Madalina Busuioc

I was happy to sign this scientific consensus statement on bias and discrimination in AI.

www.aibiasconsensus.org

Gigantische opkomst bij estafettestaking op Radboud Universiteit Duizenden mensen verzamelden zich donderdag op de campus van de Radboud Universiteit voor een estafettestaking tegen de aangekondigde onderwijsbezuinigingen van 1,2 miljard euro. Op spandoeken en bord...

www.gld.nl/nieuws/82835...

Dutch pension fund ABP sells all Alphabet and Meta shares, CEO tells newspaper FD ABP, the Netherlands' largest pension fund, has sold its shares in tech companies Meta and Alphabet , its CEO told Dutch newspaper FD in an interview published on Monday.

💥The Netherlands' largest pension fund, has sold its shares in Tesla, Meta, and Alphabet (Google). The fund with US $569 billion equivolent in assets is "directing more money to companies and projects that help to improve society and the environment." #Divest

www.reuters.com/markets/euro...

It may not be cool or hip in some circles, but we legitimately do need a massive amount of people to run for office.

Flood the school boards, councils, county seats, state legislatures, Congress, etc.

Big changes at the top happen when the ground shifts at the bottom. And that can start now.

Most Western governments and politicians right now have no idea what they are up against. Our infrastructure and our alliances are completely outdated.

"America has entered an existential era for the future of democracy. The threats... are now immediate, serious, and mounting by the day."

I am one of more than 750 political scientists who signed this statement "express[ing] our urgent concern about threats to the basic design of American government and democracy" drive.google.com/file/d/1lGk2...

Vance’s grotesqueness aside, the whole thing is one of the most horrific acts of betrayal ever committed by a democratic state against another. Just a moral abomination and a permanent stain on everyone who supports it

America is abandoning Ukraine, abandoning Europe, and abandoning the cause of democracy and self-determination across the world.

Government’s wins are often invisible: Systems that avoid plane crashes; alliances that avert war; surveillance that prevent pandemics.

Government wins are often *the avoidance of loss.*

So how do we tell the story of the destruction of government? The story of future losses *not* averted?

What these nihilistic vandals are doing to dismantle science & medicine—generations of expertise & public service & life improving benefits—is cultural revolution level national self harm. No foreign foe could inflict such brutal damage & senseless suffering on US so fast & effectively & unresisted.

Journal of European Public Policy

▶️ Saar Alon-Barkat and @mbusuioc.bsky.social put agency independence and regulatory credibility to the test 👇

Perfect timing given a vaccine denier is about to be appointed Health Secretary in the Trump administration.

Dutch universities will go on strike! Against the 1.3 billion cuts!

March 10: Leiden University
March 11: Utrecht University
March 13: University Nijmegen
March 17: University of Amsterdam
March 20: Maastricht University
March 27: VU Amsterdam
April 10: Tilburg University

@woinactie.bsky.social

Automating Democracy: AI Use Between Social Justice and Social Control

The CFP for our @ecreacomdem.bsky.social section conference is open until Jan 31! Still plenty of time to submit your 250 word abstracts! We have an exciting line-up of keynotes by @snatale.bsky.social & @mbusuioc.bsky.social & other events; all info here: automatingdemocracy.wordpress.com

Automating Democracy: AI Use Between Social Justice and Social Control

📢CFP ComDem #ECREA conference "Automating Democracy: #AI Use Between #SocialJustice & Social Control"
📍Erasmus uni Rotterdam
📅22-23 May
⏳Deadline Jan 15
Guest speakers: @snatale.bsky.social & @mbusuioc.bsky.social
Discount registration fees available for PhDs & students!
tinyurl.com/5k3exu3d

Romanian court cancels presidential election amid Russian influence fears Constitutional court throws Romanian politics into turmoil, 2 days before runoff vote was due to take place.

🚨 BREAKING: Romania’s top constitutional court has annulled the country’s presidential election, after security services warned the vote had been distorted by a mass Russian influence campaign to favor a far-right candidate.

Events Events

We are looking forward to Monday's workshop on societal resilience
www.lse.ac.uk/accounting/c...

Despite some high-profile claims to the contrary, don’t be fooled: FOIA and opening the algorithmic black box has never mattered more to any meaningful accountability of AI use across public services: www.lighthousereports.com/investigatio...
👇

I do a lot of FOIA and I’m used to stonewalling. But Sweden surprised me. After 3 years of telling me no, a high level official at Sweden’s welfare agency Försäkringskassan accidentally left me on cc, writing “Now we must hope that we are done with him.”

Comme work with us at #University_of_Lausanne ! We are looking for a postdoc in the fields of #PublicAdministration and #AI The call for the job is here: tinyurl.com/346adhhz Please share widely. Happy to answer any questions.

reads: The Ways AI Decides How Low-Income People Work, Live, Learn, and Survive The use of artificial intelligence, or AI, by governments, landlords, employers, and other powerful private interests restricts the opportunities of low-income people in every basic aspect of life: at home, at work, in school, at government offices, and within families. AI technologies derive from a lineage of automation and algorithms that have been in use for decades with established patterns of harm to low-income communities. As such, now is a critical moment to take stock and correct course before AI of any level of technical sophistication becomes entrenched as a legitimate way to make key decisions about the people society marginalizes. Employing a broad definition of AI, this report represents the first known effort to comprehensively explain and quantify the reach of AI-based decision-making among low-income people in the United States. It establishes that essentially all 92 million low-income people in the U.S. states—everyone whose income is less than 200 percent of the federal poverty line—have some basic aspect of their lives decided by AI.

"92 million low-income people in the U.S. states—everyone whose income is less than 200 percent of the federal poverty line—have some basic aspect of their lives decided by AI"

www.techtonicjustice.org/reports/ines...

this is a damning report