Emtiyaz Khan

@emtiyaz
1,021 Followers
97 Following
578 Posts
Team leader (tenured) at RIKEN AIP. Opinions my own. https://emtiyaz.github.io
Webpagehttps://emtiyaz.github.io

Not a news to many, but I will be starting as a professor (W3) at TU Darmstadt in June 2026 and setup another branch of our Adaptive Intelligence group.

Our group in Tokyo at RIKEN AIP will continue as it is. So if you are visiting Japan, still welcome to visit us!

Also, I am hiring! Please share!

4 PhD positions https://career.tu-darmstadt.de/tu-darmstadt/j
ob/54256

2 post-doc positions https://www.career.tu-darmstadt.de/tu-darmstadt/job/54268

Pokémon Go players thought they were catching Pikachus.

They were actually building the nervous system for robot civilization.

500M humans. 30B images. Zero consent forms.

The game was the harvest.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/03/10/1134099/how-pokemon-go-is-helping-robots-deliver-pizza-on-time/

How Pokémon Go is giving delivery robots an inch-perfect view of the world

Exclusive: Niantic's AI spinout is training a new world model using 30 billion images of urban landmarks crowdsourced from players.

MIT Technology Review

“TikTok and Meta risked safety to win algorithm arms race, whistleblowers say”

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqj9kgxqjwjo

Meta and TikTok let harmful content rise after evidence outrage drove engagement - whistleblowers

Companies allowed more harmful content on user’s feeds, knowing their algorithms ran on outrage, BBC hears.

4 postdoc positions are available at TU Darmstadt and Centre for Excellence on Reasonable AI.

I am part of the Active AI group. Please help me spread the word.

Description: https://hessian.ai/projects/reasonable-ai-rai/

Application portal: https://www.career.tu-darmstadt.de/tu-darmstadt/job/52370

Reasonable AI (RAI) | hessian.AI

Over the last decade, deep learning (DL) has led to groundbreaking progress in artificial intelligence, but current DL-based AI systems are unreasonable in many ways.

hessian.AI

“The President also called Anthropic "woke" and accused it of being an "out-of-control, Radical Left AI company run by people who have no idea what the real World is all about".”

“Trump [posted] that Anthropic "better get their act together, and be helpful during this phase out period, or I will use the Full Power of the Presidency to make them comply, with major civil and criminal consequences to follow."”

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn48jj3y8ezo

Trump has ordered government agencies to stop using Anthropic AI tools

The move announced on social media comes after a standoff between Anthropic's boss and the US Department of Defense.

"Don’t go to the US – not with Trump in charge": the UK tourist with a valid visa detained by ICE for 6 weeks.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/21/karen-newton-valid-visa-detained-ice

‘Don’t go to the US – not with Trump in charge’: the UK tourist with a valid visa detained by ICE for six weeks

Karen Newton was in America on the trip of a lifetime when she was shackled, transported and held for weeks on end. With tourism to the US under increasing strain, she says, ‘If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone’

The Guardian

AI used by governments to distort the reality. Are we proud of our scientific achievements now that it has lead to a world where truth can be so easily distorted?

https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/c86v6p1djvqo

ICE protester speaks out after White House shared fake arrest image

The White House posted an edited image of Nekima Levy Armstrong after she was arrested for organising a protest in a church.

What is worse is that AI has big role to play in it this time.

“And 24 years ago, as I gave my talk in a New York City still traumatised by 9/11, did I too make the mistake of thinking the post-World War Two order, underpinned, as it was, by American might, was the new permanent normal? I think I did.
For we did not foresee then a world in which trust in traditional sources of news and information would be corroded by a rising cynicism, turbo-charged by social media and, increasingly now, AI.”

“democracy, the rule of law, accountable government are not naturally occurring phenomena; they are not even, historically speaking, normal. They have to be fought for, built, sustained, defended.”

This article argues that Europe,Canada and other middle powers are finally facing the American use of force that the rest of world has experienced like for ever (can confirm as a south Asian).

Must read!

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c99kkerr93ko

As we return to a pre-WW2 order, the middle powers face a challenge

With economic stagnation and extremes of inequality comes corrosion of trust in democratic institutions. So Trump may be a symptom, not a cause, of what Carney called a "rupture" with the post-WW2 order.

@pierrealquier.bsky.social “Støre noted an independent committee, not the government of Norway, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. “

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy7mev35x2lo

Trump ties Greenland demands to Nobel Prize in message to Norway leader

The US president insists Norway controls who gets the coveted prize, which the Norwegian government says it has nothing to do with it.