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Fleur Zeldenrust @fleurzeldenrust.bsky.social · 1d

You know, I want to spend time on the things that I am supposed to be doing, so could you make a research assistant that could actually do the stuff that is keeping me from that? Instead of trying to take over the things that are essential?

See also: academic.oup.com/brain/articl...

A mountain of small things

I live under its shadow. I suspect most of you do too. It is the great mountain of small things. Every year, it grows a little taller, a little more imposi

academic.oup.com

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Fleur Zeldenrust @fleurzeldenrust.bsky.social · 1d

No I don't!

I actually want to save time from doing useless admin stuff, so I can spend MORE time reading, understanding and writing research papers!

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Reposted by Fleur Zeldenrust

BrainHelpDesk @brainhelpdesk.bsky.social · 5d

Dit weekend is het #Weekend van de #Wetenschap!
Wil je vragen stellen over de werking van het brein? Kom dan naar het @dondersinst.bsky.social Brein museum in de Latijnse school in #Nijmegen en stel je vraag!

weekendvandewetenschap.nl/activiteiten...

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Fleur Zeldenrust @fleurzeldenrust.bsky.social · 16d

Does the one on my son’s birthday cake count?

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Reposted by Fleur Zeldenrust

Tom Nichols @radiofreetom.bsky.social · 25d

I wrote about this problem in The Death of Expertise. (My solution, despite years of good evals, was to have other faculty observe my class and give me feedback, even when I was senior and tenured.)

by @rosehorowitch.bsky.social

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

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Reposted by Fleur Zeldenrust

Nicole Rust @nicolecrust.bsky.social · 26d

They’re asking! And I KNOW you ECRs have thoughts. It’s worth taking the time to share them, I think! I know that individuals in positions to do things want to know what you need (so they can help).

The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social · 26d

Help @thetransmitter.bsky.social and @neuromatch.bsky.social understand what early-career neuroscientists need. Take just a few minutes to fill out the survey: www.thetransmitter.org/early-career...

#neuroskyence

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Reposted by Fleur Zeldenrust

BrainHelpDesk @brainhelpdesk.bsky.social · 26d

Answer by Alida Chen and Lukas Lütje of the
@nin-knaw.bsky.social
editors: Sjoerd Murris en Marina Boon: brainhelpdesk.nl/en/vraag/waa...

Do you also have a #brain #question? Ask it at the
@dondersinst.bsky.social @brainhelpdesk.bsky.social
and we will come up with an #answer! #MS

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Reposted by Fleur Zeldenrust

BrainHelpDesk @brainhelpdesk.bsky.social · 26d

Antwoord door Alida Chen en Lukas Lütje van het
@nin-knaw.bsky.social , redactie: Sjoerd Murris en Marina Boon: brainhelpdesk.nl/vraag/waarom...

Heb jij ook een #brein #vraag? Stel hem bij de @dondersinst.bsky.social @brainhelpdesk.bsky.social en we komen met een #antwoord! #MS

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Fleur Zeldenrust @fleurzeldenrust.bsky.social · Sep 8

Above all, you need to learn to reason, organize, summarize, combine, and critique. Giving four-year-olds a calculator right away is simply giving up on education.

www.felienne.nl/2025-36/

Vrouwen in de wetenschap, de AI van de UvA, wat is leraar zijn, inspraak op de universiteit - AI in Week 36

Waar zijn de vrouwen in de wetenschap? Die vraag leidde tot 40 jaar onderzoek en drie boeken. UvA heeft een eigen AI, goed idee of niet? Wat doet een leraar, wat doet een programmeur? Een korte geschi...

www.felienne.nl

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Fleur Zeldenrust @fleurzeldenrust.bsky.social · Sep 8

And of course, I also use a calculator in everyday life for uninteresting problems, but I can estimate whether the answer makes sense. First, I need to understand what multiplication is and how it works.

www.volkskrant.nl/columns-opin...

Opinie: Behoed kinderen voor het Trojaanse paard uit Silicon Valley

Google biedt scholen Gemini, de AI-variant van Google, zonder extra kosten aan. Een gevaarlijke ontwikkeling, want daarmee wordt het gebruik van AI bij kinderen genormaliseerd. En dat zou niet normaal...

www.volkskrant.nl

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Fleur Zeldenrust @fleurzeldenrust.bsky.social · Sep 8

The real question is: what should children and students learn? Math, spelling, reading, and especially reasoning! The goal of education isn't to spit out as much text as possible.

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · Sep 6

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n

Abstract: Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or
even imposed on users — in past centuries with tobacco and combustion engines, and in
the 21st with social media. For these collective blunders, we now regret our involvement or
apathy as scientists, and society struggles to put the genie back in the bottle. Currently, we
are similarly entangled with artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For example, software updates are rolled out seamlessly and non-consensually, Microsoft Office is bundled with chatbots, and we, our students, and our employers have had no say, as it is not
considered a valid position to reject AI technologies in our teaching and research. This
is why in June 2025, we co-authored an Open Letter calling on our employers to reverse
and rethink their stance on uncritically adopting AI technologies. In this position piece,
we expound on why universities must take their role seriously toa) counter the technology
industry’s marketing, hype, and harm; and to b) safeguard higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, and scientific integrity. We include pointers to
relevant work to further inform our colleagues.

Figure 1. A cartoon set theoretic view on various terms (see Table 1) used when discussing the superset AI
(black outline, hatched background): LLMs are in orange; ANNs are in magenta; generative models are
in blue; and finally, chatbots are in green. Where these intersect, the colours reflect that, e.g. generative adversarial network (GAN) and Boltzmann machine (BM) models are in the purple subset because they are
both generative and ANNs. In the case of proprietary closed source models, e.g. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and
Apple’s Siri, we cannot verify their implementation and so academics can only make educated guesses (cf.
Dingemanse 2025). Undefined terms used above: BERT (Devlin et al. 2019); AlexNet (Krizhevsky et al.
2017); A.L.I.C.E. (Wallace 2009); ELIZA (Weizenbaum 1966); Jabberwacky (Twist 2003); linear discriminant analysis (LDA); quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA).

Table 1. Below some of the typical terminological disarray is untangled. Importantly, none of these terms
are orthogonal nor do they exclusively pick out the types of products we may wish to critique or proscribe.

Protecting the Ecosystem of Human Knowledge: Five Principles

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Reposted by Fleur Zeldenrust

BrainHelpDesk @brainhelpdesk.bsky.social · Sep 5

Antwoord door Alida Chen en Lukas Lütje van het @nin-knaw.bsky.social , redactie: Sjoerd Murris en Marina Boon: brainhelpdesk.nl/vraag/wannee...

Heb jij ook een #brein #vraag? Stel hem bij de @dondersinst.bsky.social @brainhelpdesk.bsky.social en we komen met een #antwoord!

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Reposted by Fleur Zeldenrust

BrainHelpDesk @brainhelpdesk.bsky.social · Sep 5

Answer by Alida Chen and Lukas Lütje of the @nin-knaw.bsky.social , editors: Sjoerd Murris en Marina Boon: brainhelpdesk.nl/en/vraag/wan...

Do you also have a #brain #question? Ask it at the @dondersinst.bsky.social @brainhelpdesk.bsky.social and we will come up with an #answer!

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Fleur Zeldenrust @fleurzeldenrust.bsky.social · Sep 3

Jordaners? Nog nooit van gehoord! 😂

Reposted by Fleur Zeldenrust

BrainHelpDesk @brainhelpdesk.bsky.social · Aug 29

Antwoord door @suryagayet.bsky.social, redactie @samdekater.bsky.social:
brainhelpdesk.nl/vraag/how-is...

Heb jij ook een #brein #vraag? Stel hem bij de
@dondersinst.bsky.social @brainhelpdesk.bsky.social en we komen met een #antwoord!

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Reposted by Fleur Zeldenrust

BrainHelpDesk @brainhelpdesk.bsky.social · Aug 29

Answer by @suryagayet.bsky.social, editor: @samdekater.bsky.social: brainhelpdesk.nl/en/vraag/how...

Do you also have a #brain #question? Ask it at the @dondersinst.bsky.social @brainhelpdesk.bsky.social and we will come up with an #answer!

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Fleur Zeldenrust @fleurzeldenrust.bsky.social · Aug 28

If you can even get childcare (often full). Moreover, primary schools want you to jump in at random times during the day (helping teaching, supervising outings, cleaning the classroom, checking for lice , …). Also, things like sports or music lessons for kids are also mostly during working hours.

Reposted by Fleur Zeldenrust

BrainHelpDesk @brainhelpdesk.bsky.social · Jul 31

Antwoord door Leonie Oostwoud Wijdenes, redactie door @fleurzeldenrust.bsky.social en Sjoerd Murris: brainhelpdesk.nl/vraag/hoe-we...

Heb jij ook een #brein #vraag? Stel hem bij de @dondersinst.bsky.social @brainhelpdesk.bsky.social en we komen met een #antwoord!

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Reposted by Fleur Zeldenrust

BrainHelpDesk @brainhelpdesk.bsky.social · Jul 31

Answer by Leonie Oostwoud Wijdenes, editors: @fleurzeldenrust.bsky.social and Sjoerd Murris: brainhelpdesk.nl/en/vraag/hoe...

Do you also have a #brain #question? Ask it at the @dondersinst.bsky.social @brainhelpdesk.bsky.social and we will come up with an #answer!

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Reposted by Fleur Zeldenrust

BrainHelpDesk @brainhelpdesk.bsky.social · Jul 24

Answer by Fleur Zeldenrust, editors: Sjoerd Murris and Marina Boon: brainhelpdesk.nl/en/vraag/waa...

Do you also have a #brain #question? Ask it at the
@dondersinst.bsky.social @brainhelpdesk.bsky.social and we will come up with an #answer!

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Reposted by Fleur Zeldenrust

BrainHelpDesk @brainhelpdesk.bsky.social · Jul 24

Antwoord door Fleur Zeldenrust, redactie door Sjoerd Murris en Marina Boon: brainhelpdesk.nl/vraag/waarom...

Heb jij ook een #brein #vraag? Stel hem bij de
@dondersinst.bsky.social @brainhelpdesk.bsky.social en we komen met een #antwoord!

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Reposted by Fleur Zeldenrust

BrainHelpDesk @brainhelpdesk.bsky.social · Jul 17

Antwoord door Ines Ben Haj Kacem en Francesca Siclari van het @nin-knaw.bsky.social: brainhelpdesk.nl/vraag/kan-ik...

Heb jij ook een #brein #vraag? Stel hem bij de @dondersinst.bsky.social @brainhelpdesk.bsky.social en we komen met een #antwoord!

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Reposted by Fleur Zeldenrust

BrainHelpDesk @brainhelpdesk.bsky.social · Jul 17

Answer by Ines Ben Haj Kacem en Francesca Siclari of the @nin-knaw.bsky.social: brainhelpdesk.nl/vraag/kan-ik...

Do you also have a #brain #question? Ask it at the @dondersinst.bsky.social @brainhelpdesk.bsky.social and we will come up with an #answer!

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Fleur Zeldenrust @fleurzeldenrust.bsky.social · Jul 8

Very important, as the well meant requirement that committees have at least an X number of female panel members, means that the pressure on the scarce women faculty actually increases. If you want a woman in many panels, you should actually reduce their workload in other aspects.

Charlotte Reese Marshall used to be Tom Rhys Marshall @tomrhysmarshall.bsky.social · Jul 8

Really important work.

Also important not to merely frame this as, 'hey, women faculty, don't forget to say no!' That places the burden in the wrong place.

Organisations need to look critically at how requests are made and how workload is acknowledged.

Systemic problems need systemic solutions.

Amy Diehl, Ph.D. @amydiehl.bsky.social · Jul 7

In a study of professors, women got 378 new work requests over 4 weeks vs 118 for men. Women spent more time on service, advising & teaching; men on research. Orgs should track who is taking extra duties & ensure they are rewarded and distributed fairly. www.forbes.com/sites/kimels...

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Fleur Zeldenrust @fleurzeldenrust.bsky.social · Jun 30

@ojgstrein.bsky.social‬, Titus Stahl (Jantina Tammes School of Digital Society, Technology & AI, ‪@rug.nl‬), Eelke Spaak (Radboud Young Academy) and representatives of SURF and Rathenau Instituut we wrote this call to researchers, teachers and institutions.

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