Michael Nielsen ✓

@michael_nielsen · Berkeley · joined 28 Jul 2008

Searching for the numinous 🇦🇺 🇨🇦, currently live in 🇺🇸 Research @AsteraInstitute https://t.co/maezekzRUb https://t.co/2dWwZKrvrn

121 212Followers

5 442Following

50 344Posts total

122.4KViews on collected posts

Against accounts of the same size

7 posts from the last 90 days, next to the 100K–1M follower range. shown widely, but few of those viewers react.

Median views5 390this account5 930median for 100K–1M

Reach, %4.45%this account2.48%median for 100K–1M

Engagement, %0.74%this account1.41%median for 100K–1M

Metric	This account	Median for 100K–1M	Ratio
Median views per post	5 390	5 930	0.91×
Reach (views ÷ followers)	4.45%	2.48%	1.79×
Engagement rate	0.74%	1.41%	0.53×

Others in this range → Compare with another account → How these benchmarks are built →

Growth & engagement

How the posts we collected actually performed: views and reaction rate post by post, what the audience did with them, and where the follower count goes.

Views per post

69.5K4 Sep

12.1K

1.2K17 Nov

6.6K22 Aug

15.2K24 Aug

907

366

474

10.7K30 Aug

5.4K1 Sep

Last 10 collected posts, oldest on the left. The scale is logarithmic: one post can outrun the rest a hundred times over.

Engagement rate per post

0.24%4 Sep

0.11%

0.32%17 Nov

0.08%22 Aug

1.48%24 Aug

0.66%

1.37%

0.63%

1.64%30 Aug

0.74%1 Sep

Reactions — likes, reposts, replies and quotes — divided by views. Median for 100K–1M accounts is 1.41%.

What the audience does

Likes73.9%559 in total

Reposts5.4%41 in total

Replies5.6%42 in total

Quotes0.4%3 in total

Bookmarks14.7%111 in total

Share of every reaction we collected for this account. Replies mean argument, reposts mean endorsement, bookmarks mean the post was worth keeping.

The follower curve appears once this account has two daily snapshots — we take one a day, and this one is on its first.

Latest posts

RIP the great Wendell Berry https://t.co/AOPUK5tr3o 5.4K views · 35 likes · 3 reposts · 2 replies 01 Sep 2026 Amusing fact: a photon covers in one second roughly the distance Usain Bolt would cover a year, if he could keep sprinting at his 100m record pace 10.7K views · 156 likes · 10 reposts · 10 replies 30 Aug 2026 @michael_nielsen As discussed by @paulculmsee, the difference between value generation and value capture may moderate the influence of frontier labs in the longer term - https://t.co/LBAv5Het4E 474 views · 2 likes · 0 reposts · 1 replies 24 Aug 2026 @michael_nielsen More of us need to stay entirely independent. 366 views · 4 likes · 1 reposts · 0 replies 24 Aug 2026 @michael_nielsen Agreed overall, though I'm not sure its been getting stronger every year. Labs privately sitting on capabilities before releasing has been up and down (e.g. post ChatGPT it went down compared to before). Agreed it may get much higher in the near future. 907 views · 5 likes · 0 reposts · 1 replies 24 Aug 2026 To state the obvious: one of the main ways frontier labs will get power is by controlling access to unreleased models. This is very bad I've been hearing "But we need to maintain our relationship to [frontier lab]" since ~2018 or so, with that chorus growing stronger every 15.2K views · 196 likes · 15 reposts · 13 replies 24 Aug 2026 Artistic comment on AI will explode over the next few years. The best "Synth Rider" Oculus Quest environment I've tried is "Algorithm", an AI-themed song from 2018: https://t.co/9NEC8GNAiD The lyrics are quite ominous: "Burn like a slave Churn like a cog We are caged in 6.6K views · 4 likes · 0 reposts · 1 replies 22 Aug 2026 @michael_nielsen I find a bit too many writers on notes. We will see if it can get a little more vibrant 1.2K views · 2 likes · 1 reposts · 1 replies 17 Nov 2025 Please drop links to your Notes in replies. I'm especially keen to connect to X mutuals there! 12.1K views · 9 likes · 2 reposts · 2 replies 04 Sep 2025 I hope more people will participate in Substack Notes. I'm enjoying it a great deal! https://t.co/snWvVwIzjV 69.5K views · 146 likes · 9 reposts · 11 replies 04 Sep 2025