In our comment to the FDA, we draw on our ongoing research to focus on what people’s actual, everyday use of chatbots for mental and emotional support means for the FDA’s approach to generative AI-enabled digital mental health medical devices. datasociety.net/announcement...

In a new Points piece, D&S researchers @livgar.bsky.social and @briana-v.bsky.social reflect on what studying AI chatbots reveals about emotional attachment to machines, the power of illusion, and the norms and expectations that define care itself. datasociety.net/points/all-t...

Researching the use of chatbots for mental health support, D&S's @briana-v.bsky.social heard from many people who expected less stigma from chatbots than from therapists, “which is really interesting, given what we know about machine-learning bias,” she tells @undark.org. undark.org/2025/11/04/c...

🚨NEW PAPER ALERT 🚨 @tamigraph.bsky.social @briana-v.bsky.social and I discuss wellness chatbots, their labor implications, & "private vibes" vs "privacy". We call for critical human-AI communication scholarship that takes into account context & political economy: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

“The perennial availability of AI is rapidly reshaping our expectations of care,” @briana-v.bsky.social and Ranjit Singh write in a new blog post about this piece. “Care is not mere output. It lives in the slow, difficult work of attunement, which no machine can truly provide.”

In tandem, Ranjit and I published a short guest piece that was released today on the BD&S blog! bigdatasoc.blogspot.com/2025/10/gues...

enhance your Halloween season reading with this rich, textured, and magickal collection of essays on algorithms and the occult, edited by yours truly with @tamigraph.bsky.social and @briana-v.bsky.social !

Research (including that from tech companies) suggests that users are putting too much trust in AI chatbots. D&S researcher @briana-v.bsky.social notes that some people take chatbot output at face value, without critically considering the text the algorithms produce. undark.org/2025/09/12/c...

Btw @jeffreymoro.com, @briana-v.bsky.social + I have a forthcoming special issue on Algorithms + the occult w/ @xrw.bsky.social @drs.bsky.social AX Mina @thechristinet.bsky.social @jessrauchberg.bsky.social @aketchum22.bsky.social @serife.bsky.social @emmaquilty.bsky.social Xandro Segade + more

When D&S researchers Ranjit Singh, @livgar.bsky.social‬, @briana-v.bsky.social‬, and @emnetspeaks.bsky.social‬ set out to interview people about their use of mental health chatbots, they encountered — and were fascinated by — a particular kind of AI-enabled deception. datasociety.net/points/chatb...

Excited to present "Towards AI Accountability Infrastructure: Gaps and Opportunities in AI Audit Tooling" at #CHI2025 tomorrow(today)! 🗓 Tue, 29 Apr | 9:48–10:00 AM JST (Mon, 28 Apr | 8:48–9:00 PM ET) 📍 G401 (Pacifico North 4F) 📄 dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...

🎉 Participants Needed for Paid Research! Do you use chatbots (e.g. ChatGPT) for mental health? @datasociety.bsky.social is studying how people use them for support. Details: ✔️ 4-week diary study ✔️ Optional 1-hr focus group ✔️ 45-min interview 💰 Earn up tp to $400 Learn more/sign up: bit.ly/4iCLkTd

This program fundamentally changed the course of my career, and I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend it for eligible undergraduates! Feel free to reach out to me for any tips or questions 😊

Just a heads-up that our X account — where we haven't posted since November of last year — appears to have been hacked, this after two of our posts were falsely flagged as a "policy violation." Good times over there! Please note that here and LinkedIn are the only platforms we're active on.

Shoutout to our all-star co-authors: Ranjit Singh, @carolanderson.bsky.social, @emnetspeaks.bsky.social, @briana-v.bsky.social, @bduckles.bsky.social, and Jacob Metcalf.

On Thursday, Feb 20 @ 1 pm ET, Lama Ahmad, @camillefrancois.bsky.social, Tarleton Gillespie, @briana-v.bsky.social, and @borhane.bsky.social will examine red-teaming’s place in the evolving landscape of genAI evaluation and governance. RSVP and join us online! datasociety.net/events/red-t...

🚨BREAKING. From a program officer at the National Science Foundation, a list of keywords that can cause a grant to be pulled. I will be sharing screenshots of these keywords along with a decision tree. Please share widely. This is a crisis for academic freedom & science.

D&S researchers @livgar.bsky.social & Briana Vecchione are organizing a panel at @4sweb.bsky.social in Seattle called “Know Th/AI Self: Mental Health, Therapeutic Divination, and Chatbot Conspirituality” (see #177). Apply now: the CFP closes on Friday! www.4sonline.org/accepted_ope...