European Union: Academics and Researchers, Come On Over to Freedom
May 8, 2025
No AI, just the dinobaby expressing his opinions to Zellenials.
Is the European Union actively advertising employment opportunities in Western Europe? Do canines sniff? I think the answer is, “Yes.”
I spotted an official European Commission announcement with the title or one of the titles: “Choose Europe. Advance Your Research Career in the EU.” Another title in the official online statement is, “Choose Groundbreaking Research.” The document says,
As a world-leading centre for research and innovation with freedom of science, the European Union offers an ideal environment to advance your career. With a wealth of stable and predictable funding opportunities and cutting-edge facilities, the EU enables researchers to work on projects where they can truly make a difference. You’ll join a dynamic and international community of top talent, all dedicated to finding solutions to the world’s biggest challenges. Europe offers an excellent quality of life, including affordable healthcare and education, excellent working conditions and strong social security for you and your family. You’ll also enjoy freedoms and protections based on our values.
I found the word choice quite interesting; for example:
affordable healthcare and education
dynamic and international community
excellent working conditions
freedom and freedoms (bang, bang!)
ideal environment
protections
quality of life
strong social security
top talent
values
world-leading
The word choice reveals what the EU thinks will appeal to some American academics and researchers as well as to others in different countries. One might think that this employment advertisement is identifying specific issues associated with certain non-EU countries.
To make the opportunity more concrete, the write up presents these data:
If I were young again, this type of lingo might appeal to me. I, however, am a dinobaby. Becoming a big-time academic researcher is a non-starter for me. For some, however, the EU’s inducement might be compelling. I have done projects and spent a reasonable amount of time in London and Paris. My son attended two universities in France, and I am not sure he wanted to return to the US, but the French government had other ideas for a 20 something.
Interesting. Opportunity with a possible message for some working in less salubrious situations. Crafty message and straight ahead marketing.
Stephen E Arnold, May 8, 2025
US Brain Drain Droplet May Presage a Beefier Outflow
May 8, 2025
Believe it or not, no smart software. Just a dumb and skeptical dinobaby.
When I was working on my PhD at the University of Illinois, I noticed that the number of foreign students on campus seemed to go up each year. One year in the luxurious Florida Avenue Residence Hall, most of the students were from farms. The next year, FAR was a mini-United Nations. I did not pay any attention because I was on my way to an actual “real” job at Halliburton Nuclear in Washington, DC.
I heard the phrase “brain drain” over the years. The idea was that people who wanted to work in technical fields would come to the US, get degrees, and then stay to work in US universities or dolphin-loving, humanity-centric outfits like the nuclear industry. The idea was that the US was a magnet: Good schools, many opportunities to work or start a company.
I am not sure that golden age exists any longer. I read about universities becoming research labs for giant companies. I see podcasts with foaming-at-the-mouth academics complaining about [a] the quality of the students, [b] squabbles between different ideological groups, and [c] the lack of tenure opportunities which once seemed to be a sinecure for life just like the US government’s senior executive service.
Now the world works in ever more mysterious ways. As a confused dinobaby, I read news items (unverified, of course) with headlines like this:
Top US Scientist leaves Department Of Energy To Join Sichuan University Amid Rising China Tensions.
The write up reports a “real” news:
Amid escalating US-China tensions, senior scientist Yi Shouliang, formerly with the US Department of Energy, has left the U.S. to assume a new academic role at Sichuan University in China…. Shouliang served as a principal scientist and project leader at the DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), where he focused on the Water-Energy Program.
Let’s assume that this academic who had some business interests just missed his family. No big deal.
But what if a certain “home” country was starting to contact certain people and explaining that their future was back in the good old homeland? Could that country systematically explain the facts of life in a way that made the “home” country look more appealing than a big house in Squirrel Hill?
For a few months, I have been writing “China smart, US dumb” blog posts when I spot some news about how wonderfully bright many young Chinese men and women are.
As a dinobaby, my first thought is that China wants its smart people back in the Middle Kingdom. Hopefully more information about this 2025 brain drain from the US to other countries will become publicly available. Plus, one isolated person going against the “You can’t go home again” idea means nothing. Or does it mean something is afoot?
PS. No, I never went back to Chambana to turn in my thesis. I liked working at Halliburton Nuclear more than I liked indexing poetry for the now departed Dr. William Gillis. Sorry, Dr. Gillis, the truth is now out.
Stephen E Arnold, May 8, 2025
China Tough. US Weak: A Variation of the China Smart. US Dumb Campaign
May 6, 2025
No AI. This old dinobaby just plods along, delighted he is old and this craziness will soon be left behind. What about you?
Even members of my own team thing I am confusing information about China’s technology with my dinobaby peculiarities. That may be. Nevertheless, I want to document the story “The Ancient Chinese General Whose Calm During Surgery Is Still Told of Today.” I know it is. I just read a modern retelling of the tale in the South China Morning Post. (Hey. Where did that paywall go?)
The basic idea is that a Chinese leader (tough by genetics and mental discipline) had dinner with some colleagues. A physician showed up and told the general, “You have poison in your arm bone.”
The leader allegedly told the physician,
“No big deal. Do the surgery here at the dinner table.”
The leader let the doc chop open his arm, remove the diseased area, and stitched the leader up. Now here’s the item in the write up I find interesting because it makes clear [a] the leader’s indifference to his colleagues who might find this surgical procedure an appetite killer and [b] the flawed collection of blood which seeped after the incision was made. Keep in mind that the leader did not need any soporific, and the leader continued to chit chat with his colleagues. I assume the leader’s anecdotes and social skills kept his guests mesmerized.
Here’s the detail from the China Tough. US Weak write up:
“Guan Yu [the tough leader] calmly extended his arm for the doctor to proceed. At the time, he was sitting with fellow generals, eating and drinking together. As the doctor cut into his arm, blood flowed profusely, overflowing the basin meant to catch it. Yet Guan Yu continued to eat meat, drink wine, and chat and laugh as if nothing was happening.”
Yep, blood flowed profusely. Just the extra that sets one meal apart from another. The closest approximation in my experience was arriving at a fast food restaurant after a shooting. Quite a mess and the odor did not make me think of a cheeseburger with ketchup.
I expect that members of my team will complain about this blog post. That’s okay. I am a dinobaby, but I think this variation on the China Smart. US Dumb information flow is interesting. Okay, anyone want to pop over for fried squirrel. We can skin, gut, and fry them at one go. My mouth is watering at the thought. If we are lucky, one of the group will have bagged a deer. Now that’s an opportunity to add some of that hoist, skin, cut, and grill to the evening meal. Guan Yu, the tough Chinese leader, would definitely get with the kitchen work.
Stephen E Arnold, May 6, 2025
AI Chatbots Now Learning Russian Propaganda
May 6, 2025
Gee, who would have guessed? Forbes reports, “Russian Propaganda Has Now Infected Western AI Chatbots—New Study.” Contributor Tor Constantino cites a recent NewsGuard report as he writes:
“A Moscow-based disinformation network known as ‘Pravda’ — the Russian word for ‘truth’ — has been flooding search results and web crawlers with pro-Kremlin falsehoods, causing AI systems to regurgitate misleading narratives. The Pravda network, which published 3.6 million articles in 2024 alone, is leveraging artificial intelligence to amplify Moscow’s influence at an unprecedented scale. The audit revealed that 10 leading AI chatbots repeated false narratives pushed by Pravda 33% of the time. Shockingly, seven of these chatbots directly cited Pravda sites as legitimate sources. In an email exchange, NewsGuard analyst Isis Blachez wrote that the study does not ‘name names’ of the AI systems most susceptible to the falsehood flow but acknowledged that the threat is widespread.”
Blachez believes a shift is underway from Russian operatives directly targeting readers to manipulation of AI models. Much more efficient. And sneaky. We learn:
“One of the most alarming practices uncovered is what NewsGuard refers to as ‘LLM grooming.’ This tactic is described as the deliberate deception of datasets that AI models — such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok 3, Perplexity and others — train on by flooding them with disinformation. Blachez noted that this propaganda pile-on is designed to bias AI outputs to align with pro-Russian perspectives. Pravda’s approach is methodical, relying on a sprawling network of 150 websites publishing in dozens of languages across 49 countries.”
AI firms can try to block propaganda sites from their models’ curriculum, but the operation is so large and elaborate it may be impossible. And also, how would they know if they had managed to do so? Nevertheless, Blachez encourages them to try. Otherwise, tech firms are destined to become conduits for the Kremlin’s agenda, she warns.
Of course, the rest of us have a responsibility here as well. We can and should double check information served up by AI. NewsGuard suggests its own Misinformation Fingerprints, a catalog of provably false claims it has found online. Or here is an idea: maybe do not turn to AI for information in the first place. After all, the tools are notoriously unreliable. And that is before Russian operatives get involved.
Cynthia Murrell, May 6, 2025
The EU Bumps Heads with Tech Bros
May 1, 2025
Dinobaby, here. No smart software involved unlike some outfits. I did use Sam AI-Man’s art system to produce the illustration in the blog post.
I noticed some faint signals that the European Union has bumped heads with a couple of US tech bros. The tech bros have money, users, and a do-it-my way attitude. The EU moves less quickly and likes to discuss lunch before going to lunch. The speedy delivery approach upsets stomachs of some European professionals.
The soccer player on a team sponsored by tech bros knocks over the old player and wins the ball. The problem is that the youthful, handsome, well-paid superstar gets a red card. Thanks, OpenAI. I am looking forward to your Telegram clone.
The hints of trouble appear in “Brussels Takes Action Against Google and Apple Despite Trump Threat.” The article explains that the tech bros have violated the Digital Markets Act. Some pundits have suggested that the DMA exists because of certain tech bros and their zip-zip approach to shaping monopolistic business methods.
What are the US tech bros going to do? [a] Posture, [b] output PR, [c] litigate, [d] absolutely everything possible. The answer, based on my limited understanding of how big time thinkers with money and win-at-all-costs logic business executives thing, [d].
Let’s think about how this disagreement will unfold.
First, the use of media to communicate the unfairness of a governmental entity telling a couple of tech bros they can’t race their high performance vehicles down Avenue Louise, the Ku’damm, or the Champs-Élysées. Then the outfits will output PR, lots of PR. Third, the lawyers will take flight. If there are not enough legal eagles in Europe, convocations will be whisked to Brussels and Strasbourg. The final step will open the barn door and let the animals run free.
With the diplomatic skills of a SWAT team and piles of money, the afflicted tech bros will try to get the EU to knock off the anti-tech-bro double talk. Roll over or ….?
That’s the question, “Or what?”
The afflicted tech bros are accustomed to doing what they want, using slick talk and other inducements to do exactly what they want. The “you want to move the icons on the home screen” and “you want objective search results” attitudes are likely to be somewhat ineffective.
I am not sure what the tech bros will do. France broke the wing of Telegram’s big bird. After realizing that France could put him in a depressingly over crowded prison about 16 kilometers from a five star hotel in Paris, the Telegram tech bro complied.
Will the defendants in future legal disputes with the EU show up in court to explain to the slug-like thinkers in the EU government bureau that they must do what the US tech bros want. There’s that “or” again. It is a pesky matter.
Tech bros, as Pavel Durov learned in his seven months of intensive classes in French law, the bureaucracy moves slowly and has a variety of financial levers and knobs. These can be adjusted in numerous ways. It is indeed possible that if a tech bro gets out of line, he could experience a crash course in EU systems and procedures.
The inconceivable could happen: The companies products could be constrained in some way. With each “do it our way” output, the knobs and dials can be adjusted.
Could the tie up of Ecosia and Wolfram Alpha or Swisscows offer a viable option for search? Could the Huawei-type of mobile devices replace the iPhone?
The tech bros may want to check out how Pavel Durov’s approach to business is working out.
Stephen E Arnold, May 1, 2025
France And Germany Form Open Source Writing Collaboration
April 30, 2025
Open source software and AI algorithms are a match made in heaven. You can’t say the same thing about France and Germany when it comes to history, but the countries can put aside their differences (occasionally) to advance technology. The French and German governments came together to design Docs.
Docs is described as “Collaborative writing, simplified-collaborate and write in real time, without layout constraints.” I don’t know if the term “layout” refers to a writing software’s formatting or if it means limited to the constraints of writing software. It could mean either of things or something is lost in the literal translation. Ich habe keine Ahnung. Je ne c’est pas.
Docs is built on the Django Rest Framework and Nest.js. It also uses BlockNote.js and Yes (they also sponsor those text editors too). Docs can be self-hosted, has a business friendly license, and welcomes anyone to contribute to its growth either monetarily or via code). Here is what Docs offers as a writing partner:
“Docs offers an intuitive writing experience. Its minimalist interface favors content over layout, while offering the essentials: media import, offline mode and keyboard shortcuts for greater efficiency.”
So far that sounds très magnifique and ausgezeichnet! Docs also offers simple real-time collaboration. Users on a document can access the same document, see changes made live, and maintain control of the document for data security. Docs also has universal formats for exportation: OpenDocument, Word, and PDF.
A nifty feature unavailable with most writing software is the ability to organize documents into knowledge bases with subpages. This feature also comes with search and pinning capabilities.
This French and German writing collaboration sounds amazing! Break out the champagne and beer and enjoy some croissants and pretzels. This is one open source tool everyone needs!
Whitney Grace, April 30, 2025
Apple and Meta: Virtual Automatic Teller Machines for the EU
April 29, 2025
No AI, just a dinobaby watching the world respond to the tech bros.
I spotted this story in USA Today. You remember that newspaper, of course. The story “Apple Fined $570 Million and Meta $228 Million for Breaching European Union Law” reports:
Apple was fined 500 million euros ($570 million) on Wednesday and Meta 200 million euros, as European Union antitrust regulators handed out the first sanctions under landmark legislation aimed at curbing the power of Big Tech.
I have observed that to many regulators the brands Apple and Meta (Facebook) are converted to the sound of ka-ching. For those who don’t recognize the onomatopoeia for an old-fashioned cash register ringing up a sale. The modern metaphor might be an automatic teller machine emitting beeps and honks. That works. Punch the Apple and Meta logos and bonk, beep, out comes millions of euros. Bonk, beep.
The law which allows the behavior of what some Europeans view as “tech bros” to be converted first to a legal process and then to cash is the Digital Markets Act. The idea is that certain technology centric outfits based in the US operate without much regard for the rules, regulations, and laws of actual nation-states and their governing entities. I mean who pays attention to what the European Union says? Certainly not a geek à la sauce californienne.
The companies are likely to interpret these fines as some sort of deus ex machina, delivered by a third-rate vengeful god in a TikTok-type of video. Perhaps? But the legal process identified some actions by the fined American companies as illegal. Examples range from preventing an Apple store user from certain behaviors to Meta’s reluctance to conform to some privacy requirements. I am certainly not a lawyer, nor am I involved with either of the American companies. However, I can make several observations from my dinobaby point of view, of course:
- The ka-ching / bonk beep incentive is strong. Money talks in the US and elsewhere. It is not surprising that the fines are becoming larger with each go-round. How does one stop the cost creep? One thought is to change the behavior of the companies. Sorry, EU, that is not going to happen.
- The interpretation of the penalty as a reaction against America is definitely a factor. For those who have not lived and worked in other countries, the anti-American sentiment is not understood. I learned when people painted slurs on the walls of our home in Campinas, Brazil. I was about 13, and the anger extended beyond black paint on our pristine white, eight-foot high walls with glass embedded at the top of them. Inviting, right?
- The perception that a company is more powerful than a mere government entity has been growing as the concentration of eyeballs, money, and talented people has increased at certain firms. Once the regulators have worked through the others in this category, attention will turn to the second tier of companies. I won’t identify any entities but the increased scrutiny of Cloudflare by French authorities is a glimpse of what might be coming down the information highway.
Net net: Ka-ching, ka-ching, and ka-ching. Beep, bong, beep, bong.
Stephen E Arnold, April 29, 2025
China, Self-Amusement, and AI
April 29, 2025
China pokes fun at the United States whenever it can. Why? The Middle Kingdom wants to prove its superiority over the US. China is does have many technological advances over its western neighbor and now the country made another great leap forward with AI says Business Insider: “China’s Baidu Releases Ernie X1, A New AI Reasoning Model.”
Baidu is China’s equivalent of Google and the it released two new AI models. The first is Ernie X1 that is described as a reasoning model that delivers on par with Deepseek R1 at half the price. It also released a multimodal foundation model called Ernie 4.5 that could potentially outperform GPT-4.5 and costs only a fraction of the price. Baidu is also developing the Ernie Bot, a free chatbot.
Baidu wants to offer the world cheap AI:
“Baidu’s new releases come as Silicon Valley reckons with the cost of AI models, largely spurred by the latest drops from Deepseek, a Chinese startup launched by hedge fund High Flyer.
In December, Deepseek released a large language model called V3, and in January, it unveiled a reasoning model called R1. The models are considered as good or better than equivalent models from OpenAI but priced “anywhere from 20-40x cheaper,” according to analysis from Bernstein Research.”
China is smart to develop inexpensive AI, but did the country have to make fun of Sesame Street? I mean Big Bird?
Whitney Grace, April 29, 2025
Japan Alleges Google Is a Monopoly Doing Monopolistic Things. What?
April 28, 2025
No AI, just the dinobaby himself.
The Google has been around a couple of decades or more. The company caught my attention, and I wrote three monographs for a now defunct publisher in a very damp part of England. These are now out of print, but their titles illustrate my perception of what I call affectionately Googzilla:
- The Google Legacy. I tried to explain why Google’s approach was going to define how future online companies built their technical plumbing. Yep, OpenAI in all its charm is a descendant of those smart lads, Messrs. Brin and Page.
- Google Version 2.0. I attempted to document the shift in technical focus from search relevance to a more invasive approach to using user data to generate revenue. The subtitle, I thought at the time, gave away the theme of the book: “The Calculating Predator.”
- Google: The Digital Gutenberg. I presented information about how Google’s “outputs” from search results to more sophisticated content structures like profiles of people, places, and things was preparing Google to reinvent publishing. I was correct because the new head of search (Prabhakar Version 2.0) is making little reports the big thing in search results. This will doom many small publications because Google just tells you what it wants you to know.
I wrote these monographs between 2002 and 2008. I must admit that my 300 page Enterprise Search Report sold more copies than my Google work. But I think my Google trilogy explained what Googzilla was doing. No one cared.
Now I learn “Japan orders Google to stop pushing smartphone makers to install its apps.”* Okay, a little slow on the trigger, but government officials in the land of the rising sun figured out that Google is doing what Google has been doing for decades.
Enlightenment arrives!
The article reports:
Japan has issued a cease-and-desist order telling Google to stop pressuring smartphone makers to preinstall its search services on Android phones. The Japan Fair Trade Commission said on Tuesday Google had unfairly hindered competition by asking for preferential treatment for its search and browser from smartphone makers in violation of the country’s anti-monopoly law. The antitrust watchdog said Google, as far back as July 2020, had asked at least six Android smartphone manufacturers to preinstall its apps when they signed the license for the American tech giant’s app store…
Google has been this rodeo before. At the end of a legal process, Google will apologize, write a check, and move on down the road.
The question for me is, “How many other countries will see Google as a check writing machine?”
Quite a few in my opinion. The only problem is that these actions have taken many years to move from the thrill of getting a Google mouse pad to actual governmental action. (The best Google freebie was its flashing LED pin. Mine corroded and no longer flashed. I dumped it.)
Note for the * — Links to Microsoft “news” stories often go dead. Suck it up and run a query for the title using Google, of course.
Stephen E Arnold, April 28, 2025
Hey, We Know This Is Fake News: Sharing Secrets on Signal
April 24, 2025
Some government professionals allegedly blundered when they accidentally shared secret information via Signal with a reporter. The reporter, by the way, is not a person who wears a fedora with a command on it. To some, sharing close-hold information is an oopsie, but doing so with a non-hat wearing reporter is special. The BBC explained what the fallout will be from this mistake: “Why Is It A Problem If Yemen Strike Plans Shared On Signal?”
The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg alleged received close-hold information via a free messaging application. A government professional seemed to agree that the messages appeared to be authentic. Hey, a free application is a cost reducer. Plus, Signal is believed to be encrypted end to end and super secure to boot. Signal is believed to be the “whisper network” of Washington D., an area known for its appropriate behavior and penchant for secrecy. (What was Wilbur Mills doing in the reflecting pool?)
While the messages are encrypted, bad actors (particularly those who may or may not be pals of the United States) allegedly can penetrate the Signal system. The Google Threat Intelligence Group noticed that Russia’s intelligence services have stepped up their hacking activities. Well, maybe or maybe not. Google is the leader in online advertising, but its “cyber security” expertise was acquired and may not be Googley yet.
The US government is not encouraging use of free messaging apps for sensitive information. That’s good. And the Pentagon is not too keen on a system not authorized to transmit non-public Department of Defense information. That’s good to know.
The whole sharing thing presents a potential downside for whomever is responsible for the misstep. The article says:
“Sensitive government communications are required to take place in a sealed-off room called a Sensitive Compartmentalized Information Facility (SCIF), where mobile phones are generally forbidden. The US government has other systems in place to communicate classified information, including the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System (JWICS) and the Secret Internet Protocol Router (SIPR) network, which top government officials can access via specifically configured laptops and phones.”
Will there be consequences?
The article points out that the slip betwixt the cup and the lip may have violated two Federal laws:
“If confirmed, that would raise questions about two federal laws that require the preservation of government records: the Presidential Records Act and the Federal Records Act. "The law requires that electronic messages that take place on a non-official account are preserved, in some fashion, on an official electronic record keeping system," said Jason R Baron, a former director of litigation at the National Archives and Records Administration. Such regulations would cover Signal, he said.”
Hey, wasn’t the National Archive the agent interrupting normal business and holiday activities at a high profile resort residence in Florida recently? What does that outfit know about the best way to share sensitive information?
Whitney Grace, April 24, 2025
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
