Dirk Kayser

Founder & CEO of Flowerpilot. Hooked on product engineering, renewable energy, the future of Europe, and the Chinese economy.

[David Agranovich @DavidAgranovich]

Breaking my X hiatus because this is fascinating. I ran threat disruption at Meta for 8 years, where we routinely released reports like the Anthropic report out today. It’s noteworthy that Anthropic is being this transparent, and they deserve credit if we want this level of visibility into AI companies going forward. Here's what stood out to me, and where I'd push back. 🧵

[clem 🤗 @ClementDelangue]

We got attacked by secret unreleased proprietary models and defended ourselves with an open model, more precisely the @nvidia quantized version of GLM 5.2 coming from @Zai_org.

Banning any open model would hurt first cyber security defenders, startups, small companies, researchers and everyone who's not a frontier lab and need on-prem affordable controlable models to compete and protect themselves. Let's not do that!

[PBS News @NewsHour]

The State Department said ​it takes "full responsibility" for "hastily" altering and then presenting a map of Africa at a global AIDS conference that mislabeled every single country it highlighted.

An analysis by Reuters found a watermark in the map image that suggests it was made with OpenAI.

[Leonard Tang @leonardtang_]

Every enterprise AI leader is asking the same question: how do we know which models are safe, reliable, and secure?

We've long been obsessed with this problem at Haize Labs.

That's why we're pleased to announce that our red-teaming engine now powers https://t.co/ep1Buvkeiz

[Zain @zainhas]

chinese doordash just dropped a 560B model 😅

what did you do with your sunday?

[tobi lutke @tobi]

Open source contributions are increasingly seeing backdoor attacks. How many of these are caught? Software supply chain attacks are going to be the defining threat in tech over the next years

[Sheel Mohnot @pitdesi]

Thanks Jeff Lawson for buying the Onion so we could get this great zoom in on electoral coverage. No other news source has gone to this level of detail.

[Victor Shih @vshih2]

That’s pretty intense. What’s the financial upside for TASR?

[Hendrik @ginandstocks]

Die deutsche Bundesbank prognostiziert für 2025 800.000 Compliance Jobs in Deutschland (+15% jedes Jahr). Zum Vergleich: Es gibt aktuell ca. 900.000 Software Entwickler in Deutschland (+5% pro Jahr). Schon sehr bald haben wir mehr Compliance Experten als Software Entwickler.

[Dirk Kayser @dkayser]

This. We’re using https://t.co/RavXHQgS7f. Has a static URL for the chat room.

[Dirk Kayser @dkayser]

Hehe cannot wait for the fun stories to emerge. In my financial risk management class it was awkward but not uncommon to end up with 1.5 million bushels surplus at the end of the year if a trade went wrong.

[GrainStats 🌾 @GrainStats]

this meme is going to live up to its expectations🌽

[Manya Koetse @manyapan]

Shocked and saddened to hear of the unexpected passing of sinologist Prof. Dr. Stefan Landsberger this week.

If you’re not familiar with his name, you might have come across his work if you’ve ever read anything about Chinese propaganda. Landsberger was a leading authority on the subject, having spent decades—since the late 1970s—collecting an extensive array of posters and conducting thorough research in the field. His collection grew to become one of the largest private collections of Chinese propaganda posters in the world.

Landsberger was an Associate Professor of Contemporary Chinese History and Society at Leiden University. In that role, he also taught me Chinese Modern History when I was an undergraduate there. He was a dedicated teacher—often critical, which made him intimidating to some students—but deeply appreciated by most for his brutal honesty and his immense passion for Chinese history and modern Sinology.

One memory from 2018 stands out. I was in China as a post-graduate student and took a taxi on a cold and rainy January night in Beijing. During the ride, I struck up a conversation with the driver, who asked me where I was from. When I told him I was Dutch, he proudly shared that he had a Dutch friend—one of his dearest, he said, whom he'd known since the early 1980s. That intrigued me, as I'd never heard anything like that from a Beijing taxi driver before. As we continued talking, he mentioned that his friend was a teacher and then showed me a photo on his phone of them together. I was surprised to see that the man in the picture, smiling warmly beside the taxi driver, was none other than my own teacher Stefan Landsberger.

In a city of 21 million people, I had somehow hailed a cab driven by one of Landsberger's oldest friends in the city, whom he had known since he was a student in Beijing. I shared this story with Dr. Landsberger later through WeChat—it made him laugh.

This chance encounter left a lasting impression on me, not just because of the coincidence, but because it spoke volumes about Landsberger's enduring love for China and his ability to cultivate deep, lasting friendships. It showed his loyalty, not just to his work and research but to the people and connections he built over decades.

Landsberger will be greatly missed. His contributions to the growing body of work on Chinese propaganda are invaluable. This ever-evolving phenomenon can only be fully understood by examining both its current trends and its historical roots—and Landsberger's work will forever be foundational in that effort.

[Bloomberg @business]

A miscommunication between Rivian and its supplier Essex Furukawa has left the carmaker without access to a core component in the electric-vehicle motors that Rivian makes in-house https://t.co/UkkTS4uEar

[LaurenABC7 @LaurenABC7]

HAPPENING NOW: A driverless @Waymo gets stuck making a u-turn as @VP’s motorcade arrived at the Fairmont S.F.
An SFPD officer had to manually drive the vehicle out. We’re hearing this wasn’t the only one…
@abc7newsbayarea

[Retraction Watch @RetractionWatch]

Wiley has joined Taylor & Francis in signing AI company deals. "Some Professors Are Outraged."
https://t.co/WWa9O4ifzd

[adafruit industries @adafruit]

Microsoft open sources the code for MS-DOS 4.0
https://t.co/9XszK6KFZb

[Traces of Texas @TracesofTexas]

In 1971, Mariano Martinez, Jr. adapted a Slurpee machine to create the world's first frozen margarita machine at Mariano's Hacienda restaurant in East Dallas. So it's true that not all heroes wear capes. 😀 Photo courtesy Mariano Martinez Jr. via @DMagazine .

[Explosions&Fire @Explosions_Fire]

It also mentions the ‘changing nature of the chemical literature’ which is just feels super nice honestly, as someone who has spent many hours making YouTube videos

[Theresa Fallon @TheresaAFallon]

Looks like China is decoupling from US consulting firms. The problem is, w/out due diligence, companies can’t fulfill their legal requirements which will prevent them from further investments in🇨🇳.

“Clients are saying we can no longer work with American consulting firms,” said one executive at a US consultancy. The executive said some state-owned groups had begun asking about hiring their firm through a third party, while others questioned them about where their data was stored.” @ft