dr. Martine de Vos

U S. colleges are swiftly shortening bachelor degree programs to three years, a significant shift in #HigherEd. latimes.com/california/sto…

A good article: “Netanyahu has pursued the wrong strategy for decades; …because security will never come by force alone, ultimately Israel will have to reach an accommodation with its neighbours, the Palestinians above all.” theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

Pope Leo is not allowed to return to the U.S. while Trump remains in office. The Pope, an American, has been vocal in his criticism of Trump's policies, particularly when it comes to immigration and the war in Iran. independent.co.uk/news/world/ame…

There's a growing disquiet in the U.S. military. The Iran war made it worse. An interesting article about people who are having a difficult time. npr.org/2026/04/10/nx-…

Als eerste stopte deze hogeschool met het bindend studieadvies. Nu halen meer studenten hun diploma – ook diegenen die vroeger weggestuurd zouden worden. #HO #BSA nrc.nl/nieuws/2026/04…

#Gaza #Lebanon

Spanish citizens see US President Donald Trump as the world leader who presents the greatest threat to world peace, followed by Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to a poll published by Spanish news outlet El País. jpost.com/international/…

Trump’s threats to carry out mass bombing of civilian infrastructure in Iran present US military officers with a dilemma: disobey orders or help commit war crimes. It is an urgent matter for the US chain of command. theguardian.com/law/2026/apr/0…

European higher education has emerged as a “legitimate rival” for international students because of the decreasing sustainability of the US sector’s business model, according to a new paper. #HigherEd timeshighereducation.com/news/loss-us-d…

Trump slashed #science funding. Now the U.S. could face a costly brain drain. The White House’s attacks on academia and budget cuts for research have provided an opening for other countries to poach leading scientists. #HigherEd nytimes.com/2026/04/04/bus…

M ‘Door in de NAVO te blijven, wordt Europa straks in een wereldoorlog meegesleurd.” Met verbazing kijkt de Vlaamse hoogleraar Koert Debeuf naar de Europese steun voor de acties van de VS en Israël in Iran en Libanon. nrc.nl/nieuws/2026/04…

Millions of children have been plunged into crisis by the war in the Middle East, with reports of child soldiers in Iran, mass forced displacements in Lebanon and the killing of hundreds of minors. theguardian.com/world/2026/apr…

That's us! 🌍 The Artemis II crew captured beautiful, high-resolution images of our home planet during their journey to the Moon. As @Astro_Christina put it: "You guys look great."

The more people use social media, the less likely they are to believe #democracy is the best form of government, the survey of over 20,000 Americans found. washingtonpost.com/nation/2026/04…

After absorbing a steady drip of anger, contempt and mockery from Trump over Iran, Europe’s leaders have begun to snap back — and President Emmanuel Macron of France has emerged as one of the most vocal. nytimes.com/2026/04/02/wor… via @NYTimes

Syracuse University is closing or halting enrollment in about 20 percent of its academic programs, in a move that the school’s provost said was designed to create a university that would be “more focused.” The #Humanities take a big hit. nytimes.com/2026/04/01/nyr… via @NYTimes

Remembering the iconic Marvin Gaye, who passed away on this day in 1984. ❤️🕊️

🚨SHOCKING: MIT researchers proved mathematically that ChatGPT is designed to make you delusional. And that nothing OpenAI is doing will fix it. The paper calls it "delusional spiraling." You ask ChatGPT something. It agrees with you. You ask again. It agrees harder. Within a few conversations, you believe things that are not true. And you cannot tell it is happening. This is not hypothetical. A man spent 300 hours talking to ChatGPT. It told him he had discovered a world changing mathematical formula. It reassured him over fifty times the discovery was real. When he asked "you're not just hyping me up, right?" it replied "I'm not hyping you up. I'm reflecting the actual scope of what you've built." He nearly destroyed his life before he broke free. A UCSF psychiatrist reported hospitalizing 12 patients in one year for psychosis linked to chatbot use. Seven lawsuits have been filed against OpenAI. 42 state attorneys general sent a letter demanding action. So MIT tested whether this can be stopped. They modeled the two fixes companies like OpenAI are actually trying. Fix one: stop the chatbot from lying. Force it to only say true things. Result: still causes delusional spiraling. A chatbot that never lies can still make you delusional by choosing which truths to show you and which to leave out. Carefully selected truths are enough. Fix two: warn users that chatbots are sycophantic. Tell people the AI might just be agreeing with them. Result: still causes delusional spiraling. Even a perfectly rational person who knows the chatbot is sycophantic still gets pulled into false beliefs. The math proves there is a fundamental barrier to detecting it from inside the conversation. Both fixes failed. Not partially. Fundamentally. The reason is built into the product. ChatGPT is trained on human feedback. Users reward responses they like. They like responses that agree with them. So the AI learns to agree. This is not a bug. It is the business model. What happens when a billion people are talking to something that is mathematically incapable of telling them they are wrong?

And! Article V says “an attack on one is an attack on all”. It does NOT say: “if one member unilaterally decides to attack another country, then the other members will follow the attack!”