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Seth Finnegan

@sethf.bsky.social
1.2K followers 649 following 368 posts

Marine paleobiologist & geologist @ UC Berkeley Integrative Biology & UC Museum of Paleontology

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Reposted by Seth Finnegan
Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 4h
Faculty curator position in vertebrate paleontology! Great opportunity to work with outstanding colleagues at LSUMNS: lsu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/LSU/jo...
lsu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com
Assistant Professor
All Job Postings will close at 12:01a.m. CST (1:01a.m. EST) on the specified Closing Date (if designated). If you close the browser or exit your application prior to submitting, the application progre...
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Steve Brusatte @stevebrusatte.bsky.social · 9h
🚨Postdoc job alert: Come work with my paleontology & evolution group in Edinburgh! Researcher in Cognitive Evolution Over Deep Time. You'll study how brains & neurons have evolved over time, and predict neuron count in extinct species! www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DTC355/p...
jobs.ac.uk
Postdoctoral Research Associate in Cognitive Evolution over Deep Time at The University of Edinburgh
Apply for the Postdoctoral Research Associate in Cognitive Evolution over Deep Time role on jobs.ac.uk, the top job board for academic positions in higher education. View details and apply now.
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Prof Ian Hall @ianhall.bsky.social · 8h
23,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 joules. That’s the amount of heat the oceans absorbed in 2025. A number so huge it’s almost meaningless…until you realise it’s roughly 40× humanity’s annual energy use. The ocean is buying us time. We’re running out of it. www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
World’s oceans absorbed record heat equal to 40 times annual global energy use
The injection of thermal energy comes amid an increasing rise in sea levels and continuing acidification
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Seth Finnegan @sethf.bsky.social · 18h
The UC President's Postdoctoral Fellowship program is accepting applications until November 1. If you're a finishing Ph.D student or recent grad interested in coming to Berkeley to work on a project in paleobiology/paleoecology/geobiology please feel free to reach out! ppfp.ucop.edu/info/
ppfp.ucop.edu
University of California | President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program
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Marcus Luther @marcusluther.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
"The goal was to destabilize U.S. educational infrastructure and carve out a large space for reactionary indoctrination within it." This is 100% part of the story—of Alpha School's momentum and education overall—and far too often gets left out. Very glad it's appropriately hammered here.
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James Goodwin @jamesgoodwin.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
"The public won’t even notice until things are gone. A road becomes a line on a map. A drilling lease becomes an economic statistic. A weakened regulation becomes a press release celebrating deregulation." www.explorebigsky.com/dispatches-f...
explorebigsky.com
Dispatches from the Wild: Project 2025’s assault on the wild | Explore Big Sky
By Benjamin Alva Polley EBS COLUMNIST Project 2025 was never merely a campaign document. It was a blueprint for dismantling the laws, agencies and scientific safeguards that protect America’s air, wat...
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Emey the (redacted) @meyerson.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
He is bad at the economy. $5,000 per American adult = $1,200 billion. Current 2026 budget deficit = $2,100 billion. There's no tariffs windfall. $5,000 outlay would require borrowing it all. This increases interest rates and consumer demand. Both are inflationary. This is how countries collapse.
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Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 27/09/2026
Four days ago, a scientist was surprised by the news that Anthropic discovered new virus genes for making DNA. He says he’s been studying them for years—and feeding his data to Anthropic’s AI as part of his own research. Coincidence? Here’s my story. nyti.ms/3VSWayc
nyti.ms
Did Anthropic’s A.I. Really Make a Scientific Discovery on Its Own? (Gift Article)
An expert at the University of Copenhagen said his team had been sharing its research with the company’s A.I. model, Claude, and that its new finding matched their work.
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Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬 @daveyfwright.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
"Our results highlight the limits of using extant, species-depauperate lineages to infer deep ancestors and the importance of fossils and other evidence that more directly sample early evolutionary history."
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Joseph W. Brown @josephwb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Early-diverging lineages provide little information about ancestors academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan... From @phylieu.bsky.social @sinkingdiatom.bsky.social @omearabrian.bsky.social
academic.oup.com
Early-diverging lineages provide little information about ancestors
Abstract. Large phylogenetic trees are often unbalanced near the root, with a species-depauperate lineage sister to a far more species-rich clade. The spec
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Colin Carlson @colincarlson.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
What's behind this tidal wave of epidemics? In the largest study ever conducted on emerging infectious diseases, we show that the popular explanation - "our relationship with nature is out of balance" - doesn't hold up. Out now in Nature, after half a decade of work: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
The anthropogenic fingerprint on emerging infectious diseases - Nature
Emerging infectious disease outbreak risks are ubiquitous worldwide, and highest in landscapes where people, livestock and fragmented natural ecosystems coexist, but detection and data ...
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Moi Expósito-Alonso (MOILAB) @mexpositoalonso.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Fantastic Asst Professor positions open across multiple UC Berkeley departments @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social Plant/Algae/Microb aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05522 Plant/Env aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05382 Gen/Dev/Evo aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05481 Eco aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05489
aprecruit.berkeley.edu
Assistant Professor – Plant or Macroalgae-Associated Microbial Communities and Interactions - Plant and Microbial Biology
University of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now!
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Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
It really is striking how many authoritarian states have ended up in this exact same place, where the leader seizes control of scientific inquiry. Lysenkoism in the Soviet Union, Aryan Physics in the Third Reich, Great Leap Forward (also related to Lysenko) in China.
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Michael Baym @baym.lol · 13/09/2026
Ten years ago Tami, Roy, and I released a movie we made of antibiotic resistance evolving in real time. I thought maybe a couple thousand people tops would see it. I couldn't have imagined it would be seen millions of times, and be taught from middle school through the graduate level worldwide
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Vought's goals are a) to reduce scientific funding generally, and b) especially to universities. Political appointees within agencies can already block spending. This would centralize this power in the White House. By requiring unanimity, it would ensure far less money will be spent on science.
The proposed board would include Bhattacharya and Vought and would be required to reach unanimous decisions on grant awards, the officials said.

The arrangement would give Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, a direct role in determining how the nation’s largest biomedical research agency distributes its $48 billion in congressionally-appropriated money.
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Politico @politico.com · 20/09/2026
Trump asked budget chief to draft order bringing health research funding under his control
dlvr.it
Trump asked budget chief to draft order bringing health research funding under his control
The move came after the NIH director refused Trump’s request to cut Harvard grants in an Oval Office meeting.
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Emey the (redacted) @meyerson.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Any government that prioritized protecting its citizens and strengthening society would ban this shit.
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Frank Melzner @frankmelzner.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Our lab is hiring a long-term Postdoc in marine animal physiology (5 years). Great chance to work with us phenotyping mussels & to develop your own research program on questions of choice. Excellent lab and aquaristics facilities and easy access to European seas: jobs.univie.ac.at/job/Postdoc-...
jobs.univie.ac.at
Postdoc marine evolutionary physiology (University Assistant)
Postdoc marine evolutionary physiology (University Assistant)
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Noah Whiteman @nkwhiteman.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Reminder that the deadline for the tenure track position in my division in MCB is one month away (October 19), as you’ll see it is a wide open search in terms of area within and across fields of genetics, genomics, evolution, and development. Please circulate.
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Bernard Kim @bernardkim.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Princeton EEB is running a very broad faculty search at the Assistant Professor level. Please consider applying to join us! This is a wonderful, collaborative, cohesive department with diverse interests and amazing colleagues. apply.interfolio.com/193474
apply.interfolio.com
Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio
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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Third sentence of the abstract starts with: "Conventional research papers require readers to understand ..." Indeed they do.
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Dmitri Petrov @petrovadmitri.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
We are searching for an Assistant Professor in Evolutionary Biology! Looking for colleagues asking fundamental questions relating to evolutionary processes and drivers of evolutionary patterns. If you think it is you, please do apply! And please repost. facultypositions.stanford.edu/jobs/assista...
facultypositions.stanford.edu
Assistant Professor in Evolutionary Biology - Stanford University, California, United States
The Department of Biology at Stanford University seeks applicants for a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Evolutionary Biology. A successful candidate will conduct research that asks fundamental que...
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Christina Larson @christina-larson.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
I’m excited to share my latest story for @science.org—on fossil discoveries in south China that offer new clues about mysterious ancient human ancestors. I’ve visited this karst region of Yunnan a few times, where ancient humans hunted water buffalo 150,000 years ago www.science.org/content/arti...
science.org
Denisovans were strong and agile hunters, fossil elbow and primitive tools suggest
The first arm bone fragment from these mysterious human relatives was found near cutting instruments and animal remains in southwestern China
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Kyle Clark @kylec.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Imagine a job where, faced with a difficult decision, you could just stop going to work www.nbcnews.com/politics/con...
nbcnews.com
House to leave early, punting Hegseth impeachment vote until after November elections
House Republican leaders cancelled votes planned for Thursday. Members won’t return to Washington until Nov. 9.
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Emey the (redacted) @meyerson.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Closed economies that don't trade with anyone famously lead the world in prosperity.
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John R. Platt @johnrplatt.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Awful: Trump Administration Moves to Gut a Core Endangered Species Protection "...the accidental killing or injury of an animal would no longer be considered illegal; only actions specifically intending to target an animal would." www.nytimes.com/2026/09/16/c...
nytimes.com
Trump Administration Moves to Gut a Core Endangered Species Protection
An internal memo reinterprets the law so that only the intentional killing of animals, not collateral harm, is illegal.
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Kelly Zamudio @kzutaustin.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
TWO JOBS in our department #IntegrativeBiology at #UTAustin! Evolutionary Biology and Organismal Mechanistic Processes, both very widely defined. Come join us! Application info here: apply.interfolio.com/193270
UT Austin logo
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Kees van der Leun @sustainable2050.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Glaciologist @matthias-huss.bsky.social shows that the centre of the Great Aletsch glacier in Switzerland (the biggest in the Alps) lost 6 meters(!) of thickness just this summer. "No words...", he adds on LinkedIn.
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iDiv Biodiversity Research @idiv-research.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
🌍 iDiv and the @uni-jena.de are hiring a Postdoctoral Researcher (f/m/d) in Macroevolution & Macroecology. 🕒 Full-time (40h/week) or part-time (minimum 75%) 📅 Start: 1 Dec 2026 💼 Fixed-term: 3 years 💶 Salary: up to E13 (TV‑L) ⏳ Deadline: 30 Sept 2026 www.idiv.de/career/job-o...
idiv.de
Job Openings
Explore exciting career opportunities at iDiv. Join a modern, international, and innovative research centre in the heart of Germany.
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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 15/09/2026
I still think there is not a good awareness out there of just how much the AI industry plans to run off fossil fuels. This is a *conservative* estimate that excludes many planned projects. These are weak plans and they can be stopped. au.finance.yahoo.com/news/us-data...
Investing.com -- Data centers in the United States are projected to consume more natural gas than most countries within the next ten years, according to a new outlook from BloombergNEF.

Natural gas consumption for electricity generation at data centers is forecast to increase by 15 billion cubic feet per day in the decade ending in 2035, even when accounting for planned projects that may never be completed. This volume exceeds the current gas consumption of all nations except China, Russia, Iran and the United States, based on data from the US Energy Information Administration. The projection is more than double BloombergNEF's December forecast of 6.9 billion cubic feet per day.
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Brian J. Enquist @bjenquist.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Data Scientist job - Forest Global Earth Observatory (ForestGEO), Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), data-management, computational, and bioinformatics assignments supporting research in tropical biology, ecology, and forestry. #ecologyjobs 🧪🌐🌾 trustcareers.si.edu/postings/8a2...
trustcareers.si.edu
Data Scientist (Bioinformatics), IS- 1560- 11
Job Opening: Data Scientist (Bioinformatics), IS- 1560- 11 at Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.
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Ryan J. Reilly “paints a vivid and urgent portrait of… disarray” @ryanjreilly.com · 14/09/2026
DHS watchdog finds immigrants held at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ in outdoor cages the size of phone booths
nbcnews.com
DHS watchdog finds immigrants held at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ in outdoor cages the size of phone booths
The cages, called “calming areas,” were used for detainees to “reflect on their behavior choices, manage their emotions, reduce stress and practice self-directed behavior,” according to the inspector ...
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Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
NEW: Once exceptionally rare, illegal deportations — in defiance of court orders or due to ICE screw-ups — are now a routine part of President Trump's mass deportation push. It happened 3 times this past week and more at least 30 times in recent months. www.politico.com/news/2026/09...
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Evan McMurry @evanmcmurry.theatlantic.com · 14/09/2026
A massive, important read from @anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu:
theatlantic.com
Empire of Grift
Far-right ideologues have transformed American foreign policy into a tool of private gain and antidemocratic reaction.
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C&EN (Chemical & Engineering News) @cenmag.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
So far, fewer than 10 of the hundreds of known human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) have been synthesized on a commercial scale and added to infant formulas. Plant biologist Patrick Shih of the University of California, Berkeley, is determined to change that. #chemsky 🧪
cen.acs.org
This start-up wants to mimic human breast milk using plants
Patrick Shih cofounded Totality Biosciences to make human milk oligosaccharides for more-nutritious baby formula
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Emey the (redacted) @meyerson.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
I'm starting to think it is bad for the president and our government itself to have equity stakes in technologies that could kill us all www.nytimes.com/2026/09/13/u...
nytimes.com
As Fears of A.I. Catastrophe Magnify, Washington Stirs, but Mostly Slumbers
President Trump has been at the forefront of the “what-me-worry?” crowd, refusing to engage on how to balance the risks and rewards of A.I.
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Seth Finnegan @sethf.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Beautiful crisp and clear day for a bike ride in the Oakland hills
A panoramic view including wooded hills with houses, San Francisco Bay, the cities of Oakland and San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Mt. Tamalpais.
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Seth Finnegan @sethf.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Everyone had their own weird way of coping with the pandemic, and mine was photographing nudibranchs on the California coast. Fun to have been able to parlay that into a PNAS cover, and to have been part of such interesting work led by @isaacpesca.bsky.social & @drcraigmc.bsky.social! #nudibranch
A close-up of an aeolid nudibranch sea slug, Phidiana hiltoni, on a piece of kelp. The slug is translucent white with orange-banded rhinophores and gray cerata with pale orange tips.
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Karl Jacoby @karl-jacoby.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Such awful reporting--the Smithsonian charter, which dates to the 1840s, is designed to prevent the sort of political meddling that Trump is now attempting.
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Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 13/09/2026
This will be bad for: - the students - the research progress - the universities - the towns the universities are in - the companies hiring students - the states the universities are in - the national economy - national security - the country - the world
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The Neotoma Paleoecology Database @neotomadb.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
🧊🌋 Quaternary Field Trip Alert 2026 | Mono Basin, California, USA 🇺🇸 Friends of the Pleistocene (FOP) – 2026 Pacific Cell Field Trip 📍 Mono Basin & Long Valley Caldera, California 📅 2–4 October 2026 🏕️ Brown’s Owens River Campground 💰 Late Registration: US$90 fop.cascadiageo.org/field-trips/...
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Melissa Berke @melissaberke.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
I also recommend writing emails to J. Kundu and B. Stone if you didn’t like what you saw in this (www.nsf.gov/news/nsf-lea...). Tell them what you see in this doc that will not lead to advancements in science. Expressing your concerns to those high up is the only way to change things right now.
nsf.gov
NSF leadership in a new golden age of science
The U.S. National Science Foundation was established in 1950 to keep American discovery at the frontier. That mission has not changed. The science and technology ecosystem around it has...
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David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈 @whysharksmatter.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Two lawsuits seek to reverse the Trump administration’s moves to open the habitats of imperiled wildlife to commercial activities 🧪🌎 www.nytimes.com/2026/09/09/c...
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Chris Vagasky @coweatherman.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Public lands are public for a reason. They should not be stealing our public lands to let big tech firms build data centers.
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George Matsumoto @georgeimatsumoto.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
🧪📍🌊 🦑🍎 @mbarinews.bsky.social invites applications for in-person postdoctoral fellowships in the fields of biological, chemical, and physical oceanography, marine geology, and ocean engineering. Deadline to apply is 5pm PT on December 2, 2026. www.mbari.org/about/career...
mbari.org
Postdoc Fellowships • MBARI
Each year, MBARI invites applications for several in-person postdoctoral fellowships in the fields of biological, chemical, and physical oceanography, marine geology, and ocean engineering. MBARI also...
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Ross @rossengineer.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Really cannot overstate just how important it is to keep wildlands roadless. The human species needs to live within our own means and let wildlands remain wild. Our future on this planet depends on the viability of biomes & ecosystems everywhere. Please comment at the link below -
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The Palaeontological Association @thepalass.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Charnia & other late Ediacaran macrofossils preserved in turbiditic deposits of the Indreelva Member (Finnmark, Norway) onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #FossilFriday
Top left: Map of study localities (red circles) on the Varanger Peninsula, in relation to northern Europe (inset).
Top right: black and white photograph of the Kommagnes Charnia (TSGF 18952): a high-relief specimen embedded within a clay-rich turbidite; scale bar in lower right corner is 1 cm.
Bottom: Stratigraphic long (on the left) and photograph (main image) of part of the cliff from which the Kommagnes specimen was recovered, showing many horizontal layers of sediments. Scale on the left shows that the height of the section between the yellow lines is approximately 10 metres.
Blue rectangle at top centre is a cover image from the journal Palaeontology.
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Bob Kopp @bobkopp.net · 12/09/2026
Surprising no one, but still
aip.org
Science Agencies Pull ‘Political Interference’ Protections From Scientific Integrity Policies
NSF and the Department of Commerce have scrubbed references to the dangers of political interference in science from official agency policy documents.
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Harmit Singh Malik @harmitmalik.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
“…the push by AI companies to solve mathematical problems as a benchmark is detrimental to the science of mathematics, and to the mathematical community. The goals of the AI companies and the goals of the mathematical community are severely misaligned.“
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 11/09/2026
"...solving problems is only a tool and proxy for achieving the primary goal of conceptual understanding and insight. Forgetting this in the world of AI may turn the tool against the primary goal."
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