White House paper proposes more AI funding, less for universities
1. The new Trump / Kratsios plan for US science appears explicitly designed to destroy US universities. Diverting money to tech donors is probably just a bonus. Gift link.
Carl T. Bergstrom5522. Remarkably, given how universally unpopular this would be, the intent seems accept the ruination of US health and medical research as collateral damage.
Gary Longsine 📱26This is the culmination of Project 2025, a Christian Nationalist project which will create a new Dark Ages in the United States, if they succeed with ending democracy and science in USA.
Lori Biederman12I wonder if part of this is that biology/life sciences have more women researchers compared to engineering etc.
miskwaa.bsky.social7What would you expect from a group that wants robot maid/sex slaves, flying motorcycles and thinks both Interstellar and the Jetsons were documentaries.
Ellin Stein6Let's say Trump is not acting in the interests of a foreign government. If he were, what would he be doing differently?
DrGeophysics (my personal opinions only)6Destroying education is a pretty consistent Republican strategy. Latest Republican Party tactic in attacking higher education and defunding include “AI.” Some of the quotes “AI can do a Ph.D. in a week” , from younger Republican techno bros, are quite shallow, poorly thought out and very nuts.
Mark Copelovitch42🧵 Again, one might think that the presidents & chancellors of the country's top public & private R1 research universities might speak out, loudly & collectively, against this existential threat to their institutions' entire funding model. Alas, one would still be wrong. bsky.app/profile/mcop...
Derek Lowe20Carl’s thread here is a much more detailed version of what I said today on the blog - bringing the receipts!
The Jarmer Fones18Congrats again to all the brave university administrators who went full Neville Chamberlain in 2024 & '25 to appease an administration that would prefer their institutions not exist beyond nationalist propaganda indoctrination centers and places to design bombs.
David Burbach 🇺🇸16Thread. Very good thread taking apart the Trump science "vision"
Matthew Buckley12I fear we’re on the verge of the end of American science. And I don’t think any political group has any interest in rebuilding it a functional way. And yes, I’m including your political movement and your parasocial faves, whatever they are. Everyone just wants slopulism.
☀️11the ground underneath me is shrinking and i probably won’t have a job to go to in the next year or so. if you need a staff photographer w a decade of experience in the dfw area im all ears as i oscillate between crying and laughing
Kate Jackson9I don’t know if the VC model is so amazing. Their last best good idea is genAI and it’s losing a ton of money with no plan to reduce costs. So … no more science at all…?
Stanford AAUP7Very important and illuminating 🧵
Hal 100006The US has built the most powerful engine of scientific discovery in history. We are in a golden age of innovation in almost every field. And these goat ropers want to plunder it to feed cash to AI and wellness boondoggles. They make the people who burned the Library of Alexandria look like pikers.
Philip N Cohen5More seriously, this thread from @carlbergstrom.com begins to unpack the mind-boggling awfulness of this document:
Thoughts on the various Trump administration proposals to revamp US science funding - and what they all have in common:
Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽20"Instead, it’s time for politics...This destruction will take place most easily in an atmosphere of worn-out apathy and helplessness, so give them the opposite. Make it hard for these people, because if they get their way it’s for sure that they want to make it very, very hard on you."
Alex Wild19Another way to think of Trump's proposal is: He is taking public money from people who don't pay bribes, or don't have enough money to pay bribes, being middle class scientists, and dangling it front of the techbro billionaires, because they *do* pay bribes.
Philip Ball14What Derek says. All of it. Forget all the chin-scratching analyses of the Trump administrations "proposals" & plans - it comes down to this. It's time we simply said it.
Brandon Bishop12If your professional society leaders aren't talking like this, it's time to get new leaders.
Kevin Wright8A clear-eyed and forceful assessment of the continued assault on science by the trump administration
Ethan Vishniac 🇺🇦🇨🇦🇺🇸6“The Trump administration hates academic science funding, full stop. They hate where that money goes, and they hate who it goes to. They want to keep all that money for themselves, to hand out to favored cronies who can help them get elected “
betsythemuffin.bsky.social6Another piece of the puzzle: These proposals are largely from people who couldn't hack lab sciences but could hack sophomoric Tumblr "rationalist" bullshit, and who need to convince themselves that they're "technical."
David John Gagne II5Russ Vought and crew are just like Hans Gruber: trying to act sophisticated when in reality they’re just a bunch of petty thieves stealing our future. Fighting back is working; let’s keep it up.
Chase Million4By training and culture, scientists tend to assume that others are acting generally in good faith, not willfully lying, and share an interest in pursuit of truth for the good of humanity. This is easily exploited by hostile and bad faith actors. Sometimes the correct response is "Fuck you, liar."
John Timmer3The accompaniment to my "what just happened?" coverage, Derek does a great job of handling "what does it mean?" and "what do we do?"
All you AI users are agreeing with Trump and MAGA. And funding fascists. And killing your neighbors. Amongst other things.
Nichole Hiltz 🧡13Ugh, if people believe this we’re done 😑 bsky.app/profile/head...
Amy Donohue2It's called AI Slop for a reason.
Tseikkis1Also they aren't really, OpenAI actually burns tens of billions in a year on operating costs and only makes a few bil back. None of them are profitable, they're burning investor money like never before. This shit is gonna crash so hard that we'll probably have a recession.
Tseikkis1Might take some doing, that convincing, considering how horrible these things are for any community.
A key element of post-WW2 US science policy was recognizing science had become too "big" for individual tinkerers on personal funding, we needed to support institutions, labs, programs. But 'genius tinkerer' is exactly what these bros imagine, part of hating the "professional-managerial class"
David Burbach 🇺🇸19Surely, 1000 physicists each working alone with 27 meters of collider tube can produce more than funding a big bureaucratic LHC and working together
Tahar 🇺🇦 🇵🇸 🇺🇳 🇪🇺5This here 👇👇👇 It was a strategic decision that led to building serious and lasting and innovative scientific institutions.
The Trump administration wants to try to give funding to individual researchers at universities instead of routing funds through institutions. I read this as an effort to eliminate indirect costs after the administration lost that battle in court last year. Gift link.
Paul Musgrave1Not to mention the grafting opportunities
Jackie Schilling1So… then universities have to charge rent to use their facilities? The researcher has to do the work to get their assistants paid? Sounds like more bureaucracy, not less, in the hands of someone who probably really doesn’t want to do it.
