Other activities of or relating to my work
Outreach and Advocacy
I am signatory
- 1249 (post publication) to le collectif ‘no fake science’
- 1226 to the USACBI boycott
- 375 to the No Free View? No Review! pledge
- 29 to the Just Mathematics Collective ‘Mathematics Beyond Secrecy and Surveillance’ initiative
I feel strongly about open access [1] and free and open [2] science. In particular I believe profiteering and exploitation in academic publishing runs rampant, and the products of publicly-funded research ought to be made accessible to the public. Besides being equitable, both help promote wider scientific literacy, another important issue today.
I also feel strongly about equity [3] in science [4] and mathematics [5] (I am originally, though not completely, Indian). I am a member of Spectra’s AllyList, which means I have committed to making mathematical spaces everywhere more inclusive towards LGBTQ+ individuals. Some articles on these subjects which have resonated me include those cited above, as well as [6-10].
I have been involved in Neuromatch Academy in various capacities since the first conference in May of 2020, mostly as an organisational or instructional volunteer. In the 2021 Computational Neuroscience School I was a faculty mentor.
I am a member of the VERSES Research Ethics Board. I believe it is important to think through the ethical implications of my and others’ research. Mathematics has been misused and abused in the past; we should always bear in mind who and what we do mathematics in service of. I am particularly opposed to military applications of my work [11-15], a problem which affects many areas of mathematics and physics—especially machine learning, and other areas directly adjacent to the fields within which I do research.
[1] Guerilla Open Access Manifesto. Aaron Swartz. From the Internet Archive.
[2] Free Publishing. Jules Hedges. From julesh.com.
[3] Ardila’s Axioms. Federico Ardila. From fardila.com.
[4] How Science Pretends to be Meritocratic | A Dr Fatima Video Essay. From YouTube.
[5] Modern Mathematics Confronts Its White, Patriarchal Past. Rachel Crowell. From Scientific American.
[6] Physics in a Diverse World or A Spherical Cow Model of Physics Talent. Howard Georgi. From arXiv:2203.09485.
[7] Academia: Waiting for Heideggers. Timothy Burke. From Eight by Seven.
[8] Doing the Work. Ambika Kamath. From ambikamath.com.
[9] Maths to Award the Fields Medal, its Nobel Prize Equivalent, but is There a Numbers Problem? Daniel Keane. From ABC News (Australia).
[10] Todos Cuentan: Cultivating Diversity in Combinatorics. Federico Ardila-Mantilla. Notices of the American Mathematical Society.
[11] The Lie of “It’s Just Math.” Jade Master. From Cat Blog.
[12] Doing Math in Jest. Gizem Karaali. From arXiv:1812.09601.
[13] Mathematics Beyond Secrecy and Surveillance. Just Mathematics Collective. From justmathematicscollective.net. See also references therein.
[14] The Responsibility of the Scientist Today. Alexandre Grothendieck. Translation here.
[15] Military Funding in Mathematics. William Thurston. Notices of the American Mathematical Society (page 39).
Media and Press
On 13 June 2022 I appeared on one of the Active Inference Lab’s podcasts, ActInfLab GuestStream, episode 23.1, which was livestreamed here. There I discussed my paper On Bayesian Mechanics.
On 5 October 2022 I appeared on one of the Active Inference Lab’s podcasts, LiveStream episode 49.1. I discussed my paper on classical physics for the Bayesian mechanic. This work was reviewed prior to my appearence in the previous episode, 49.0.
On 12 October 2022 I appeared again for LiveStream episode 49.2, also discussing my classical physics paper.