Thrilled to share a new paper with @stuartmills.bsky.social & @casssunstein.bsky.social. The paper discusses ManipulationDetect (previously NudgeDetect), a tool I launched a few months ago that uses LLMs to highlight 'manipulative' practices online. ideas.repec.org/p/not/notcdx...

Wow, I didn't know I've authored an autobiographical memoir... "I am the receiving editor of a {XXX} journal, and after reading your recent publication "Mills, Richard", I was truly impressed by your outstanding academic contribution." I must say, it is a riveting read,

What drives cooperative health behaviors? Our study of 3,000+ UK individuals during COVID-19 found past prosociality (e.g., volunteering) was a key correlate of adherence, but only when rules were 'ambiguous'. Prosocial people also vaccinated to protect others ("We"), not just for themselves ("Me").

🚨 NEW TOOL ALERT: Meet NudgeDetect 🚨 Ever felt nudged into clicking "Buy Now", unknowingly subscribing, or paying hidden fees? NudgeDetect is a Chrome extension I’ve built to reveal ‘manipulative’ website tricks: and help you fight back. chromewebstore.google.com/detail/aodlb... 1/5

A pleasure to present “AI in Action: Practical Applications for Researchers” with the brilliant @muskaanp.bsky.social at yesterday’s PGR Conf @notts-psych.bsky.social. We covered LLMs for thematic analysis, web data analysis (NHSBT), and building AI tools. Thanks all who joined and stayed to chat!

It was a real pleasure (and honour) to be a part of this, writing a short chapter on 'Choice Bracketing' with @danielread.bsky.social

For those using #Qualtrics, this might come in handy one day! 🚀 In one of our projects, we needed to provide participants with a unique and anonymous gift voucher upon survey completion. The challenge? Qualtrics doesn’t have a built-in way to randomise and distribute unique voucher codes.

If it turns out LLMs are only capable of recombinatory innovation (finding novel connections among existing knowledge), that would still be very useful. Most innovation is recombination and one of the big issues in science is that fields are too vast for scientists to bridge them to find connections

Generative AI has flaws and biases, and there is a tendency for academics to fix on that (85% of equity LLM papers focus on harms)… …yet in many ways LLMs are uniquely powerful among new technologies for helping people equitably in education and healthcare. We need an urgent focus on how to do that

There has been a definite shift in recent weeks where insiders in the various AI labs are suggesting that very intelligent AIs are coming very soon. I wrote a bit about why this might be happening and what we can take away from their apparent confidence. www.oneusefulthing.org/p/prophecies...

About 15 minutes in, the lecture from @sendhil.bsky.social was a MasterClass on AI and how it will impact on economic research. www.aeaweb.org/webcasts/202...

An interesting case of bracketing. Framing the cost 'narrowly' on each cigarette makes the cost more tangible and immediate for smokers.

Public policy can shift green behavior 👏 🚴 Promote cycling: ➡️ 1442km of bike lanes 🚶‍♀️Promote walking: ➡️Pedestrianized zones ➡️Speed limit reduction ➡️Low-emissions zones 🚗Discourage gas vehicles: ➡️Restricted traffic ➡️Phase out older diesel cars ➡️Removed 70,000 parking spaces ➡️Increased EV charging

New paper 📢 The Infected Blood Inquiry (IBI), led by Sir Brian Langstaff, examined one of the UK's largest public health scandals: 30,000 infections & 3,000+ deaths from infected blood products (1970–90s). Thread below.

thinking of calling this "The Illusion Illusion" (more examples below)