Hey! Go follow my new account, @mayorofseattle.bsky.social !

In a new blog post, I contrast two flavors of empiricism: the one practiced in the social sciences and the one practiced in ML/CS. I argue that we need both, given that CS is increasingly about "claims," and not just constructing artifacts. doomscrollingbabel.manoel.xyz/p/the-empiri...

Except the statistics are bad? Also they open by citing Galton on the heredity of genius, which sort of gives away the eugenic thinking behind it.

Jordan D. Klein & Ingmar Weber published a Letter to the Editor in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that opens a conversation on the findings of Chi et al (Measuring global migration flows using online data). https://www.demogr.mpg.de/go/PNAS-Letter-Editor

New paper in Social Science Research 📄 Using expenditure data, we find same-sex couples are modestly more likely than different-sex couples to outsource housework. Much of this gap reflects higher education and paid work hours, though much is unexplained. Free access for 50 days: tinyurl.com/ssossr

I wrote a piece on LLMs, citation metrics, and the institution of science. It's been up for a couple of days, but it is officially "out" now.

Isn't an important part of the work of organizing building that imagination -- helping people see that it doesn't have to be this way? (And then also finding and sharing resources at a local level and...)

Update: I shared some confidence intervals and more at this years @imprs-phds.bsky.social annual academy. Missed you @drjenndowd.bsky.social but more to come!

It's great to see IMPRS-PHDS doctoral students, alumni, faculty members, and friends back at @mpidr.bsky.social for our 7th PHDS Academy and three days filled with research presentations, networking, and singing!

Come visit MPIDR in ☀️Summer 2026☀️ 📣Call for Application for the "Population and Social Data Science Summer Incubator Program" 📅☀️June 8th – August 21st, 2026☀️ 🗺️MPIDR in Rostock, Germany Application Deadline: Jan 14, 2026 Apply here and learn more: incubator.demogr.mpg.de

Stereotypes aside, we really gotta help folks understand the ecological fallacy better. It’s pervasive!

Are we just accepting AI-assisted peer review systems moving forward, then? This issue of authors injecting prompts for favorable reviews is moot in a world where reviewers are human only. Right? Am I missing something?

I’m on the #EconJobMarket! I study labor, extreme weather adaptation, and inequality. My JMP addresses an under-studied aspect of the labor market: schedule unpredictability among hourly workers in the service sector. 🧵👇

reflecting on men's ncaa xc results: honestly a good day for all the teams wearing orange. cuse back on the podium, comfortable top 10 for the uva boys (7th), princeton beats harvard (sorry, Gibby) and ofc oklahoma state takes the W.

It’s about the journey, not the departure. (I missed my train)

Katie Wilson!!!!

What a fantastic thread. Good luck on the job market!!

We're excited to announce that the website and registration for IC2S2 2026 (July 28-31) will launch in early December! The Vermont Complex Systems Institute @vcsi.bsky.social at the University of Vermont will be hosting IC2S2 in 2026: youtube.com/watch?v=p412S4GnPkc&feature=youtu.be

🚨 I'm recruiting PhD students in Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University for Fall 2026. If you're interested in AI, HCI, and designing better online platforms and experiences, apply to work with me! More info: piccardi.me

This is a great example of how we are very much in a new data regime. Been collaborating on an article with a few others on how we got here and what it means for governance. Excited to share more widely soon!

Unreal. As the vote count rolled in, progressive candidate Katie Wilson has overtaken Bruce Harrell by 91 votes for Seattle’s mayor. She is 0.04% ahead after having been down by more than 7 points on election night.

I'm recruiting multiple PhD students for Fall 2026 in Computer Science at @hopkinsengineer.bsky.social 🍂 Apply to work on AI for social sciences/human behavior, social NLP, and LLMs for real-world applied domains you're passionate about! Learn more at kristinagligoric.com & help spread the word!

We are thrilled to have talented students from all over the world joining us for our hybrid course on Topics in Digital and Computational Demography, and wish everyone a productive and exciting week of study!

The ASA DDRIG deadline is just a week away! Double-check application requirements on the website and finalize your materials. Submit by Monday, November 3 at 5 pm Eastern.  www.asanet.org/ddrig. #ASA #DDRIG #sociology

1. We ( @jbakcoleman.bsky.social, @cailinmeister.bsky.social, @jevinwest.bsky.social, and I) have a new preprint up on the arXiv. There we explore how social media companies and other online information technology firms are able to manipulate scientific research about the effects of their products.

Tonight! @emilymbender.bsky.social and I will be at Town Hall Seattle!

🇫🇷 We are hiring 🇫🇷 Assistant or Associate Professor Position in Computational Sociology @crestsociology.bsky.social @ipparis.bsky.social Details here (please RT) www.shorturl.at/E57le

spent the last week putting together a draft of my dissertation prospectus and guys this whole PhD thing is starting to feel real 🥹

Saplings take #COLM2025! Featuring Group lunch, amazing posters, and a panel with Yoshua Bengio!

Since we're doing "AI lit review" discourse, it would be neat if the people talking about it actually knew how chatbots "read" documents. Rather than be (just) a hater, here's a short, non-technical thread about how they actually work under the hood. 1/

🚨 New assistant prof job posting at LSE with a focus on crime and criminal justice jobs.lse.ac.uk/Vacancies/I/...

🚨 Postdoctoral Research Economist positions at Microsoft Research New England or New York City 🚨 www.aeaweb.org/joe/listing.... Open to PhDs in econ-related fields (e.g. quant marketing, econ-CS). Seeking those with high collaboration potential with the team: www.microsoft.com/en-us/resear...

faculty senate W

Mint the coin

We're hiring for a senior appointment at the rank of Associate Professor or Professor! Apply here: facultypositions.stanford.edu/en-us/job/49...

The gap in clarity of purpose was so stark in that debate, it was distracting. tnc always impresses

I hope you also thanked them for their attention to this matter

Coming up in Seattle (and live streaming). Registration: www.washington.edu/lectures/eve... w/@alexhanna.bsky.social

pro-tip for anyone who ever visits: the most elite meal you can get in charlottesville is half a chicken, cilantro rice and charro beans from al carbon

"those who relate to others as though they are not worthy of respect ought to be treated with the regard that orientation deserves"

The UC Berkeley School of Information is hiring an assistant professor in the broad field of Information--including areas of info seeking/retrieval, digital humanities, cultural analytics, info viz, & philosophy of information (among others). Deadline Nov 1! aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05014

Honored to be promoted to Associate Professor at the University of Washington! Grateful to my brilliant mentees, students, collaborators, mentors & @techpolicylab.bsky.social for advancing research in AI & Ethics together—and for the invaluable academic freedom to keep shaping trustworthy AI.

Find out all about the University of Washington’s Department of Sociology & other soc depts in the 2025 ASA Guide to Graduate Depts of Sociology. Now completely online & free for ASA members. Available for a fee to nonmembers. https://bit.ly/ASAGradGuide

Thus the impostor syndrome remains alive and well nourished 🙃

🎉🎊A week full of celebrations ✨Two ERC Starting Grants for the MPIDR✨ We are thrilled to announce that @marilianep.bsky.social and @ugobas.bsky.social have each been awarded with an ERC Starting Grant by the @erc.europa.eu. #ERCStG www.demogr.mpg.de/en/news_even... #ERCStartingGrant #longevity

Everyone talks about how hard the dark Seattle winter is, but I am always more unsettled by what happens in September. Approaching the peak rate-of-diminishing-sunlight season 🫠 (image inspired by @neilrkaye.bsky.social)

When reading AI reasoning text (aka CoT), we (humans) form a narrative about the underlying computation process, which we take as a transparent explanation of model behavior. But what if our narratives are wrong? We measure that and find it usually is. Now on arXiv: arxiv.org/abs/2508.16599

academic collaborations are so great for many reasons. in particular, i love frantically co-editing the same manuscript in real time with my buds.

I spoke to Forbes about why model "welfare" is a silly framing to an important issue; models don't have feelings, and it's a big distraction from real questions like tensions between safety vs. user utility, which are NLP/HCI/policy questions www.forbes.com/sites/victor...

“I have no intention of being bullied to step down from my position because of some questions raised in a tweet,” Cook said. www.bloomberg.com/news/article... Amen.