🚨 New European Commission's JRC Report Out Collaborative Policymaking Science-backed insights for better collaboration in public administration/policymaking & 12 actionable principles to make it happen 🔗 Report + principles: publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/h... @davidmair4.bsky.social

ChatGPT nailed it: "your concern is not anti-psychology. It’s pro-science."

yes i HAVE wondered this!!!

(1/4) Ever wondered what tech policy might look like if it were informed by research on collective intelligence and complex systems? 🧠🧑‍💻 Join @jbakcoleman.bsky.social, @lukethorburn.com, and myself in San Diego on Aug 4th for the Collective Intelligence x Tech Policy workshop at @acmci.bsky.social!

IF ONLY

i'm afraid there's nothing i can do 😢 one of only two comments (from 80 students) on my negotiation class evaluation: “The only bad thing of the course was the low attendance”

I've discovered an unexpected benefit of the MESO (multiple equivalent simultaneous offers) in landlord negotiations, when they tried to give us a contract that didn't reflect our agreement: "...which was your choice, not ours."

I have a credit dispute with my coauthor. Each of us denies coming up with Equation 1, and thinks the other person did it.

EasyChair is ....... not so easy.

using the AI to add the progress bar to the script using the AI to do the literature review.

idk, i think its cool. tiny.cc/socialphysics

on the importance of theory

On the usefulness of AI+CI research results in a fast-changing landscape: "If we root ourselves more to first principles of collective intelligence rather than focusing on current capabilities of LLMs, we’re future proofing our perspective" - Jason Burton, just a moment ago

If I submit my paper to 5 journals before it gets published, and each journal requires 3 reviewers, thats 15 reviewers per paper. Is everybody completing as many reviews as they require from others? Or are some people carrying the lions share of the burden?

Negotiating with my landlord for lease renewal. Offered them a MESO. Targeted their interests. Gestured at rights. Keeping power in my pocket. Thanks, negotiation theory!! Coming soon: the response.

i just created a course in Thinkific with the title "negotiation solutions" and it auto-populated a syllabus and section titles for me including one on "Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication". the course url is "ai-placeholder"

ONE WEEK TO DEADLINE for Collective Intelligence 2025 submissions! Accepting non-archival AND proceedings submissions, to include contributions from a diverse set of academic traditions. More info here: ci.acm.org/2025/submit/

ONE WEEK TO DEADLINE for Collective Intelligence 2025 submissions! Accepting non-archival AND proceedings submissions, to include contributions from a diverse set of academic traditions. More info here: ci.acm.org/2025/submit/

science is not an exact science

i just sit around all day and test hypotheses. by which i mean, i generate lots of hypotheses, and test them to see if they're interesting.

"all models are wrong. some models are useful."

propositions vs hypotheses? Proposition = a thing to be demonstrated theoretically. Hypothesis = a thing to be demonstrated empirically.

my class is really easy because i tell you all the answers to the exam over the term, all you have to do is (show up to class and) write them down

UK is a petri dish for collective intelligence! There's a "collective leadership" dept in govt, another running mass deliberations, and activists meeting up to discuss "​Why Britain needs highly talented people like you to think about governance." lu.ma/lfg-cf?tk=zd...

what if nuance weren't so boring?

well that's fun. ( alani.ai )

The wisdom of competitive crowds? Estimation meets poker: mynamelowercase.com/blog/general...

i just.... really love whiteboards. i love looking at stuff on them, i love writing on them. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

early remote work crowdsourcing

It did much better on the answer about Xinyang: it didn't refuse to talk, it just gave a party line.

Obviously DeepSeek won't talk openly about Taiwan. But the glitchy thing is, it gives answers first, and then deletes them! It checks its answers after typing them, not before, I guess. In the screenshot below, a real argument appeared and then was replaced with the censorship message.

in my perspective as an American, I don't think gov.uk get's enough love

outlook mobile app has a "feed" and the top trending item is "Expense Policy change summary and FAQS" with 8,612 viewers.

I think I get worse teaching ratings when I request feedback, and present myself as a work in progress. Students seem happier when I just say, "This is the right way to learn this skill." I guess??

is negotiation even a field, if we don't teach a PhD theory class on it?

i bet nobody does. is that weird?

Have you ever seen a PhD-level negotiation class? Maybe you teach one? Can you share the syllabus or tell me who has one?

as per my email: it  IS really exciting any time we can give formal/mathematical expression to a already accepted verbal theory!!!!!

on formal modeling in e.g. the social sciences: "simplify [X] for better understanding, study complexity* for realism" *not in the 'complex systems' sense

Just took a carbon emissions calculator quiz. If I stop flying to conferences, I’ll get a green score. It says I shouldn’t count work travel but I make the choice so I counted it. Nobody’s making me go to conferences.

To use ChatGPT memory, tell it "remember this" followed by the copy/paste admin email with all those insane bureaucratic procedures. (Asking it later the correct way to do things is optional, because what's the worst that can happen?)

psyched to be back in my favorite classroom this year. the little things innit?

first technology enabled us to leave the house with our phones, now technology is enabling us to leave the house without our phones.

💡 since i have to rewrite my exam every year anyway, this year i'm going to optimize for easy marking.

Jan 1st: The review we sent you just before xmas is now due. Welcome back!

Received a review request from a physics journal. I am a social scientist. Finally found my pragmatic answer to "is this physics?" Answer: "Are the peer-reviewers physicists?" I suggested that the paper get desk-rejected with the advice to resubmit to an interdisciplinary journal.

Woah

This year, Christmas starts on Channukah!!

science gets more useful when formally modeled. its true for social science, too.