pabloredux.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

A year later, am sorting boxes again, still finding photographs amongst the piles of paper.

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