Bastian Grossenbacher-Rieck

Geometry & topology may not save the world, but they may well save something that is homotopy-equivalent to it.

Beyond the actual topics, it was a very humane meeting and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I've been feeling down due to the flood of slop in science; this meeting was invigorating.

I just spent half a week in Leiden at IOSP www.iosp.science with a room of people who'd agree with you, and some of them are building solutions already! The main threads at the meeting: modular science, ATproto, researcher-owned infra, and what papers and journals look like in the future.

Well said!

New blog post! It's a turbulent time full of changes. I tried to show that there are many interesting paths to take for academics and academia as a whole—no need to despair. #academia #Math bastian.rieck.me/blog/2026/qu...

Happy to report that my lab has k #NeurIPS2026 publications. Since k is a large number, this means we are doing a good job and our science is great. Many even say it is _the best_ science. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

#math #maths #mathed #iteachmath

"But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully." — Paul, telling people to write fair #NeurIPS2026 reviews and decisions, probably (Good luck, y'all!)

NASA picture of the day today is a real 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿beauty! This is a composite image of the ~5000yo Callanish Stones on the Isle of Lewis. The amazing Giuseppe Petricca has only gone and photographed the Sun at noon there, every few days, for a whole year. #Dedication 🔭🧪👌 ℹ️: science.nasa.gov/image-articl...

💙It's postdoc appreciation week—here's to the often unsung heroes/heroines of academia! I count myself fortunate to work with two 2 excellent postdocs, Elena Wang & Inés García-Redondo. Thanks for your creativity and hard work. We are lucky to have you! 🙌 #PAWSwitzerland2026

For a vibe-coded universe, the sunsets are pretty marvelous, I'll grant you that.

New blog post: A Barbarian’s Guide to Full-Disk Encryption with Arch Linux Despite using Linux for a long time, I still feel like a CLI barbarian. Here's my "simple" setup to make your system a bit more secure. (I use Arch, btw 😉) bastian.rieck.me/blog/2026/ar... #Linux

Another reason to celebrate: @jeremy-wayland.bsky.social, founder & researcher extraordinaire, defended his PhD w/ distinction. It was a pleasure working with you, Jeremy. All the best for your future journey into the multiverse! #academia #MachineLearning

“Why would you ruin your career? … If you don’t want me to be nice, then I don’t have to be nice.” Thuggish behaviour described on the part of OpenAI. As an academic, do you really want to be in the room with these people? Does what’s described here reflect your standards? #LLM #MathSky

Friends, let's celebrate Ernst Röell today who just defended his PhD! His ideas & insights resulted in marvelous research questions. All the best for your future career, Ernst! It was a pleasure working with you & I hope our paths cross again. #academia #MachineLearning

Have some math sketches

Today's procrastination was making a list of all the software and services I regularly use that have been annoying me and what alternatives I might consider if I find the motivation. (Ironically GitHub is one of them but here we are.)

A paper with a quite misleading title is circulating on the former bird platform. This kind of engagement farming is really sad and makes authors lose credibility. I get it, you want people to read your work. Maybe write something interesting then? Truth matters...

Academics becoming more active on LinkedIn is not good at all. Now all the craziness has a much wider audience.

"My paper was rejected today. I am devastated. I questioned whether I belong in science. Here are 11 things I learned about resilience." And let me tell you, converting R2 into a hero's journey is the least harmful thing I am talking about.

The Road goes ever on and on Down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone, And I must follow, if I can, Pursuing it with eager feet, Until it joins some larger way Where many paths and errands meet. And whither then? I cannot say. #Switzerland

Swiss Sprawl (near Bern)

😀 I am pleased to share that our paper “Machine learning for detecting collusion and capacity withholding in wholesale electricity markets,” joint work with Ivan Marin and Jeremy Proz, has been published open access in Energy Economics: doi.org/10.1016/j.en...

Open PhD positions at the brand new interdisciplinary doctorate school at Max Planck Institute, led by Karsten Borgwardt. It's a condensation of talent and resources. A place to be if you want to make an impact at the intersection of AI and life sciences. www.maxplanckschools.org/572149/biome...

New blog post: 👉 LLMs Are Proof That Unix Won 👈 A short exegesis on the Unix philosophy & why LLMs finally proved that "text reigns supreme." I've been using Unix-like OSes for the better part of my life now, and I love that these concepts are "vindicated." bastian.rieck.me/blog/2026/un...

We want to thank everyone who submitted a proposal and look forward to hosting the accepted workshops!

We are happy to announce the list of accepted NeurIPS 2026 workshops: blog.neurips.cc/2026/08/10/a... The workshops will take place on: - Fri Dec 11 and Sat Dec 12, 2026 – Sydney - Sat Dec 12 and Sun Dec 13, 2026 – Paris and Atlanta

Melancholy-fueled insights on #NeurIPS2026: - Few reviewer responses; one was clearly copied-and-pasted from ChatGPT - Reviewers contradicting themselves, mentioning stuff that's not in the paper - 3/10 papers in my AC stack w/ hallucinated refs. Sic transit gloria mundi.

New blog post, this time quite personal: "40 Bits of Advice That, in Murky Light, Might Pass as Wisdom" #AcademicBlogging bastian.rieck.me/blog/2026/40/

Part 2/2: A huge thank you to our speakers, mentors, participants and sponsors. Looking forward to more exciting talks, projects, and social events over the coming days! #MachineLearning #GeometricDeepLearning #SummerSchool

Part 1/2: 🚀 Two incredible days at #LOGML2026! ☕ Registration & welcome breakfast 🎤 Inspiring talks 📌 Poster session 🧗 Bouldering social ⚽ Football, food & great conversations It's been amazing to see researchers from around the world exchanging ideas and building collaborations.

New 📘 in @pnas.org: A new visualization method developed by IICD researchers in the Blumberg grp could improve the analysis of high-dimensional datasets and help scientists identify new cell types: bit.ly/4eZqbCF @columbiaseas.bsky.social @columbiacancer.bsky.social @pseudomanifold.topology.rocks

I recently learned that my research was featured in an article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung on math for cutting pizzas www.sueddeutsche.de/projekte/art... It‘s unfortunately paywalled, if you want a copy dm me :)

The ELLIS Annual Report 2025 is out now, providing a comprehensive overview of our efforts to secure European sovereignty in AI through scientific excellence and cross-border institutional collaboration. 👉 Download the full Annual Report 2025 here: https://bit.ly/4azeyAV

(but I am not someone who insists on the title, so if you have ever been someone who calls me simply "Shane" I would love you to continue to do so)

(I have developed a knee-jerk response of correcting people calling me "Father Shane" because they've incorrectly done so for *YEARS* and the instinct still kicks in before I have to be like "oh, wait, no, NOW that's appropriate")

a) still getting used to being called "Father Shane" b) *especially* weird to call someone and introduce myself as "Father Shane" c) I have adopted the zoomer slang of "fr" as "for real" c.5) abbrevation is "Fr. Shane" d) (I read it as "for real, Shane") e) texting a fellow priest, I said "fr, fr."

Wonderful to see the GTML 2025 proceedings out in the world. My thanks to the co-organizers, the speakers and authors, and everyone who took part in Leipzig. It was a privilege to bring you all together. #geometry #topology #machineLearning

So glad I was permitted to contribute to this. A truly wonderful workshop by Michael Bleher and many others. Thanks for having me! #geometry #topology #machineLearning

📣 LOGML'26 Speaker Series 🎤 @PascalWelke (Lancaster University Leipzig, TU Wien) He combines graph mining and graph theory to develop expressive graph representations. 📍Imperial College London 📅13–17 July 2026 🔗 logml.ai #LOGML #SummerSchool #GeometricML

With more and more proofs being coauthored by AI, I am often reminded of this wonderful short story: www.uncannymagazine.com/article/proo...

this is a link you can click to watch me (and several other Jesuits!) get ordained to the priesthood in the near future if that is the kind of thing you think you might like to watch

some more media spots from which I feel obliged remove the previews because they're using the same enormous picture of my face but if you want to read about me or listen to me talk here you go Jesuits profile: www.jesuits.org/profile/shan... AMDG Podcast: open.spotify.com/episode/6xfS...

New blog post: Some Comments on “Magnifica Humanitas” In which I comment on the recent encyclical by Pope Leo XIV from the perspective of a machine learning researcher. bastian.rieck.me/blog/2026/ma...

Is it an unwritten rule that frontier AI companies have to pick their name out of Tolkien's legendarium? What comes after "peak Tolkien?" Star Wars? Game of Thrones? Something else?

The hike vs helicopter framing assumes choice. For dyslexics & ADHDers like me, AI is the wheelchair, not the helicopter; not skipping the climb, making the climb possible. Your 'cannot abdicate responsibility' line holds. carlmfreeman.substack.com/p/nobody-kno...

New blog post: Scholarship in the Age of AI In which I use the recent debate on arXiv policies to ponder what it means to be a scholar now. Feedback always welcome! #Academia #AI bastian.rieck.me/blog/2026/sc...

After a certain age, discovering new music gets harder. Siri didn't understand my query, said "Hold my beer!", and served me "Birdie" by "NOVA Rei." (Can you guess what I wanted to listen to originally?)

Did anyone else notice a move of generic AI slop to platforms like Zenodo? I used to get endorsement requests for arXiv, which I did not feel comfortable with, and now I am noticing more and more "weird stuff" (consciousness + topology + quantum whatever) hosted on Zenodo.

Gladiator vibes...good evening, y'all!