Michiel de Lange

bezuinigingen onderwijs_anim (1) This is "bezuinigingen onderwijs_anim (1)" by Athena Angels on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

Easy to damage, hard to grow!
9 december: stakingsdag tegen de bezuinigingen in het hoger onderwijs en de wetenschap. Stop de afbraak.
Kennis is geen kostenpost, maar de basis van onze toekomst. #AthenasAngels; @woinactie.bsky.social; @remcobreuker.bsky.social;

vimeo.com/1109639682?f...

Stop the cuts in higher education! Stop de bezuinigingen in het hoger onderwijs!! Mooie opkomst en goede mars!! #doehetniet

A Doritos Bag, a Police Response, and an AI Accountability Crisis | TechPolicy.Press The Justice Education Project's Nicholas E. Stewart says AI used in policing, schools, and courts cannot rely on trust in technology companies.

"Districts and departments often buy systems on marketing promises rather than evidence. Few ask who validated the model or how it performs across racial groups," writes Nicholas E. Stewart in @techpolicypress.bsky.social.

[ui] seminar 2025-2026: The Risky City - Research school for Media Studies (RMeS) May - June 2026 | Utrecht University Cities today are especially vulnerable to what has been called a ‘polycrisis’, where multiple risks converge and amplify each other. These include a nature crises ...

Are you a Research Master or PhD student, and interested in cities, media, arts and performance? Check out our #urbaninterfaces seminar 'The Risky City' in late Spring 2026 at @utrechtuniversity.bsky.social & RMeS Research School for Media Studies

www.rmes.nl/ui-seminar-2...

Interesting collection of shorter essays and commentaries from a wide geographic range on digital authoritarianism in situated (smart/urban) contexts.

Facial recognition could be used more widely by police under plans - BBC News A new consultation aims to lead to new laws expanding the use of the technology by more police forces.

Where is the scientific evidence?

www-bbc-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.bbc....

Opinie | Hoe een mini-kabinet het hoger onderwijs sloopt Dit demissionair kabinet voert ingrijpende onderwijsbezuinigingen door, zonder benodigd mandaat. Dat moet stoppen, zeggen Rens Bod, Remco Breuker en Ingrid Robeyns.

Sterke opinie @rensbod.bsky.social @ingridrobeyns.bsky.social @remcobreuker.bsky.social over de sloop van het hoger onderwijs.

'Dit demissionair kabinet voert ingrijpende onderwijsbezuinigingen door, zonder benodigd mandaat.'

www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/...

Nederlandse overheid ongehoord naïef en gemakzuchtig #digitalsovereignty

Happy that our consortium of academic and societal partners received a major #NWO-KEM grant for working on #resilientcities through Key Enabling Methods. The consortium is lead by Mascha van der Voort (University of Twente).

www.nwo.nl/en/news/one-...

Saxony plans to use drones to film inside moving cars. The aim is to catch people using their cell phones while driving. Police will also use behavioral scanners, Palantir data analysis, live facial recognition, facial search engines, and government-deployed malware.

Exclusive: Saudi considers NEOM job cuts, relocations amid cost pressures More than 1,000 people may be moved and a further 1,000 laid off as part of a sweeping audit of the $500 billion project.

This already was a sign on the wall (mid July 2025 news article): www.semafor.com/article/07/1...

Shocked and surprised. Did not see that coming. 🥸

City covers Flock cameras while waiting for removal - Evanston RoundTable A Flock camera on the south side of Emerson Street, east of McCormick Boulevard, is seen on Sept. 24 covered up by black plastic secured with tape to the

The contracts usually prevent the council/PD/HOA/retailer from physically interacting *in any way* with these camera installations.

The Evanston, IL case is just one example that illustrates just how untrustworthy #Flock is as a vendor and why we should avoid/cancel contracts with them.

On the controversiality of AI: The controversy is not the situation - Noortje Marres, Christian Katzenbach, Anders Kristian Munk, Anna Jobin, 2025 Do public controversies about AI matter? Can they really make a difference to how AI is taken up or imposed on society? This introduction to the Special Issue o...

💡 New publication alert!
“On the Controversiality of AI: The Controversy Is Not the Situation” by @noortjem.bsky.social , @ckatzenbach.bsky.social , @anderskristianm.bsky.social, and @annajobin.bsky.social is out now.
📖 Read it open access here: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Yes I agree. But what kinda bugs me is that this plea for EU tech sovereignty opens with 1. a reference to an American president, 2. immediately followed by quoting an American scholar 3. and is published on an American opinion platform. Makes 'European sovereignty' feel so.. reactive.

Building Digital Sovereignty: What Does Europe Need and How to Achieve It | TechPolicy.Press The EU should not re-do the entire digital stack but confront the structural bottlenecks that sustain Europe’s digital dependence, writes Zuzanna Warso.

The unity around “sovereignty” in Europe masks a deeper question that inevitably follows and underpins the current broad agreement: sovereignty for what purpose, and in service of whose political project? asks @openfuture.bsky.social’s Zuzanna Warso.

ChatGPT: so popular, hardly anyone will pay for it : If you build it, they will come and expect the service to be free

www.theregister.com/2025/10/15/o...

De politiek achter de AI-bubbel, en wat het voor ons betekent | Doorbraak.eu De investeringen in zogenaamde “AI” zijn een enorme bubbel. Het is slechts een kwestie van tijd voordat die barst. En we weten nu al: het kapitaal wil dat gebruiken om de economie grondig te herbouwen...

De politiek achter de AI-bubbel, en wat het voor ons betekent
www.doorbraak.eu/de-politiek-...

“De hele AI-hype is een hallucinatie gebleken, en binnenkort gaan er miljarden dollars verdampen als ook de markt zich dat realiseert.

CFP: ‘The Synthetic City’ Dossier for Mediapolis Journal The Synthetic City A Dossier for Mediapolis: A Journal of Cities and Culture Guest Editors: Scott Rodgers, Helena Atteneder, Lou Therese Brandner, Marcos Dias, Diogo Pereira Henriques and Sara Tren…

Great to see this CfP "The Synthetic City" #urbanAI for @mediapolis.bsky.social w/ guest editors @scott-rodgers.bsky.social @marcospdias.bsky.social & colleagues.

mediacitytwg.wordpress.com/2025/10/16/c...

Abstract deadline 30 November 2025.

Join us next week on Wed 8 October 20:00-20:45 CEST for the Master's Open Day @uumediaculture.bsky.social if you are interesting in our international Master program about #digitalmedia #digitalculture #digitalfutures www.uu.nl/en/masters/n...

Register here: www.uu.nl/en/masters/g...

Dutch Tax Administration and Customs completely switch to Microsoft Cloud. Motivation letter full of 'efficiency' and 'productivity' rhetoric but not a word about national or EU data/platform sovereignty.

URP Call for Papers "Data Centre Urbanism" Call for papers!

Interesting Call: Special Issue on "Data Centre Urbanism" eura.org/news-urp-25c... Deadline for Abstract submission: November, 30 2025 #CfP #datacenters

Underground data fortresses: the nuclear bunkers, mines and mountains being transformed to protect our ‘new gold’ from attack Bunkers, bomb shelters, mines and mountains all play critical roles protecting against our latest existential threat: the terrifying prospect of data loss.

Interesting ethnographic exploration of the materiality and situatedness of the Internet, rugged data bunkers for ethereal ‘cloud’ storage, data loss as cultural fear, and eternal data selves, by @aretaylor.bsky.social

theconversation.com/underground-...

“Your friendly AI assistant”: the anthropomorphic self-representations of ChatGPT and its implications for imagining AI - AI & SOCIETY This study analyzes how ChatGPT portrays and describes itself, revealing misleading myths about AI technologies, specifically conversational agents based on large language models. This analysis allows for critical reflection on the potential harm these misconceptions may pose for public understanding of AI and related technologies. While previous research has explored AI discourses and representations more generally, few studies focus specifically on AI chatbots. To narrow this research gap, an experimental-qualitative investigation into auto-generated AI representations based on prompting was conducted. Over the course of a month, ChatGPT (both in its GPT-4 and GPT-4o models) was prompted to “Draw an image of yourself,” “Represent yourself visually,” and “Envision yourself visually.” The resulting data (n = 50 images and 58 texts) was subjected to a critical exploratory visual semiotic analysis to identify recurring themes and tendencies in how ChatGPT is represented and characterized. Three themes emerged from the analysis: anthropomorphism, futuristic/futurism and (social)intelligence. Importantly, compared to broader AI imaginations, the findings emphasize ChatGPT as a friendly AI assistant. These results raise critical questions about trust in these systems, not only in terms of their capability to produce reliable information and handle personal data, but also in terms of human–computer relations.

My colleagues Karin van Es & Dennis Nguyen have written an accessible and critical paper about visual GenAI imaginaries:
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

With a chapter i co-authored with @ernaruijer.bsky.social and Krisztina Varro “Governing the Digital Society: Platforms, Artificial Intelligence, and Public Values”

Book launch Governing the Digital Society: Platforms, Artificial Intelligence, and Public Values GDS organizes a festive book launch of the edited volume Governing the Digital Society: Platforms, Artificial Intelligence, and Public Values.

The book is out! “Governing the Digital Society: Platforms, Artificial Intelligence, and Public Values”
@utrechtuniversity.bsky.social #governingthesigitalsociety

www.uu.nl/en/events/bo...

At the #AIindeStad conference in Breda.
(Re)thinking the relation between Ai and urban life. Main question for me today: how can #urbanAI be made more civic?
indestad.ai

sharing our new article on the role of regulation for #AI therapist chatbots.

with @jasonetucker.bsky.social and @petterericson.bsky.social

AI Policy Lab @Umeå University
#ResponsibleAI #AIgovernance