Semantic Ablation

It was about a year ago that I signed up for a paid OpenAI subscription. It is no exaggeration to say that the return on investment I get for those 20 USD per month far outweighs almost anything I have ever bought in my life. Its usefulness extends across domains, from academic administration to travel advice, and I am convinced that it has made me a better teacher, supervisor – and perhaps even runner.

In the beginning, much of the concern revolved around “hallucinations”: the tendency of generative AI models to make up facts that are not true. Over time, as the models have improved and I have become more attentive to the kinds of mistakes they make, I have grown less worried about hallucinations and more concerned about what might be called “semantic ablation”. If hallucination is the model seeing what is not there, semantic ablation is the model quietly erasing what is.

The process is subtle. You paste a jagged paragraph into the machine – something slightly overdetermined, perhaps overly metaphorical, maybe even a bit too fond of its own terminology – and ask for “polishing”. What comes back is smoother. Cleaner. More readable. And yet something has been lost.

The rare word is replaced by a more common synonym. The technical term becomes “accessible”. The structure is straightened into a respectable, well-tempered five-paragraph march. Nothing is wrong. But neither is anything quite alive.

Statistically, this makes perfect sense. Large language models are trained to move toward the center of probability distributions. The tail – where idiosyncrasy, precision, and intellectual risk often reside – is shaved off in the name of likelihood and helpfulness. The result is not error, but regression to the mean.

And perhaps that is the deeper danger. Not that the machine invents fantasies, but that it gently encourages us to abandon complexity. Not that it deceives us, but that it smooths us. A civilizational drift toward the middle, where friction is minimized and originality becomes statistically inconvenient.

Used carefully, these systems are immensely helpful when it comes to clarifying thought. Used unreflectively, they may erode it. The question is not whether we can write with AI, but whether we can do so without allowing our sentences – and eventually our thinking – to suffer semantic ablation.

Resistance

Long-distance running always includes an element of resistance. As much as I enjoy a dog jog in Halland, a seaside ultra in the British Isles, or a road marathon in a far-flung city, my body’s natural impulse is nevertheless to slow down and stop.

Some days it is easy to overcome this resistance; on others, like today, it is almost impossible. And this is when it becomes tricky, because sometimes the body really does have something to say – in this case, that I have yet to fully recover from my cold. With my heart rate climbing above 180 bpm, I decided to stop after only five kilometres. The moment I stepped off the treadmill, I knew I had made the right decision: I felt slightly dizzy, my vision not entirely steady.

Now, back home, I am sitting on the sofa, drinking Italian coffee and watching the snow–rain mix freeze against the windows. It is late February, but everything feels far less miserable than a week ago. The other day, one could genuinely sense that spring is just around the corner.

Crying Wolf

Twenty years ago, the Swedish meteorologist and climate activist Pär Holmgren predicted that snow in southern Sweden would be gone for good by now. Making my way from the gym to the railway station in a freezing −13 degrees, this is one prediction that, like the many “ovinter” stories circulating back in December, has not aged particularly well. Still, it is clear that the global climate is warming and that this will have far-reaching ramifications for life on this planet.

At the same time, crying wolf – and advancing outlandish claims such as that climate change poses an existential threat to all of humanity (which it, unlike advanced machine intelligence, most definitely does not) – risks undermining not only the credibility of climate science but also introducing a Manichean logic that renders democratic deliberation more difficult.

Now listen to this

"No eternal reward will forgive us now

For wasting the dawn"

February at Hallandsgatan: the psychedelic depths of distant soundscapes, the lingering warmth of today’s lunch at Söderfamiljen, and the absurd hope that all will eventually be just fine.

Today, I had an extra class for the students who failed their second attempt at the statistics exam. Coming in, their dread was palpable; an hour later, they had conquered what they had once thought insurmountable. Moments like that are reason enough.

Lynx

Waking up to -15 degrees, the winter still holds Halland in the firmest of grips. Just outside the house: tracks in the fresh snow of what looks like the Eurasian lynx – a secretive nightfarer with thick fur beneath its paws, making the prints appear large and slightly blurred at the edges.

With the morning light, the lynx itself is nowhere to be seen, and yet entirely present – an encounter through absence that becomes impossible not to follow. A quiet assertion of sovereignty in a landscape otherwise claimed by dog walkers and Strava segments.

In forty days, I will trade this crystalline Halland morning for the open expanses of the desert, where the possibility is its North American counterpart, the cougar. Long before that, rain will have turned the snow into slush. But for a brief winter morning, Halland belonged to something wild.

Fettisdagen

After running only 16 kilometres last week and being down with a cold, my legs felt fresh this morning as I went looking for the perfect semla across the bridges. Pacing 5:24 min/km with an average heart rate of 133 bpm, I stopped only to take a few pictures of ferries, high-rise hotels, and the occasional polar bear.

Once on the other side of the river, I made it to Alkemisten just as a fresh batch of semlor arrived. Apparently, the word “fettisdag” has been in use since the late sixteenth century, and this one was definitely worthy of the tradition.

Xennials

While perhaps a bit too early, I could not resist the purple morning skies and went for a run around the neighbourhood, keeping my 373-week-long streak on Strava alive.

Meanwhile, Sofi went for a dog walk in Örebro, past the old shoe factory where we used to live in the early aughties – a formative moment in time for the generation sometimes referred to as “xennials”. Those years somehow completed the transition from an analogue world without social media to the constantly connected and recorded world of today.

Even if one should be careful not to read too much into this kind of pop psychology, there is something to be said about this technological bilingualism: of having used both rotary phones and Reddit; of remembering life before Wi-Fi passwords and push notifications; of experiencing boredom and empty time in a way that the Millennial generation coming after perhaps never quite did. We learned to wait. To call from landlines. To knock on doors without texting first. And then, almost without noticing, we became permanently reachable, geolocated, and archived. Winter morning skies and a 373-week streak feel like fitting metaphors for all this: analogue legs, digital trails.

Cold snap

Waking up to -13 degrees, I read that yet another cold snap is on its way, with cold air coming down from Greenland by midweek. Feeling kind of miserable, all running is on hold, so instead I am spending this Sunday morning revising PowerPoint slides and indulging in a rather epic breakfast.

Having rebooked my hotels for California, I am still planning to run the 28k Billy Goat Mountain Climb in Silverado, as well as heading into the desert for a night under the stars in Anza-Borrego State Park. But instead of staying at the Manchester Grand Hyatt, where the conference is, I found a much more affordable Holiday Inn Express. So I guess it really is full circle to two decades ago, when my road trips with Gabriel featured stays at such romantic IHG locations as Andrews Air Force Base, with fighter jets constantly taking off overhead. At least I used the points well, staying at Coogee Beach in Sydney later the same year.

Circles

Eighteen years ago, I was on a flight from New York to Düsseldorf, looking forward to spending Valentine’s Day in Rome. Reality, however, had other plans, and instead of romance there was theology at the Vatican with a Catholic priest whom I had befriended a few years earlier in Vienna.

With Valentine’s once again proving to be a rough ride, my cold worsened overnight, and the day brought a series of small mishaps and forgotten gloves – only slightly mitigated by a semla in the brilliant sunshine. With the sun now climbing ten degrees higher than at the winter solstice, its rays are at least beginning to warm.

Talamone

Having already confessed my sartorial sins – and the very real risk of becoming a "returmissbrukare" – here is my latest attempt at reproducing the famous Talamone look. This time, however, all sales are truly final, as I ordered an Amazon Essentials piece for 29 USD directly from the US.

Otherwise, I woke up with a slight cold which made me skip my planned half marathon in Skatås in favour of answering student emails and preparing slides for my upcoming statistics classes. Feeling somewhat better in the afternoon, I popped down to the gym with William for some light strength training instead.

6-7

You know that internet memes die the moment 47-year-old bloggers start inserting them into every conversation. Still, tonight I regained at least a little respect from the kids when I showed them that I have made 67 trips in my current qualification year with SJ.

As for lore and inside jokes, a well-dressed fox at Hamburger Bahnhof yesterday certainly made my day. But now it feels good to be back in Gothenburg and settle into a few calm days before the next teaching dash begins.

Glyptoteket

With the kids having barely been to Copenhagen before, I took it upon myself to brave the elements and lead them past the city’s most iconic sites, including the Little Mermaid – surrounded by ice – and the white plumes of biogenic hydrocarbons rising from Amagerværket. Still, after five kilometres of brisk winter walking, the mood was beginning to sour, and an escape was urgently needed. And what better refuge than the palm trees and Roman sculptures of the Glyptotek.

Meanwhile, in the real world, Ludvig Beckman has taken a stand against the inhumane deportation of teenagers in Sweden by resigning from the ethics council of the Swedish Migration Agency. At a time when too many choose silence, every act of resistance counts. Just as the regressive elements of Danish energy policy need to be called out (for those wondering, Denmark’s emissions on this winter day stand at 217 grams of CO₂ per kWh – roughly five times that of Sweden), so does the idea that racism can be defused simply by speaking the same language (as the Danish Social Democrats have long attempted). That road is ultimately toxic to democratic politics and the very ethos of liberal democracy.

Lounge Tegel

Getting up at the ungodly hour of 4:20 am, the kids and I took the Regional Express back to Berlin Brandenburg well ahead of our flight up to Copenhagen. Having never flown out of the airport before, I did not quite know what to expect in terms of queues and, seeing that easyJet had a whole bank of morning departures, including one to Rovaniemi for those who missed the Santa season, I thought it better to be safe than sorry. Once at the airport, however, it took only a few minutes to check my bag, and we were through security in no time.

Having had my American Express Platinum card for a year now, the economics of it, compared to my former life on the frequent-flyer hamster wheel, still astonish me. The fact that I can book any ticket with any airline – in this case a €25 fare with easyJet – and still enjoy an abundant breakfast in the "Tegel" lounge for myself and one guest is simply unbeatable, especially considering that SAS was €100 more per person this morning.

Now, leaving the Vorpommersche Boddenlandschaft behind, we have twenty minutes until landing in Copenhagen, where the forecast promises heavy snowfall and weeks of cold winter weather. Later in the afternoon, we will take the ferry over to Helsingborg and then the high-speed train to Gothenburg – but first, time to see a bit of the Danish capital.

Indoor Skydiving

When first planning our trip to Germany, we considered going to Halbe and the world’s largest indoor water park, housed in a former airship hangar. But the logistics turned out to be complicated, so instead we chose to take to the air in the form of indoor skydiving. With tickets for kids being considerably more affordable than for adults, I chickened out – a decision I slightly regret in retrospect.

Taking the S9 out to Waßmannsdorf, the kids received a thorough safety briefing before launching themselves into winds of more than 150 kilometres per hour, all smiles. As a parent, being able to give them these kinds of experiences is something I truly value, and William’s exhilaration when the airspeed was increased and he suddenly shot all the way up the cylinder was unmistakable.

Einsteined

Closed since 2022, my favourite sanctuary, Café Einstein on Kurfürstenstraße 58, now survives only as a chain of coffee shops scattered across the German capital. Nevertheless, I could not resist returning for a highly anachronistic flat white and a Brezel. Having started the morning with a steasy city run – taking me down every possible memory lane, including the final hundred metres of the Berlin Marathon (still on my bucket list) – a caffeine fix was just what I needed before heading over to the zoo with the kids.

Post-panda, the day continued with a visit to the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum of Contemporary Art for me, while the kids returned to Futurium, followed by a ride out to the Hurricane Factory in Waßmannsdorf – but that is a story of its own.

Carlsberg Nordic

Once in Copenhagen, William and I headed over to the newly renovated Aspire Lounge to grab some lunch. In my case, that meant a DIY smørrebrød with roast beef and a cold non-alcoholic lager. Having checked out the nearby Carlsberg Aviator Lounge back in December, this seems to be the better option now with my SAS days being firmly over. Apparently, the Aspire Lounge also has a fine-dining “suite” option which, at a hefty upsell of 199 DKK, feels a bit uncertain in terms of value – at least when travelling with an eleven-year-old ;-)

After crossing the Baltic, we landed in sunshine and I got to see Berlin Brandenburg Airport for the first time. Having been delayed for a decade, the airport opened just in time for the pandemic, and since Berlin has always been more about trains than planes for me, it is understandable that I never got around to checking it out before. Flying back to Copenhagen with easyJet on Thursday, I hope to explore a bit more – but today, we jumped straight onto the RE20 to Potsdamer Platz.

Kattegat

 

Flying out over Kattegat with William next to me, it is suddenly the 10th of February, and I am on my way to Berlin for two days with the kids. Sipping a Cola Zero and indulging in this winter’s The Escapist, I am thrown back to Sofia and Tangier, to adventures past and future. Having finally decided what to do with my rapidly expiring American Express 2-4-1 voucher, I booked an award trip in economy class with Kenya Airways for the end of January 2027. At 60,000 points for two, it is a steal beyond words – and a sensible finale, as nothing would in any case be able to beat Anna’s and my epic return from Argentina aboard the Queen of the Skies.

Steasy Sunday

 

Pretzel

Ploughing through a decimetre of fresh snow, I circled the inner harbour bridges before ending my run at Lidl, where I picked up a pretzel in anticipation of the fact that I will be in Germany in three days’ time – assuming that no further bouts of black ice disturb Berlin Brandenburg Airport, as they have in recent weeks.

As for Berlin, I have a number of museums lined up, with indoor skydiving booked for Wednesday afternoon. Beyond that, all suggestions are welcome. As always, I plan to take Rawls & Me along.

Airolite

Over the years, I have come to dread talking about my work in environmental politics. In the days leading up to conferences, I often find myself growing anxious that people will feel alienated or read my arguments as a form of neoliberal evasion. To my surprise, yesterday’s presentation at the TRAINS conference went really well, with no animosity whatsoever. As in San Francisco in 2023, it gave me hope that communication is possible, even across deep value divides.

Waking up to snow in Gothenburg, I spent the morning on academic housekeeping before teaching my communication class on Zoom. With the snowstorm still raging, I then headed down to Nordic Wellness Örgryte for 10 kilometres on the treadmill, wearing my new Hoka Airolite singlet. After a few days off from running, I was able to keep my heart rate at 143 bpm while holding a steady 4:44 min/km pace – all boding well for the Lake Maggiore Half Marathon exactly one month from now.

3x Early February

Treadmill sprint

After conducting another interview to assess teaching competence – this time on behalf of Mälardalen University – I took tram number 3 down to Nordic Wellness Olskroken for some fast-twitch muscle activation: 30-second bursts at a 3:30 min/km pace, followed by ten gentle kilometres of indoor rowing.

Unfortunately, I once again failed to find a ribbed-knit shawl-collar cardigan to match the one from Talamone in Quantum of Solace. If this continues, I fear I will soon be blacklisted as a full-blown “returmissbrukare”, but the one I was wearing on Zoom above was simply too bulky and is now on its way back to Boozt.

Pull

Last night, I went to the gym with the kids, as Eddie wanted to challenge himself with 10,000 meters on the rowing machine – something that he, quite incredibly, actually managed to pull off. For my own part, I did my usual weight training and explored a few new machines with William. Since William turned 11 back in December, it has been a genuine game-changer to be able to go together, all three of us.

After spending almost a month in Gothenburg, I am taking the train to Halmstad tomorrow morning to mark a stack of old-school paper exams and attend the TRAINS conference, where I will present my aviation article on Thursday. While preparing the presentation, I was struck by the fact that today marks exactly two months until WPSA in San Diego, which, in the age of the Trumpocene, is too long to be fathomable, considering the number of crises that will probably have passed by the time I board that Lufthansa flight across the Atlantic.

Easing into February

After 54 hours of training in January, I woke up to a cold but beautiful morning with a full moon hovering over Delsjön. Starting the new month with a bit of Long Slow Distance, I was once again grateful for my Finnish VJ shoes, as much of the forest remains covered in ice (even though there is very little snow).

Yesterday, while hiking, William and I were surprised to find Brudarbacken in full use, with plenty of people downhill skiing thanks to snowmaking machines. The same combination of cold temperatures and scarce snowfall has also created perfect conditions for ice skating, leaving me tempted to go digging for my skates in the basement.