Stephan M. Unter

Missspelling of the day:

International Neural Netwok Society

I think it would be quite intriguing if cooks would try to create a meal with dozens of woks connected by threads or chains. Like, a large netwok.

A totally new form of "wokism".

(just some very rudimentary, uneducated thoughts on the matter - LLMs are not the subject of my research)

So while LLMs may fail factually from time to time, their capability of fulfilling a completely different goal, namely to satisfy our search for an understandable, plausible answer, is quite astonishing.

I quite often have the "Clever Hans effect" on my mind these days. Named after a German horse called Hans, which supposedly was capable of doing maths. Instead, it was really great at reading humans. And giving them what they wanted.

Or the other way round - while we™ claw through evidence I'm the form of hallucinations to prove that LLMs are "stupid", in fact they are pretty capable of using our own system to mimic potentially plausible solutions.

But on a more serious note - I'm less and less convinced that human cognition is a good, useful or beneficial benchmark to evaluate the performance and capacity of a machine intelligence model.

Also, had my official "Hey, I'm new!" at the uni's department meeting (institutsmötet), and left some impression by stating that I'm now the world's most northern Egyptologist. 😅

Interesting (and slightly provocative) thought I heard during a webinar today from Terrence Sejnowski:

LLMs as a mirror of the user's intelligence.

Anyway, I just finished adding the first wave of important tokens and thoughts and bits and pieces important to my #research, and that's what it looks like from a rather high-level perspective.

Quite beautiful, isn't it?

#science #academia #obsidian #knowledge #visualisation

To me, it was especially important that I could add images and mathematical formulae. All no problem at all.

The best: the software is free and all information is stored locally on your device. You can either try to sync with other devices via a cloud. Or pay a little bit for them to take over.

I have started to sort all my #postdoc knowledge into an #Obsidian vault - a software exactly what I wanted to code for myself.

A flexible wiki with folder structure, an (un)directed cyclic graph as visualisation, and dozens of plugins to increase usability.

#science #academia #productivity

The Swedish Tax Agency just discovered that I've grown 2cm over the last 10 years. Fascinating.

Also, for whatever reason, the plot of #AgentsOfShield touches my personal life at the moment at so many points... It's kinda weird. Almost unsettling.

I feel like #AgentsOfShield will always be my favourite TV show. A chain reaction of the most handsome, most complicated men in the universe. My heart is constantly melting.

Plus, I do love strong, powerful female leading figures.

#Marvel

Apparently, there are still people in #Germany claiming that it would be rude to wear hats in indoor rooms.

Hello Germany. It's 2025. Time to get rid of your grandparents' rules and live your own lives.

Especially you, Julia Klöckner.

Personally, I have started celebrating Sweden in the best way possible.

Staying in bed.

Today is national holiday in #Sweden!

I think there will be a parade in the city center of Luleå later today. Apparently people are urged to wave flags. I hope I'll wave the correctly crossed flag... 🇸🇪🇨🇭

It's funny how different PhD publications can be. In Switzerland, it was enough for me to deliver a couple of printed versions to university, and publish online.

At my new university in Sweden, the defendant arrives for the defence with a full box of printed versions of their work to spread them.

Tomorrow, June 6, is the national holiday in #Sweden.

I am looking forward to seeing how this will be celebrated in the upper North. Hoping for some interesting regional cultural things.

Or maybe, just another country with fireworks to annoy me.

It's also funny how Switzerland seems very annoyed by my absence, which directly lead to rainy weather and deflation.

Don't worry, mountain guys, I'll be back. No need to crash the country already.

Almost one week in #Sweden is gone - and there is surprisingly little difference to #Switzerland at all. I am still living in a very small city, I know my daily routes, I have my daily routines, just the weather is a bit better up here.

Not as much a cultural shock as I had anticipated.

Don't say you weren't warned.

WAS! Es erklärt so viel. All wir hungrigen Archäologen, vor uns die fetten Besucher, und keiner wirft uns auch nur einen Krümel in den Sand! 😭 Alles ergibt plötzlich Sinn!

Schön, wurde dem saufenden Chirurgen gerechte Strafe zu teil. Und doch scheint es mir zu gering. Gerechtigkeit für Bäcker Michel!

Das natürlich vor allem auf kommunaler Ebene, klar. Aber ich halte das für wichtig. Weil man erst, wenn man selbst in der Notwendigkeit steht, ein Problem lösen zu müssen, auch erkennt, wo die Fallstricke und Probleme sind.

Stellt sich raus, am Ende ist es gar nicht so leicht, Politik zu machen.

Und ich würde das durchaus auch mit einer Lobpreisung kombinieren. Wäre es nicht geil, würde man selbst auf einer Webseite oder im Amtsblatt genannt als derjenige oder diejenige, die eine wichtige Lösung für ein gesellschaftliches Problem gefunden hat?

Aber wieso nicht die Bürger*innen aktiv mitgestalten lassen, indem man ihnen Probleme gibt, zu denen sie kreativ Stellung beziehen und Lösungen einreichen können? Egal wie wild, egal wie kreativ.

Um dann aus einer Vielzahl von Ideen diejenigen zu suchen, die rechtens, machbar und gut sind.

Von der Schweiz lernen heißt Demokratie lernen. Darum wäre ich darüber hinaus auch für deutlich mehr Mitbeteiligungsmöglichkeiten.

Aber nicht im Sinne von Initiativen, Referenden und anderen Maßnahmen direkter Demokratie. Dafür eignet sich Deutschland einfach nicht.

Umgekehrt wird ein Schuh draus: Wir vergleichen Lösungen und wollen die auswählen, die wir für am vielversprechendsten oder am sinnvollsten halten. Weil wir davon überzeugt sind. Weil wir diesen Weg ernsthaft gehen wollen.

Das Problem der negativen Demokratie ist, dass sie eine Auswirkung auf die Bevölkerung hat. Es entsteht der Eindruck, dass grundsätzlich alle Akteure schlecht sind und man sich für den "am wenigstens schlechten" entscheiden müsse.

Wie soll dabei jemals Begeisterung für Demokratie aufkommen?