Movie recommendation: St. Vincent (2014, Bill Murray).
I love Hollywood movies. They smell somehow like Christmas. I mean, like the classic "It's a Wonderful Life", with James Stewart, the best Christmas movie ever.
St. Vincent is not a Christmas movie, but it feels like one.
I'm giving it a 9/10, because I missed this feeling.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2170593/?ref_=wl_t_5
AI is victim of one of the biggest witch hunts in history.
Comparable to the burning of Giordano Bruno.
To the execution of Socrates.
To the burning of classical Greek science during early medieval Christianity.
AI is scary because:
* It is based on advanced, complicated science, math and statistics. People don't understand it. People don't understand even basic probability theory. People still believe in the zodiac, and gamble in casinos, after kissing dice and religious symbols. How would they understand the advanced statistics behind AI, when people still use talismans and crucifixes to protect them from car accidents?!
AI now is like... Euclidean geometry 2000 years ago. People didn't understand numbers or geometry. Science is scary. But it builds roads, ships, and bridges.
* AI changes society. Same as writing, cars, engines, physics, philosophy, religion.
* AI creates knowledge. Same as writing, newspapers, and books => Power shifts.
And then, there is this... top layer of engineers, and scientists, who really use and build AI. For them, this witch hunt is... shocking.
Scientists and engineers really use AI to make breakthrough discoveries, win Nobel Prizes in Chemistry and Physics, build amazing technology, software that works, software that translates any language to any language, that guides billions of drivers on roads, and controls self-driving cars, and rockets.
AI now analyzes CT scans and medical records to detect early cancers.
AI invents new vaccines, and new intelligent raw materials.
Real scientists write real software code and apps. We use mathematics, statistics, and numbers. For us, the social and political resistance is a shocking cultural and social phenomenon.
It's somehow like when Newton, and Giordano Bruno, and Galilei, and Copernicus discovered things like gravity, the solar system, inertia, acceleration. And all these were so new and strange to everybody.
So we burnt their books.
And we executed them.
But scientific truth survived.
So it is our duty, as scientists and engineers, to rise, and tell this to the world.
Science + engineering works.
We cannot recognize advanced intelligence.
This used to be a theoretical problem, but may soon become very practical. Because we started to build (artificial) intelligence.
Why?
Our only practical definition of intelligence is by similarity: the Turing definition: "it's intelligent if it's like us". And contemporary AI already passed the Turing test.
But consider this: lower levels of intelligence cannot SEE our intelligence. Plants, and animals, have a certain degree of intelligence themselves.
We share a huge amount of DNA with animals and plants. And we have the same basic type of evolutionary, adaptive intelligence. Animals and even plants communicate, collaborate, learn, adapt, evolve, control their environment.
But plants and animals, although very similar to humans, are incapable to understand or even recognize the level of intelligence of humans.
They don't even know that they don't know that there is human intelligence.
An insect, or a fish, cannot recognize the manifestations of human intelligence: writing, roads, satellites, radio waves, wifi signal, music, abstract painting. This was superbly exemplified in Strugatki's novel Roadside Picnic. Therefore, we might be surrounded by an infinity of manifestations of higher/different intelligences, that we cannot recognize, or even detect.
So we cannot even recognize extraterrestrial, different, or superior intelligence.
And soon, we might not be able to recognize artificial intelligence.
We all complain about HIGH COMPETITION in public sector tenders.
Numbers tell a different story. The competition is in fact very LOW.
But things are changing - very fast.
Currently, 41% of tenders receive only 1 proposal.
69% of tenders receive 3 proposals or less.
18% of tenders are canceled. Out of them, 6-13% due to insufficient bids, the rest for other or unspecified reasons (based on Hermix data for selected analyzed markets).
Between 2011 and 2021, the share of contracts receiving only one bid rose from 23.5% to 41.8%, and the average number of bidders fell from 5.7 to 3.2 (according to the European Court of Auditors). The median EU country has single bids for 28% of tenders (EC Scoreboard 2024).
The reality is that the public sector space is NOT crowded.
There are very few or no proposals submitted. There are a LOT of tenders canceled. A lot of these cancelation are caused by insufficient bids.
But things are going to change. Fast.
The new generation of AI tools allow companies to write and submit better, cheaper proposals.
Soon, companies will submit several times more tenders. Each tender will have hundreds or thousands or pages. Very well written, solid, verified, checked. Companies are usually not forbidden from using AI. And even if they would be forbidden, there are ways to go around such interdictions.
Yes, they still need great technical proposal writers, architects, experts, bid managers. Without a great team, AI is not able to write a winning proposal. But with AI, humans can work so much faster, and better.
At the same time, most evaluators are not allowed to use AI, or have strong limits on AI use. Some are internal interdictions, some are public - e.g. for Eureka (Eurostars, Innowwide), or for Horizon grants (the research programme of the European Union).
This creates a huge disadvantage for public authorities and funding bodies. They use 30-year old tools and processes, to evaluate 100 times more, better proposals.
Authorities and funding bodies will need to adapt fast.
The evaluation criteria and tools will change sharply.
We live incredible, exciting times.
We have no idea what the world will look like, even in 1 year from now.
AI has a place in research, but not in evaluation of Horizon Europe proposals, Commission says. (2024, March 21). Science|Business. https://sciencebusiness.net/news/ai/eu-publishes-guidelines-use-generative-ai-research
Eureka Network. (n.d.). Eurostars remote expert guidelines. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://www.eurekanetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/remote-expert-guidelines.pdf
Eureka Network. (2024). Eureka Innowwide call 3: Evaluation guidelines (Version 1.0). https://eurekanetwork.org/innowwide-evaluation-guidelines
European Commission. (n.d.-a). Access to public procurement. Single Market and Competitiveness Scoreboard. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://single-market-scoreboard.ec.europa.eu/index.php/node/264_et
European Commission. (n.d.-b). Access to public procurement (Belgium). Single Market and Competitiveness Scoreboard. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://single-market-scoreboard.ec.europa.eu/node/373_hr
European Commission. (2023, December 4). European Court of Auditors (ECA) publishes special report on public procurement in the EU. Public Buyers Community. https://public-buyers-community.ec.europa.eu/news/european-court-auditors-eca-publishes-special-report-public-procurement-eu
European Commission. (2025). Standard briefing slides for experts: Horizon Europe (Version 13.0) [Presentation slides]. https://www.leuphana.de/fileadmin/user_upload/forschung/Files/transparenz/standard-briefing-slides-for-experts_he_en.pdf
European Court of Auditors. (2023). Public procurement in the EU: Less competition for contracts awarded for works, goods and services in the 10 years up to 2021 (Special Report No. 28/2023). https://www.eca.europa.eu/ECAHTMLNews/NEWS-SR-2023-28/en/body.html
European Court of Auditors. (2024, March 11). Special report 28/2023: Public procurement in the EU [Presentation slides]. Chaire EPPP, Sorbonne. https://www.chaire-eppp.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Sorbonne_11.3.24.pdf
European Ombudsman. (2026). How the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency (EISMEA) and the European Commission ensure that the use of artificial intelligence (AI) by external experts is compatible with their tasks as evaluators of applications for Horizon funds [Case]. https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/hu/case/en/70849
Luxinnovation. (2026, May 21). Key changes for Horizon Europe funding mechanisms. https://luxinnovation.lu/news/key-changes-for-horizon-europe-funding-mechanisms
Sáenz Pérez-Aradros, M. (2026, May 19). Simplification in Horizon Europe [Presentation slides]. European Commission, DG RTD, Common Implementation Centre. https://www.gov.si/assets/ministrstva/MVZI/Znanost/Obzorje-Evropa/Dogodki/2026-Dogodek-Obzorje-Evropa/Simplification-in-Horizon-Europe.pdf
Meta-modelism.
Science doesn't actually operate within a "true or false" paradigm. Rather, it works with scientific theories, which are models: simplifications of reality that help us understand one aspect of it at a time. Because reality is far too complex, chaotic, and analog, it is impossible to work with it in its entirety. So these models we work with, being simplifications of reality, a kind of "slices," are obviously "true" up to a certain point, in the sense that they correspond to certain aspects, beyond which they become false, no longer corresponding to other aspects.
Of course, a scientific theory must first and foremost be valid and reliable, but this isn't measured by whether it is true or false. It's measured by whether it is coherent, internally consistent, and repeatable.
Scientific theories, these "models," must simultaneously meet two contradictory goals: they must be simple, and therefore easy to work with, and at the same time complex, so as to simulate reality as closely as possible.
All right, then how do you measure the value of a scientific theory? How "true" is a theory? Is Euclidean geometry truer than non-Euclidean geometry? Is the theory of relativity truer, or string theory? Is the Big Bang model truer? Is the creationist theory true, the one where Adam was made from clay, belly button and all?
It doesn't matter so much how True a theory is.
A theory has to be functional. The right question is how useful a particular theory is in a particular context.
No, Microsoft is not firing 60 000 people because of AI. The press release is corporate marketing, interpreted incorrectly.
In fact, Microsoft only said that 60,000 employees are "eligible" for the buyout program. This doesn't mean all will take it. The real number will likely be 3-4 times less. Maybe 10-20k. Out of a total of 295000 employees. So no, Microsoft doesn't fire 27% of their workforce, and doesn't replace them with AI.
And even if Microsoft would fire 10-20k of employees: this would be not news, and it would not mean they would necessarily decrease their total workforce.
Because they do this every year, before publishing their financial results.
Most big corporations announce these "cost reductions to increase efficiency". Shareholders like this, because it means higher profits and dividends.
The interesting mechanism is that they fire 5-10% of staff, and hire others.
Microsoft has announced layoffs almost every year for the past 10 years, with peaks in 2023 and 2025 (up to 7%). They announced 11000 in 2023, and 15000 in 2025, but still ended pretty much the same.
Over 2016–2025, Microsoft announced roughly 40,000–45,000 layoffs in total. Still, their staff grew from 116000 to 225000.
Yes, they always say it's for increasing efficiency and lowering costs. Now: with AI.
These redundancies often overlap with the 10% efficiency rule of Jack Welsh (you know, from the great GE. It's a mandatory case study in all MBA programs across the world). He said that the bottom 10%, the low performers, should always be fired, every year. And replaced with new, better employees.
Of course there are also companies who really reduce their workforce. Some even die.
But don't believe every corporate press release. First look at their stock prices.
The fear of technology and AI is stronger than ever.
Asimov was one of the first to describe humans' fear of robots and AI.
Great stories, starting with Caves of Steel, The naked sun, and all the robot stories.
Asimov explained in many novels how humans would grow afraid of machines. And how machines can actually collaborate with humans.
The current general fear of AI reminds me of the irrational fear of robots described by Asimov 80 years ago.
80 years ago.
We learned nothing.
People faced with robots still behave like monkeys afraid of fire.
And the fear becomes stronger, as AI becomes stronger.
AI wasn't Magic 2 years ago, but now starts to be Magic. We understand less and less how it works. And the results are more and more amazing.
So, we have these medievalists, as Asimov named them. People who refuse to use AI, and refuse technology. "We should ban AI for children. Ban mobile phones in schools. Ban Internet". Well, why don't you also ban Wikipedia, and Google. And dictionaries. And paper. And pencils. In the good old days, people were using their brain, and pergament, and hieroglyphs. And they were happy. Yeah, right.
But all this is nonsense. Everybody uses AI. Your Google Search uses AI. Google Translate. Google Maps and Waze. The voice recognition on your phone. Your apps that recognize songs and plants. Your health apps that track your heart beats.
We live in the most fascinating time in history.