Maurits Martijn

These guys are so normal.

Trump wants AI everywhere in government. See the 1,300 new ways it’s being used. The Trump administration is accelerating AI adoption across government, embedding the technology in policing, health care, defense and science.

"On top of automating rote tasks, government agencies have launched hundreds of artificial intelligence projects in the past year, many of them taking on central and sensitive roles in law enforcement, immigration and health care."

While reporting this, I had something happen that's never happened. A comms rep for one of the co's disputed my reporting and said what I was telling them was untrue because it was not in Grok, xAI's chatbot.

I was looking directly at the files. And this person was using AI to challenge the truth.

The DOJ Redacted a Photo of the Mona Lisa in the Epstein Files While Epstein’s victims endure the fallout of their photos and names being exposed in the Department of Justice’s latest tranche of files, investigators redacted a photo of the Mona Lisa. Now we know ...

Updated: the DOJ redacted a photo of the Mona Lisa in the Epstein files. Now DOJ tells us it contains a victim's face overlayed on the face of the Mona Lisa image.

www.404media.co/the-doj-reda...

First Trump's tariffs tipped the Canadian and Australian elections to the center-left parties.

Then his interference in Brazil flipped Lula's numbers, and Greenland threats revived the Danish left — both ahead of 2026 elections.

Trump is the international left's best friend.

Trump administration concedes DOGE team may have misused Social Security data Some DOGE personnel had more access to data than previously acknowledged, according to a court filing.

Two members of Elon Musk’s DOGE team working at the Social Security Administration were secretly in touch with an advocacy group seeking to “overturn election results in certain states" www.politico.com/news/2026/01...

Nvidia's Jensen Huang says AI robotics is a 'once-in-a-generation' opportunity for Europe Europe's industrial base sets it up well to lead in the physical AI space, Huang told WEF

Jensen knows that the AI bubble is about to pop and he's pivoting to robotics to save NVIDIA's stock price. He did the same thing toward the end of the crypto bubble. All of this is a giant scam. You can't build an economy on graphics cards.

This line graph illustrates the percentage change in agency staff levels from the previous year for nine major U.S. federal scientific and health organizations between the fiscal years 2016 and 2025. The agencies tracked include the CDC, Department of Energy, EPA, FDA, NASA, NIH, NIST, NOAA, and NSF. For the majority of the timeline between 2016 and 2023, the agencies show relatively stable fluctuations, generally staying within a range of +5% to -5% change per year. However, there is a dramatic and uniform plummet starting in the 2024–25 period. Every agency depicted shows a sharp downward trajectory, with staffing losses ranging from approximately -15% to over -25%. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shows the most significant decline, dropping to roughly -26%, while the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) shows the least severe but still substantial drop at approximately -15%.

This is the most astonishing graph of what the Trump regime has done to US science. They have destroyed the federal science workforce across the board. The negative impacts on Americans will be felt for generations, and the US might never be the same again.

www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

Congress Is Rejecting Trump’s Steep Budget Cuts to Science

www.nytimes.com/2026/01/10/s...

Personal Wi-Fi hotspot named “I have a bomb, everyone will die” triggered NATO Quick Reaction Alert Turkish Airlines flight to Barcelona was intercepted by NATO fighter jets after a passenger created a bomb-threat Wi-Fi hotspot.

Things *not* to do on an airplane:

Personal Wi-Fi hotspot named “I have a bomb, everyone will die” triggered NATO Quick Reaction Alert

Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, asked top executives last year to make cuts to their 2026 budgets while he pours money into A.I. research. As Meta faces competition from companies like OpenAI and Google, Mr. Zuckerberg has increased the budget for TBD Lab, the skunk works unit at Meta that aims to build superintelligence, a godlike A.I. system.

NYT managing editor: "So, godlike AI system, what do we mean by this?"

NYT reporter: "“To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.”

[beat]

NYT managing editor: "Make sure there's a period after the A and the I. Ship it."

DHS Is Lying To You About ICE Shooting a Woman At least four videos show what really happened when ICE shot a woman in Minneapolis on Wednesday. DHS has established itself as an agency that cannot be trusted to live in or present reality.

New: DHS is lying to you.

At least four videos show what really happened when ICE shot a woman in Minneapolis. Shots clearly fired while vehicle already turning away from the officer. But DHS lied. Trump lied. Noem lied. Even judges have catalogued DHS' serial lying

www.404media.co/dhs-is-lying...

We Still Don’t Know if Robotaxis Are Safer Than Human Drivers And even if self-driving technology proves to be less dangerous, there are many better ways to improve traffic safety and prevent fatal crashes.

Goed stuk www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

Leading AI expert delays timeline for its possible destruction of humanity Former OpenAI employee Daniel Kokotajlo says progress to AGI is ‘somewhat slower’ than first predicted

Another day, another AI "expert" has some kind of prediction to share with the media and they just have to share it with us...

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Let's talk about generative AI, contaminated information, and rhubarb.

Once upon a time, Europe was at war.

Food was scarce, and the government of the quote-unquote United Kingdom looked for alternatives. 1/

Mercantilism, 21st century edition

Three tabs on a screen in a war room and they’re all X feeds, an influencer operation

64 days in Chicago: The story of Operation Midway Blitz President Donald Trump’s federal immigration enforcement operation led to most surreal autumn in Chicago history. What happened during those 64 days will be remembered for a long time.

64 days in Chicago: The story of Operation Midway Blitz. Our team fanned out to cover the before, during and after of the federal government’s months-long raid on an American city. This is worth your time to understand the United States today
www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/28/c...

The White House has been caught.

The administration inserted a photo of Bill Clinton, Michael Jackson, and Diana Ross into the Epstein files and falsely implied it showed them with victims.

In reality, it’s a publicly available fundraiser photo featuring Jackson and Ross’s own children.

AI Boom Threatens to Suck Resources Away From Road, Bridge Work The data center construction boom is sucking up resources from other parts of the market. State and local projects may face particular competition for labor.

“Road repairs, bridge reconstructions and sewer overhauls are at risk of getting delayed as the data center boom sucks up resources in the construction market.”

www.bloomberg.com/news/newslet...

Number of ‘unsafe’ publications by psychologist Hans Eysenck could be ‘high and far reaching’ Hans Eysenck A “high and far reaching” number of papers and books by Hans Eysenck could be “unsafe,” according to an updated statement from King’s College London, where the psychologist was a profe…

Diederik Stapel was a massive watershed moment in psychology.

However, he was -- and let's be slightly glib here -- some guy from The Netherlands who wrote social psychology papers.

The full accounting of the Eysenck case is approx, at minimum, TWO STAPELS.

retractionwatch.com/2025/12/03/n...

Goed punt

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture.

They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

Deze radioloog omarmt AI-technologie en heeft het drukker dan ooit Radiologen zouden overbodig worden, want AI analyseert beelden scherper en herkent patronen beter. Klinkt overtuigend – tot je een ochtend meekijkt met radioloog én fervent AI-gebruiker Firdaus Mohame...

Radiologen zouden overbodig worden, want AI analyseert beelden scherper en herkent patronen beter.

Klinkt overtuigend – tot je een ochtend meekijkt met radioloog én fervent AI-gebruiker Firdaus Mohamed Hoesein.

decorrespondent.nl/16553/deze-r...

"A few months ago, any kind of agreement with OpenAI could make a share price go up. OpenAI did very nicely out of its power to reflect glory. But Oracle, Broadcom and Amazon now are all down following OpenAI deal news, while Nvidia’s barely changed since."

ICE Plans to Spend $180 Million on Bounty Hunters to Stalk Immigrants Newly released documents provide more details about ICE's plan to use bounty hunters and private investigators to find the location of undocumented immigrants.

SCOOP: ICE is allocating as much as $180 million to pay bounty hunters and private investigators who verify the address and location of undocumented people ICE wishes to detain, including with physical surveillance, according to procurement records reviewed by 404 Media.

As a neuroscientist, I’d suggest there is a profound disconnect between what *some* computer scientists think is representative of “intelligence”, cognitive ability, or descriptions of consciousness from some in AI work.

LLMs are not how neural systems process information, nor how brains function.

People who rarely interact with anyone even resembling an average skilled worker claim some bullshit

Critical chip shortage worsens by the day The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) is increasingly concerned by imminent disruption to European vehicle manufacturing due to the block in supply of foundational microchips that are essential for our members’ manufacturing.

Truly seems we're on the verge of a huge shock to the car industry over the Nexperia crisis - will keep track of things in this rolling thread

EU's car-making body said today assembly lines in Europe "might only be days away" from grinding to a halt

Microsoft to invest over $15 billion in UAE, secures US export licenses for Nvidia chips Microsoft will invest over $15 billion in the United Arab Emirates in the seven years to the end of 2029 and has the Trump administration's approval to export Nvidia chips for its data centres there, a senior executive told Reuters on Monday.

1/UAE Chip deal offers textbook case in neo-royalism. Elite ties rather than national security drive dealmaking. The winner is not national security but Trump inner circile.
www.reuters.com/world/china/...