iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Started at TUM Campus Heilbronn this week, and my kids immediately claimed the welcome swag. Top picks: the Traubenzucker (dextrose candies) and gummy bears, which powered them running up and down trains and platforms for the entire 11-hour journey back to Berlin. Sweet ideas really do start here!

0111

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 16h

Yeah, we also had a really eye-opening cookie-baking experience in November...

070

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 29/09/2026

30 years of risk literacy research asks: can people compute what a positive test means? LLMs do that now. The open question is whether people notice the structure when a problem arrives unlabeled. How do we test this pattern recognition without cueing it? wildetruth.substack.com/p/the-answer...

010

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 25/09/2026

INSPECT-SR recommends two independent assessors. Looking for a second rater (trial statistics or perinatal clinical background welcome), with co-authorship on the paper. Replies or DMs open.

100

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 23/09/2026

Faithfully swallowing a sugar pill nearly halved your death rate in the Coronary Drug Project. Except obviously it didn't. That's the artifact my favorite baby-sex-diet paper is built on. wildetruth.substack.com/p/gestation-...

140

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 14/09/2026

Replicating the Institute for Replication post be like

000

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 14/09/2026

I invented a Bayesian motorcycle. Or so Reviewer 1 suggested. Behavior Research Methods has accepted the paper: Bayesian reasoning problems as a capability-gap test for LLM contamination in online samples. 57% of pilot 2 got 5/5, vs. a ~24% human ceiling. wildetruth.substack.com/p/i-invented...

010

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 07/09/2026

New in Internet Policy Review: "Chat Control: One Law, Two Problems": policyreview.info/articles/new... Known-material scanning has an answer sheet, making its errors measurable. Searching for uncatalogued material has none — and none can be supplied. wildetruth.substack.com/p/one-law-tw...

000

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 04/09/2026

Challah continues to please. Practice round challah for Rosh Hashanah next week. With jumbo raisins and less egg wash. I think next time it will have cinnamon because you can't have raisin bread without cinnamon?

010

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 01/09/2026

P.S. I study this failure for a living and still built it into my own experiment without noticing. ("This is fine" meme art here from Tyler Comrie / *The Atlantic*: www.theatlantic.com/culture/arch...)

000

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 01/09/2026

Van Gogh copied Hiroshige line for line before he could paint like that. Most people can't see the same problem in a new context until someone points. That's why we keep falling for the same screening disaster. Also, you have to read Gick & Holyoak 1983! wildetruth.substack.com/p/how-to-ste...

100

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 26/08/2026

More on Good–Turing estimation of unknown stuff. Rarity is common! Two methods read the same table: Good-Turing estimates the mass of the unseen, Chao bounds the count. Neither can tell you the shape of the tail. And that's structural, not a data problem. wildetruth.substack.com/p/good-turin...

001

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 23/08/2026

Weekend cooking continues with gluten-free pumpkin pies by popular request. Older offspring dug up the canned pumpkin puree Grandma brought ages ago, made demands. Poured much vanilla extract, also from Grandma. In our defense, it's already chilly and gray here this morning.

000

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 22/08/2026

Can confirm the wetter-hands-for-less-sticky-dough trick also works on the gf dinner roll version, which is then amenable to cookie cutter fun.

020

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 21/08/2026

Controversial hot take: bread is good. Also, the Internet told me to make the gluten free dough and my hands **wetter** to make it less sticky so it would braid, which is objectively unhinged advice. It worked. So I guess now I have to trust the Internet about everything forever. [Nomnomnom.]

120

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 14/08/2026

Readings on transfer problems across epidemiology, screening, language, causal inference, and learning. h/t @stevensenior.bsky.social for Geoffrey Rose and @benkawam.bsky.social for Anna Wierzbicka. wildetruth.substack.com/p/science-vi...

150

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 07/08/2026

Feeling pretty good about my Führungszeugnis!

020

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 05/08/2026

Murphy's "closed-universe searches" (Cal L Rev 2026) fills a real gap in 4A doctrine. But the "almost certainly the perp is in the pool" assumption is load-bearing — and it's doubly confounded by base-rate reasoning. californialawreview.org/print/closed-universe-searches

100

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 30/07/2026

Hey, the known/unknown CSAM (child sexual abuse material) mass AI scanning distinction is a Good-Turing distinction. Bletchley, 1953. You can estimate how much you haven't seen. You can't identify an instance of it. Chat Control 2.0 needs the second one. wildetruth.substack.com/p/the-knownu...

041

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 13/07/2026

Bonus: the European Commission's reported "false positive rate" is actually a false discovery rate. wildetruth.substack.com/p/in-the-eu-...

100

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 13/07/2026

The EU's long-running Chat Control fight is really a case study in mass screening. Known CSAM scanning can work because we have an answer sheet (known hashes to compare against). Unknown CSAM scanning can't: no answer sheet, so false positives swamp the true positives.

100

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 28/06/2026

How to fit an entire bottle of coconut extract into a cake in six easy steps! 1. make cake 2. make icing 3. lick spoons 4. what? it's too hot for counting 5. ... 6. profit!!!

010

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 26/06/2026

Why does breastfeeding research keep reassuring us "breast is best"? The moms it fails most were never in the sample. Two biases, one loose label — confounding on maternal health, and the selection bias that hides missing moms. h/t @guidobiele.bsky.social wildetruth.substack.com/p/missing-moms

130

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 25/06/2026

29°C at 10 and the pansies disagree. (They were freshly dead-headed just last night!)

000

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 22/06/2026

New post applying my causal framework for mass screenings to the firm: wildetruth.substack.com/p/the-firms-... Features - a "95%-accurate" fraud/AML filter whose alerts run 99.6% innocent, - a new Rarity Roulette AML preset showing the carnage, & - the three other pathways we have to worry about...

100

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 12/06/2026

Chat Control's final trilogue: June 29. The "win" (no mandatory scanning of encrypted messages) hides two quieter losses: risk-mitigation scanning + mandatory age verification. Encryption survives. Anonymity doesn't. Paper update: wildetruth.substack.com/p/encryption...

110

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 03/06/2026

Aww, herzlichen Glückwunsch! 🥹 Die Vorfreude der großen Geschwister ist das Schönste. Alles Liebe und Gesundheit der ganzen Familie!

120

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 08/05/2026

Validation and transportability are different problems. Some mass screenings may be unvalidatable in principle. h/t @p-hunermund.com for the convo + Mooij/Forré/Magliacane pointers I'm still chasing. wildetruth.substack.com/p/validate-me

031

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 29/04/2026

New methods for estimating effects of mass screenings for low-prevalence problems account for time better than ever. But also raise open questions about mechanisms. Like, is colonoscopist quality a facet of accuracy heterogeneity or strategic behavior? wildetruth.substack.com/p/when-bette...

010

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 17/04/2026

AI-assisted colonoscopy may degrade the very accuracy it's meant to support when experts rely on it, lose skill, and then don't have access. This appears to be both a strategic and information effect: wildetruth.substack.com/p/the-deskil... Also, my kids' art is clearly the best part of this post

030

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 13/04/2026

Read Wanda Gág's translation of the Grimm Brothers' "Six Servants" to the kids last night, and now I can't stop fantasizing about the Internet quiz version. Which servant are you? 🐷 The Fat One 🦒 The Long One 👁️ The Looker 👂 The Listener 🎯 Shatter Eyes 🥶🔥 Frosty-hot (Woodcuts! 1936.)

000

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 08/04/2026

It's hard out here for a rogue methodologist ninja. Wrote a new proof; no constituency. Known CSAM scanning: this could work. Unknown content scanning: this backfires, undermining child safety. EU just sunsetted the former. Trilogues continue on the latter. wildetruth.substack.com/p/an-inconve...

000

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 05/04/2026

Oh YeS oH yEs Roses are red eggs are dyed hide and hide find and seek eek grin eek!!

000

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 04/04/2026

Oh yes oh yes Roses are red violets are blue hyacinths are smelly spring is, too!

010

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 31/03/2026

Yo dawg heard you like worrying about the implications of Bayes rule in mass screenings for low-prevalence problems. But have you tried worrying about intention-to-treat vs per-protocol estimates? Let's frolic thru the latest in target trial emulation! wildetruth.substack.com/p/its-the-an...

1152

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 29/03/2026

Hash-matching for known child sexual abuse material (CSAM), aka Chat Control 1.0: doable ✓ Mass AI scanning for unknown CSAM/ Chat Control 2.0: not ✗ Privacy advocates: 😭 mass AI scanning can work?! Child safety advocates: 😭 mass AI scanning can't work?! Me: yes, these are different problems

000

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 18/03/2026

A new crypto paper shows how to evade mass AI scanning for child sexual abuse images (CSAM) during ongoing EU policy debates about different implementations of such scanning. Science should serve the public interest, and this doesn't. wildetruth.substack.com/p/when-secur...

010

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 13/03/2026

Meanwhile, in the corner at a "just add Bayes!" party...

040

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 13/03/2026

What's going on this week in mass screenings for low-prevalence problems? EU Chat Control trilogues, a US con law perspective on "closed universe searches," and a tentatively hopeful UK hepatitis C screening proposal. wildetruth.substack.com/p/mass-scree...

001

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 10/03/2026

The EU votes tomorrow on mass AI scanning for known child abuse images. I support the sunsetting program. I'm also publishing a preprint suggesting its more expansive sister proposal, still being debated this summer, would catastrophically backfire. wildetruth.substack.com/p/the-eu-par...

000

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 07/03/2026

The nights remain cold, but the days are sunny and warm in Berlin at long last. Fast responders, the sprinkle blossoms are already blooming.

000

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 07/03/2026

Sorry just realized the opening post does not contain a meme and I regret the error. False flags for everyone!

111

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 05/03/2026

My parents got me this science chick necklace a few Christmases ago, and now that I finally wear it, man on the street says I have artist vibes. The math → art pipeline is real. Fibonacci! 🌀

080

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 23/02/2026

Never fear, it's LOAD-BEARING turtles all the way down! Schölkopf & co (h/t @p-hunermund.com) on the dangers of simplifying for DAGs, Hardt & co on performative power & how classification IS causal modeling, & a cool study on how much scaffolding matters. wildetruth.substack.com/p/scaffoldin...

020

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 21/02/2026

That is, the graph encodes causal relationships, but has no notation for whether your variables are valid abstractions. Aggregated LDL and HDL in one cholesterol variable is the classic example.

340

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 21/02/2026

According to Rubenstein et al 2017 ("Causal Consistency of Structural Equation Models"; h/t @p-hunermund.com), DAGs have the same blind spot on another level. www.auai.org/uai2017/proc...

130

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 21/02/2026

In *Causality,* Judea Pearl argues that SEM's founders kept causal meaning in their heads, but didn't encode it explicitly in the notation — and later generations lost track of that causal intent and correct reading.

1100

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 20/02/2026

Just got Judea Pearl's new book, and it contains this unexpected gem of wisdom about graduation ceremonies as essential rituals to embed accomplishment in community, enabling meaningful application. Pearl confesses he skipped all three of his own graduation ceremonies and regretted it.

150

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 19/02/2026

"part of the peculiar beauty of *human* excellence just *is* its vulnerability… Human excellence is... something whose very nature it is to be in need... (Martha Nussbaum, *The Fragility of Goodness*, p. 2)." toleratedindividuality.wordpress.com/wp-content/u...

030

Vera Wilde @verawil.de · 13/02/2026

A validation problem solution rainbow across screenings: 🟢 HIV testing: fully solved 🟡 Colonoscopy: largely solved 🟠 Mammography: persistently open 🔴 Security (polygraphs, Chat Control): unsolvable github.com/verawilde/equilibrium-screening

000