Shakir Mohamed

“The postwar order rested on three pillars: American hegemony, the fossil-fuel energy system, and an open, multilateral trading order. America has now attacked each pillar at the foundation of its hydrocarbon global order.” —
New: @katemac.bsky.social & I
www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/bri...

🚨AISTATS workshop proposals open!

Big News: For the first time, there will be a day of workshops at #AISTATS 2026, in Tangier, Morocco 🌴🇲🇦

Quentin Berthet @qberthet.bsky.social and I are workshop chairs.

virtual.aistats.org/Conferences/...
Deadline: Oct 17, AOE

A flagship keynote panel at #DLI2025 delved into the critical topic of AI policy and national strategies for Africa.

The panel featured insights from Jane Munga, Barbara Glover, Virginia Dignum, and Vukosi Marivate. The session also included a special message from H.E. Ms. Lerato D. Mataboge.

I’ll be live posting from the Centring Data in African AI workshop happening in Kigali at the #DLI2025

Welcome to #DLI2025! The energy is already electric at registration. We are so excited to see everyone

#DLI2025 kicks off with opening remarks from the General Chairs, Bruno Ssekiwere, Pierrette Mahoro Mastel & Tejumade Afonja 🌍

They emphasised collaboration, community building & innovation in advancing Africa’s ML ecosystem, and shared why Rwanda is a fitting host this year ✨

#indaba2025 #Urunana

A thought-provoking keynote at #DLI2025 by Verena Rieser!

Her talk challenged the idea of a single “gold standard” for AI alignment. It was a call to action: moving beyond narrow safety metrics to embrace a pluralistic approach that accounts for our diverse, and sometimes conflicting, human values.

What an incredible keynote by Max Welling!

He’s challenging us to look beyond chatbots to the "fifth paradigm of scientific discovery": AI4Science. His talk explores how AI is transforming everything from predicting the weather to accelerating molecular simulations.

#DLI2025 #Indaba2025

We were honoured to host our Faculty Panel Session, a crucial step in ensuring faculty and academia are at the heart of the conversation.

The session was a reminder that the classroom is where future innovators are shaped.

Your #FAccT2025 General Chairs @sciorestis.bsky.social, @metaxa.net, and I, reporting from the venue.

We're looking forward to welcoming you to the Athens Conservatoire or online!

We are at #facct2025 in Athens and discussing the latest research in building safe, fair and accountable AI technologies. 🚀🚀

Just 5 days left for the abstract submission deadline for @facct.bsky.social 😱 A slow trickle of submissions coming in and can’t wait to see the full set. good luck to everyone writing and planning to submit 🤞🏽🚀

🎄 Merry Christmas! 🎄

🔔 As Advent ends, the 12 Days of Christmas🎄begin!

Join me for a deeper dive into the initiatives shown in this map - from Data Science Africa to @ai.cam.ac.uk - as we explore practical responses to AI challenges.

the-atomic-human.ai/reflections/...

Gender and retention patterns among U.S. faculty Women faculty are more likely to leave their jobs than men, most often due to workplace climate, rather than work-life balance.

Women leave academia at higher rates than men at every career stage, and attrition is especially high among three groups: tenured faculty, women in non-STEM fields, and women employed at less prestigious institutions, a #ScienceAdvances analysis finds.

Research scholar program Overview

Here’s the page with the eligibility and other details. research.google/programs-and...

Deadline for faculty research grants up to $60k is 27 Jan! “The Research Scholar Program provides unrestricted gifts to support research at institutions around the world, and is focused on funding world-class research conducted by early-career professors”
google.submittable.com/submit/ac6d7...

📢 ICML Call for Papers is out
The CfP is live here: icml.cc/Conferences/..., and we also just released a blog post summarizing major updates this year: medium.com/@icml2025pc/...

Feasibility test of per-flight contrail avoidance in commercial aviation - Communications Engineering Vapour trails (contrails) from aircraft make a substantial contribution to aviation’s climate impact. Here we execute a per-flight contrail avoidance feasibility test through altitude adjustments base...

"Contrails, formed by aircraft engines, are a major component of aviation’s impact on anthropogenic climate change. [...] This study demonstrates that per-flight detectable contrail avoidance is feasible in commercial aviation." www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Reminder: The #FAccT2025 submission deadlines are roughly one month away! Abstracts are due January 15th and full papers on January 22nd. See the full CfP here: facctconference.org/2025/cfp

Today, the UK government announced a proposal to change copyright law - for the benefit of AI companies - that would cause huge, irreversible harm to creators.

More info below, but most importantly here's what you can do (wherever you live):

1. Email your MP. Template letter in 🧵 👇

1/10

For my first post on Bluesky .. I'll start by announcing our 2025 edition of EEML which will be in Sarajevo :) ! I'm really excited about it and hope to see many of you there. Please follow the website (and Bluesky account) for more details which are coming soon ..

Could language games (and playing many of them) be the renewable energy that Ilya was hinting at yesterday? They do address two core challenges of self-improvement -- let's discuss!

My talk is today at 11:40am, West Meeting Room 220-222, #NeurIPS2024
language-gamification.github.io/schedule/

US and China sign new science pact — but with severe restrictions Amid tensions, the two nations agree on a path forward for research collaboration.

Very good to see the renewal of the US-China science and technology pact. Even if it is reduced in scope, some limited cooperation is better than none at all, as we at the AI & Geopolitics Project argue in our latest report 'Moving Beyond Competition'.

Participatory and inclusive data stewardship A landscape review

Our new landscape review examines the foundations of participatory and inclusive data stewardship.

The review demonstrates the liveliness of debate around ‘data stewardship’ and aims to support future research and practice.

www.adalovelaceinstitute.org/report/parti...

Great news 🥳 congrats.

I look forward to co-directing the Canadian AI Safety Institute (CAISI) Research Program at CIFAR with @catherineregis.bsky.social

We will be designing the program in the coming months and will soon share ways to get involved with this new community.

Read more here: cifar.ca/cifarnews/20...

Enjoyed reading this interview:

"...rather than talk about AI in Africa, we are instead trying to focus on the context of where you are on the continent rather than a definitive catch-all that ignores the massive differences in place and experience.”

wearecs.org/cs-magazine/...

There is just about a month left before the abstract deadline for @facct.bsky.social 2025🥳😳🙈. Really looking forward to seeing all the submissions. If you are submitting, don’t forget to check out the Author Guide (and the reviewer and AC guide as well). facctconference.org/2025/aguide

Like its predecessor (GraphCast), the weights & code of GenCast have been made publicly available: github.com/google-deepm...

We’re looking forward to seeing how the community builds on this!

Probabilistic weather forecasting with machine learning - Nature GenCast, a probabilistic weather model using artificial intelligence for weather forecasting, has greater skill and speed than the top operational medium-range weather forecast in the world and provid...

So excited to share our Google DeepMind team's new Nature paper on GenCast, an ML-based probabilistic weather forecasting model: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

It represents a substantial step forward in how we predict weather and assess the risk of extreme events. 🌪️🧵