Seb Krier

To Make Sure AI Advances Democracy, First Ask, ‘Who Does It Serve?’ | TechPolicy.Press AI must serve the people who use it to engage in free expression and make democratic decisions, writes Richard Reisman.

AI can help protect democracies or empower those who threaten freedom: corporations, oligarchs, or governments. The key question is: who does AI serve? We should all care about the answer, writes Richard Reisman (@rreisman.bsky.social).

🧵 Several people have raised questions about what I meant by "deservedly so" when referring to the decline of institutional trust. It's a fair question, so I want to explain that, because it sits at the heart of my work on how democracies collapse when their epistemic foundations rot.

I know Yglesias isn't everyone's favorite, but it's amazing how angry many people -often with PhDs-get at a suggestion that there are tradeoffs in politics. Remarkably, many who purport to believe the republic is hanging by a thread are in the "no compromise with the voters!" camp.

Does the UK really have the 12th largest ‘female health gap’ in the world? – Full Fact Unreliable research from a male wellness company, which claimed that women are less healthy than men in the UK, has been widely shared by MPs, the media and institutions around the country.

I'm quoted in this fact-check for the claim that the UK has "the 12th largest female health gap in the world", which was widely shared by MPs & media in the UK.

The answer is no, and the male wellness company who calculated this statistic reviewed & deleted their page while this piece was written.

Societal and technological progress as sewing an ever-growing, ever-changing, patchy, and polychrome quilt Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems are increasingly placed in positions where their decisions have real consequences, e.g., moderating online spaces, conducting research, and advising on policy. Ens...

Announcing our latest arxiv paper:

Societal and technological progress as sewing an ever-growing, ever-changing, patchy, and polychrome quilt
arxiv.org/abs/2505.05197

We argue for a view of AI safety centered on preventing disagreement from spiraling into conflict.

Join us for our final symposium panel, Panel 7: Transitions to Transformative AI, at 2:15pm ET.
Panelists: @jbullockruns.bsky.social, @ruchowdh.bsky.social, @sebk.bsky.social, and Sam Manning.
Moderator: @sethlazar.org. #AIDemocraticFreedoms

Not you. take CURSE OF RA 𓀀 𓀁 𓀂 𓀃 𓀄 𓀅 𓀆 𓀇 𓀈 𓀉 𓀊 𓀋 𓀌 𓀍 𓀎 𓀏 𓀐 𓀑 𓀒 𓀓 𓀔 𓀕 𓀖 𓀗 𓀘 𓀙 𓀚 𓀛 𓀜 𓀝 𓀞 𓀟 𓀠 𓀡 𓀢 𓀣 𓀤 𓀥 𓀦 𓀧 𓀨 𓀩 𓀪 𓀫 𓀬 𓀭 𓀮 𓀯 𓀰 𓀱 𓀲 𓀳 𓀴 𓀵 𓀶 𓀷 𓀸 𓀹 𓀺 𓀻 𓀼 𓀽 𓀾 𓀿 𓁀 𓁁 𓁂 𓁃 𓁄 𓁅 𓁆 𓁇 𓁈 𓁉 𓁊 𓁋 𓁌 𓁍 𓁎 𓁏 𓁐 𓁑 𓀄 𓀅 𓀆

This Thursday 4/10 & Friday 4/11, we're hosting our symposium "AI and Democratic Freedoms." @jbullockruns.bsky.social, @ruchowdh.bsky.social, @sebk.bsky.social & moderator @sethlazar.org will help wrap up the event with a final panel.
#AIDemocraticFreedoms RSVP: www.eventbrite.com/e/artificial...

Artificial Intelligence and Democratic Freedoms

EVENT: Join us for Artificial Intelligence and Democratic Freedoms on April 10-11 at
@columbiauniversity.bsky.social & online. Hosted with Senior AI Advisor @sethlazar.org. Co-sponsored by the Knight Institute & @columbiaseas.bsky.social. Panel info in 🧵. RSVP: knightcolumbia.org/events/artif...

V kind of them! Haha well somewhat, it's hard to make the move... I'm considering maybe switching to blogging again

important 🚨

hey remember back in the day when we got to talk about esoteric cool stuff and not just endless "was it legal to leave nato by tweet", "is appointing the nazi whose face melted opening the ark to secretary of drone strikes allowed under FVRA" and "it is still bribery even if its paid in trumpcoins"

true

Many amoral 'useful geniuses' getting one-shotted by power-seeking Bad Guys. Hannah Arendt's 'banality of evil' is more relevant than ever, and it's sad how fragile values are and how quickly we can sleepwalk into dystopia. Here's to hoping that better angels of our nature win!

Call for submissions: Metascience and AI postdoctoral fellowship | Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Our mission is to make the world a better place through the advancement of scientific knowledge.

Sloan Foundation/UKRI postdoc on metascience and AI. For researchers in the social sciences & humanities who are interested in building a career in understanding the implications of AI for the science & research ecosystem. sloan.org/programs/dig...

Cool new reporting from @aylinwoodward.bsky.social on the ancient history of lead pollution - Roman silver smelting produced enough lead to lower population IQ by 3 points, potentially contributing to its decline. Hopefully we can eradicate the problem of lead exposure this century!

That might be the optimal strategy yes haha

perhaps I will finally have no choice but to touch grass

Yep I'm very close to leaving X now, not worth staying despite the better technical AI discourse there.

Beyond Privacy Trade-offs with Structured Transparency Successful collaboration involves sharing information. However, parties may disagree on how the information they need to share should be used. We argue that many of these concerns reduce to 'the copy ...

Yes I think to get the good version you need something like arxiv.org/abs/2012.08347

COPENHAGEN, Denmark, February 14, 2025 – Bavarian Nordic A/S (OMX: BAVA) announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved VIMKUNYA™ (Chikungunya Vaccine, Recombinant) for injection, the first virus-like particle (VLP) single-dose chikungunya vaccine in the U.S. for persons 12 years of age and older. The FDA approved VIMKUNYA under Priority Review, based on results from two phase 3 clinical trials which enrolled more than 3,500 healthy individuals 12 years of age and older. The studies met their primary endpoints, with results showing that 21 days after vaccination, the vaccine induced neutralizing antibodies in up to 97.8% of the vaccinated individuals and demonstrated a rapid immune response starting to develop within one week. The vaccine was well-tolerated and vaccine-related adverse events were mainly mild or moderate in nature1. VIMKUNYA is a VLP vaccine, which means that it uses virus-like particles designed to mimic the chikungunya virus without the ability to infect cells, replicate or cause disease.

Some great news: the FDA just approved a new chikungunya vaccine for people aged 12 and older.

UKRI Metascience AI early career fellowships The UK Metascience Unit will fund a cohort of early career fellows to build our understanding of how the growing adoption of AI is changing the research landscape, including what epistemic, metascient...

Metascience and AI news (part 1): we're launching a new metascience and AI fellowship programme, in partnership with @SloanFoundation.bsky.social to study and develop the uses of AI in research!

Apply by 10/4; info webinar 28/2

www.ukri.org/opportunity/...

New Google DeepMind safety paper! LLM agents are coming – how do we stop them finding complex plans to hack the reward?

Our method, MONA, prevents many such hacks, *even if* humans are unable to detect them!

Inspired by myopic optimization but better performance – details in🧵

Is there a good starter pack for technical AI safety work?

Identity doesn't protect people from adopting fascist politics. Marginalisation isn't a corrective for political/moral position. Everyone is human, and unchecked power seeking is a common human failing.

Easy prediction for 2025 is that the gains in AI model capability will continue to grow much faster than (a) the vast majority of people’s understanding of what AI can do & (b) organizations’ ability to absorb the pace of change. Social change is much slower than technological change.

I'll try 🫡