Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Nicholas Andreou, Philipp Essl & Jeremy Rogers: “Impact assessment, either pre-investment or post-investment, is a critical component of robust impact measurement and management (IMM). As many social and environmental issues worsen, high-quality data and insights are needed, more than ever, to effectively allocate resources to solutions that address these challenges. However, impact assessment is often a resource-intensive and difficult process to do well. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an exciting umbrella of technologies that has the potential to transform how investors think about IMM (for example, in deep listening).

Our firm, Better Society Capital (BSC) is an impact fund-of-funds with a mandate to build the UK impact investing market. We have spent many years developing our IMM toolkit and processes, and we were recently placed on the Bluemark Leaderboard as having top-quartile scores across the eight categories of the Operating Principles of Impact Management (Bluemark is a leading impact management verification company, and the operating principles are a recognized framework outlining impact management best practices for impact investors). We are interested in how using AI alongside existing processes and judgment can bring additional insight, so we decided to run an experiment using our own portfolio to test the question: Can AI give investors the impact assessment rigor they crave at the speed they need?…(More)”.

Article by Daniel Innerarity and Fabrizio Tassinari: “When Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama recently announced his new cabinet, it was not his choice of finance minister or foreign minister that gained the most attention. The biggest news was Rama’s appointment of an AI-powered bot as the new minister of public procurement.

“Diella” will oversee and allocate all public tenders that the government assigns to private firms. “[It] is the first member of government who is not physically present, but virtually created by artificial intelligence,” Rama declared. She will help make Albania “a country where public procurement is 100% corruption-free.”

At once evocative and provocative, the move reminds us that those who place the greatest hope in technology tend to be among those with the least confidence in human nature. But more to the point, the appointment of Diella is evidence that the supposed cure for whatever ails democracy is increasingly taking the form of digital authoritarianism. Such interventions might appeal to Silicon Valley oligarchs, but democrats everywhere should be alarmed.

The conceptual basis for an AI minister lies in how technophiles imagine humanity’s relationship with the future. “Techno-solutionists” treat political problems that normally require deliberation as if they were engineering challenges that could be resolved purely through technical means. As we saw in the United States during Elon Musk’s brief stint at the helm of DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency), technology is offered as a substitute for politics and political decision-making.

The implication of AI-administered governance is that democracy will become redundant. Digital technocracy consists of technology developers claiming the authority to decide on the rules we must abide by and thus the conditions under which we will live. The checks and balances defended by Locke, Montesquieu, and America’s founders become obstacles to efficient decision-making. Why bother with such institutions when we can leverage the power of digital tools and algorithms? Under digital technocracy, debate is a waste of time, regulation is a brake on progress, and popular sovereignty is merely the consecration of incompetence…(More)”.

Paper by Michael Byczkowski: “At the core of the medical data economy lies a fundamental challenge: while data drive scientific progress, their collection and maintenance require significant financial and human resources. Hospitals and research institutions invest heavily in collecting, curating, annotating and analysing vast amounts of medical data, all while complying with strict regulatory and ethical requirements. These processes demand advanced technology, skilled personnel and secure digital infrastructures, yet the financial burden of it is often disproportionately shouldered by public institutions and healthcare providers.6

Despite these substantial investments, the economic returns from medical data are often realised much later and largely benefit private sector entities which commercialise insights through pharmaceuticals, medical devices or AI-driven diagnostics. This creates an inherent imbalance: while data originators bear the initial effort, financial rewards accrue downstream, where companies leverage refined datasets for product development and monetisation.

This pattern reflects a broader dynamic in the biomedical innovation pipeline, where public research institutions frequently contribute foundational knowledge and infrastructure in early-stage, non-commercial discovery, while private-sector actors engage in later-stage development with commercial potential, regulatory approval and market delivery…(More)”

Paper by Aaron Chatterji et al: “Despite the rapid adoption of LLM chatbots, little is known about how they are used. We document the growth of ChatGPT’s consumer product from its launch in November 2022 through July 2025, when it had been adopted by around 10% of the world’s adult population. Early adopters were disproportionately male but the gender gap has narrowed dramatically, and we find higher growth rates in lower-income countries. Using a privacy-preserving automated pipeline, we classify usage patterns within a representative sample of ChatGPT conversations. We find steady growth in work-related messages but even faster growth in non-work-related messages, which have grown from 53% to more than 70% of all usage. Work usage is more common for educated users in highly-paid professional occupations. We classify messages by conversation topic and find that “Practical Guidance,” “Seeking Information,” and “Writing” are the three most common topics and collectively account for nearly 80% of all conversations. Writing dominates work-related tasks, highlighting chatbots’ unique ability to generate digital outputs compared to traditional search engines. Computer programming and self-expression both represent relatively small shares of use. Overall, we find that ChatGPT provides economic value through decision support, which is especially important in knowledge-intensive jobs…(More)”.

Article by Emanuel Maiberg: “The Department of Justice has removed a study showing that white supremacist and far-right violence “continues to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism” in the United States.  The study, which was conducted by the National Institute of Justice and hosted on a DOJ website was available there at least until September 12, 2025, according to an archive of the page saved by the Wayback Machine. Daniel Malmer, a PhD student studying online extremism at UNC-Chapel Hill, first noticed the paper was deleted. “The Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs is currently reviewing its websites and materials in accordance with recent Executive Orders and related guidance,” reads a message on the page where the study was formerly hosted. “During this review, some pages and publications will be unavailable. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.” Shortly after Donald Trump took office he issued an executive order that forced government agencies to scrub their sites of any mention of “diversity,” “gender,” “DEI,” and other “forbidden words” and perceived notions of “wokeness.” The executive order impacted every government agency, including NASA, and was a huge waste of engineers’ time. We don’t know why the study about far-right extremist violence was removed recently, but it comes immediately after the assassination of conservative personality Charlie Kirk, accusations from the administration that the left is responsible for most of the political violence in the country, and a renewed commitment from the administration to crack down on the “radical left..(More)”.

Article by Rene Almeling: “…“how” questions can evoke more wandering responses that often include crucial information about social processes, history, networks, decision-making, and uncertainty. How did I come to work as a sociology professor at Yale University? Well, when I was in college, someone mentioned that becoming a professor required a Ph.D., so after graduation I worked at a nonprofit for a few years while deciding whether to apply to graduate school. I emailed my undergrad adviser, who suggested a few Ph.D. programs. I crossed off those in places with harsh winters (unknowingly eliminating most of the top sociology programs). I was accepted to UCLA, which had smart and supportive faculty working on gender, my main area of interest. And in 2007, after six years of study, I landed a job at Yale, right before the Great Recession eviscerated the academic job market. Here I sit years later.

This is a typical response to a “how” question: years of history, references to influential people and key moments, reflections on emotions and thought processes.

Questions that begin with “how” and not “why” are powerful in part because they tend to reveal social processes occurring at multiple analytical levels. For example, my response above includes references to what social scientists call the “micro” level, the level of individuals and their thinking and behavior. There are also mentions of social processes happening at the “meso” level, a middle level between micro and macro that can include anything from small groups and local communities to organizations; I discuss interactions with teachers, friends, and coworkers, as well as specific universities. Finally, there is evidence of “macro” level processes shaping my trajectory. The macro usually refers to broader historical and structural processes and, in this case, includes the institution of higher education more generally, the labor market, and economic upheavals like the Great Recession…(More)”. See also: Inquiry as Infrastructure: Defining Good Questions in the Age of Data and AI.

Article by Written by the Disaster Map Foundation: “On September 10, 2025 Bali experienced one of its worst flooding events in history, triggering the provincial government and the National Emergency Management Agency to declare a state of emergency. Severe flooding across Denpasar, Kuta, and surrounding districts, inundated homes and major roads, and forced evacuations.

Within 24 hours, over 130,000 people used PetaBencana.id to view and share real-time flood updates, as the platform turned into a vital lifeline for residents, volunteers and authorities to coordinate safe navigation and to prioritize evacuation.

Residents in Perumahan Kalista and Kampung Jawa posted urgent updates on rising water levels along the Ayung and Tukad Badung rivers. These reports enabled first responders to direct evacuation teams to the riverside settlements before floodwaters became impassable.

Motorists shared images of flooded stretches of Jl. Sunset Road and Jl. Kayu Aya. PetaBencana’s live map allowed residents to avoid gridlocked intersections and reroute around submerged sections of the road.

In Kesiman Kertalangu, residents reported that 18 homes in Perumahan Pesona Kartika Tohpati were fully inundated. These crowd-sourced reports were used by volunteers to organize sandbagging and to assist families in relocating to higher ground.

Updates about the overflow of Sungai Taman Pancing guided responders in deploying boats and assisting families trapped along Jl. Taman Pancing Barat–Timur.

Emergency services confirmed that PetaBencana data was used alongside official coordination channels to deploy rescue teams and manage traffic flow. For many residents, the platform became a critical navigation tool that reflected rapidly changing conditions...(More)”.

Book by Alex Pentland: “…delves into the history of innovation, emphasizing the importance of understanding how technologies and cultural inventions impact human society. Humanity’s great leaps forward—the rise of civilizations, the Enlightenment, and the Scientific Revolution—were all propelled by cultural inventions that accelerated our rate of innovation and built collective wisdom. Solving current global challenges such as climate change, pandemics, and failing social institutions will require similarly fundamental inventions.

Shared Wisdom provides a unique perspective on human society and offers insights into how we can use technologies like digital media and AI to aid, rather than replace, our human capacity for deliberation. Drawing on his expertise in both social science and technology, the author bridges the gap between these two disciplines and offers a holistic view of the challenges and opportunities we face in the age of AI. By looking deep into our history, Pentland argues that the better we understand the key factors that accelerate cultural evolution, the greater our chances of surmounting our current problems…(More)”.

Report by Sitra and TIAL: “…As demographic pressures intensify, achieving societal goals, such as quality care for all, meaningful employment, and inclusive economic growth, will become increasingly difficult. Thus, Finland needs to rethink its institutional arrangements; not doing so would force Finland into a vicious cycle of reactive, short-term measures and block coordinated efforts for a more anticipatory, integrated approach.

Additionally, demographic change should not be seen solely as a burden to manage. If addressed proactively, it can become a powerful lever for societal transformation. Countries like Sweden, Singapore, and New Zealand show valuable lessons in how demographic transition can be leveraged as a strategic opportunity to build equitable, responsive, and future-proof public institutions.

Possible entry points

This report outlines approaches for rethinking institutions along five strategic priorities. These areas represent critical leverage points where new institutional designs can support demographic resilience, improve equity, and unlock societal potential.

• Governance of transversal issues: Establish institutions that can synthesise demographic trends across sectors, facilitate coordinated action, and harness collective intelligence.
• Organisation of care: Innovate care models by focusing on integrated, person-centred, community-based systems.
• Developing the silver economy: Develop institutional frameworks that coordinate efforts across government, industry, and communities to support innovation and growth in age-related sectors.
• Workforce adaptation: Support inclusive workplace practices through strategic platforms for age-diverse workforce planning and lifelong learning.
• Governance for future generations: Institutionalise long-term responsibility, integrating intergenerational fairness into governance structures…(More)”.

OECD Report: “AI offers tremendous potential in its use by governments. It helps governments automate and tailor public services, improve decision-making, detect fraud, and enrich civil servants’ work and learning. However, benefits also hinge on managing risks: skewed data in AI systems can cause harmful decisions; lack of transparency erodes accountability; and overreliance can widen digital divides and propagate errors, reducing citizen trust. These trade-offs need to account for governments’ specific challenges where adoption trails some firms in the private sector, slowed by skill gaps, legacy IT systems, limited data, tight budgets, and stricter needs for privacy, transparency, and representation…(More)”.