📄 New paper: people choose AI models partly on political grounds This is joint work with @pettertornberg.com @chrisbail.bsky.social @michelleschimmel.bsky.social and led by @michaelheseltine.bsky.social

Ouch.

I can't think of many better causes right now than supporting science education for kids like the Tumble Science Podcast: givebutter.com/JokeHaThon2026

This website visualizes social media as a room with 100 people 3 people are producing most toxic content Most people assume 43 are producing toxic content, because these 3 are hyperactive and amplified by engagement based algorithms. The other 97 quiet voices disappear thenoisyroom.com

Prestige bias is a major problem in academia: success in academia leads to other unfair advantages. Prestige bias is bigger in fields that are less scientific (eg., art, history). Fields where claims are more testable have lower prestige markers (eg math, physics). kurtishingl.com/files/PTTS_l...

New job in computational social science: lu.varbi.com/en/what:job/...

Proposal would “dissolve the social and behavioral sciences at NSF”: Massive budget cuts for US science proposed again by Trump administration www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Join us tomorrow (April 2nd) for Tech for Open Minds-- a conference at Duke's Fuqua School of Business. Registration is not required, we will accommodate as many people as our room allows! sicss.io/tom

Interested in whether technology can be leveraged to increase open-mindedness? There are a limited number of spots available to the public for our Tech for Open Minds conference next Thursday (April 2nd), we will accommodate all up to room capacity! Learn more here: sicss.io/tom

Near the top of my list of book's I'm looking forward to reading this year is Disagree Better, by the great Julia Minson! disagreeingbetter.com/order/the-book

Want to learn about computational social science *for free* and identify new research partners across academic fields? Apply to one of the 2026 Summer Institutes in Computational Social Science (described in yellow in the attached map) here: sicss.io/locations

Seats have opened up at Duke's Conference on Society-Centered AI today! Come join us to hear Nicholas Christakis, Ronnie Chatterji, Reggie Townsend, Kaamna Bhojwani, and many more: sites.duke.edu/scai/schedule/

What better way to kick off Duke's Conference on Society-Centered AI than a killer talk by Arvind Narayanan (@random_walker) followed by an amazing student panel on topics from empathy to economic development.

Only two days until #SCAI2026: our annual Conference on Society-Centered AI at Duke. Can't wait to hear amazing talks by Arvind Narayanan, Nicholas Christakis, Ronnie Chatterji, Reggie Townsend, and so many more! sites.duke.edu/scai/

How can we create new benchmarks to measure the social impact of AI? More than 185 people registered to participate in our second annual society-centered AI hackathon at Duke last weekend-- I've never felt more confident that the future is bright!

Fascinated by #Moltbook? The Duke Polarization Lab has been studying how humans interact with large groups of bots simulating humans for the past three years, and we've learned a lot. For example, this forthcoming paper in AJPS documents how a "spiral of toxicity" unfolds: osf.io/preprints/os...

Interested in #Moltbook? Social scientists have been studying whether LLMs can simulate entire social media platforms for some time. 2.5 years ago we published the paper below, and there have been dozens of studies since then which I reviewed last year in this piece: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Please tell UNC not to destroy a pristine forest in order to build a new basketball stadium with luxury boxes by signing this petition: renovatesmithcenter.org?utm_source=s...

We are hiring a post-doc to study the impact of AI agents on complex social systems in Duke's Society-Centered AI Initiative and/or the Polarization Lab! Apply here: academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/314...

Dr. Nicholas Christakis (@nachristakis.bsky.social ) will be joining us as a Keynote Speaker at the Conference on Society-Centered AI 2026 Feb 12-14th! Learn more and Register here: sites.duke.edu/scai/

Rest in peace, Perspective API

Dr. Arvind Narayanan (@randomwalker.bsky.social ) will be joining us as a Keynote Speaker at the Conference on Society-Centered AI 2026! Join us Feb 12-14 at Duke for industry and academic keynotes, research spotlight talks, and poster sessions. Learn more and Register here: sites.duke.edu/scai/

How can we create new benchmarks to measure the social impact of AI? Join us for an interdisciplinary hackathon where teams will tackle this question and compete for prizes including the chance to present their work at the Conference on Society-Centered AI: sites.duke.edu/scai/hackath...

Tutorial Submissions close on February 2nd!

Join us for the 2nd annual Conference on Society-Centered AI at Duke University (Feb 12-14th). Last year’s event drew over 700 people from 50+ companies and 20 universities to discuss topics ranging from AI safety to alignment to the impact of AI systems. Register here: sites.duke.edu/scai/

some good climate/energy news: * 96% of new US power capacity was carbon-free in 2024 (56 gigawatts!) * 2025 included the first month ever when 51% of power on the U.S. grid was carbon-free * The golbal trend is overwhelming: The world is now investing more $ in clean energy than fossil fuels

🔹 3rd Workshop, Mar 10-13, 2026: Social Reasoning and the Ecology of Thought with @blaiseaguera.bsky.social @ashtonanderson.bsky.social @chrisbail.bsky.social @joehenrich.bsky.social @jzleibo.bsky.social ivado.ca/en/events/so...

Applications to host a 2026 Summer Institute in Computational Social Science are due Sunday (December 1st) by 5pm. Don't forget to check out our new "Tech for Open Minds" program too. Apply here: sicss.io/host

🚨Out in PNAS🚨 Examining news on 7 platforms: 1)Right-leaning platforms=lower quality news 2)Echo-platforms: Right-leaning news gets more engagement on right-leaning platforms, vice-versa for left-leaning 3)Low-quality news gets more engagement EVERYWHERE - even BlueSky! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

What is the most profitable industry in the world, this side of the law? Not oil, not IT, not pharma. It's *scientific publishing*. We call this the Drain of Scientific Publishing. Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 Background: doi.org/10.1162/qss_... Thread @markhanson.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy 👇

The ENSAE-CREST is hiring a computational sociologist -- Assistant or Associate Professor. Date of appointment: September 2026. Details here : www.css.cnrs.fr/assistant-or...

This is absolutely wild. I’m on a cross country flight. We are being diverted midway through to Denver. The reason? Some dude is sitting in the exit row who didn’t pay the $155 fee and he refuses to move back to his seat.

$10 million for a computer scientist who is interested in building a lab that creates new technology to increase civil discourse-- really looking forward to working with the Laude Institute on this new "moonshot" program: moonshots.laude.org

🚨New WP!🚨 Structured AI Dialogues Can Increase Happiness and Meaning in Life In a preregistered RCT, four psychology-grounded #AI chatbots improved well-being across several outcomes. Co-authors: Jonas Schoene, Johannes Eichstaedt, Aadesh Salecha, Sonja Lyubomirsky 🧵👇

Junior and senior faculty positions in computational social scientists at Bocconi, one of the world's best universiites: Assistant Prof: jobmarket.unibocconi.eu?id=841 Associate/Full Prof: jobmarket.unibocconi.eu?id=843

New jobs for computational social scientists at UNC and USC: unc.peopleadmin.com/postings/307... amd uscjobs.sc.edu/postings/194...

Really great discussion of political violence in the U.S. today featuring political scientist Sean Westwood: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/w...

New dataset that describes social media activity of a very large group of US elected officials: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

One of the most perplexing things about the decrease in federal funding for research in universities is that Republicans have historically led the way on this (at least between 1980-2020) according to this fascinating new analysis from Dashun Wang's team): www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

How much did Elon's takeover reshape Twitter/X? How did the partisan tilt of social media use change from 2020 to 2024? The ANES 2024 data is out — and this thread answers all your burning questions! 🔥

New Anthropic paper suggests LLMs have “personality vectors”: arxiv.org/pdf/2507.21509

A new Open-Source LLM from ETH Zurich just came out: ethz.ch/en/news-and-...

1/ 🚨 Big news 🚨 today we’re launching Tech for Open Minds (TOM) at @DukeU— a global program exploring how technology shapes open-mindedness, humility & polarization 🌍🧠 🔗https://sicss.io/stories/2025-08-18

Open Research (OpenAI-linked research outfit) just put out a new report on using LLMs for public opinion polling that suggests they may improve response rates substantially: www.openresearchlab.org/findings/ai-...

Over the last 30 years, people a) walk faster in urban spaces; and b) linger less often according to an AI-Assisted study of video footage in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

My uncle Darius has been one of the most important people in my life-- constantly inspiring me with his generous spirit. Now his life depends on the generosity of a stranger who might be willing to donate an organ. Please help my family spread the word! nkr.org/XAX634

www.science.org/content/arti... NIH will reinstate 900 grants in response to court order | Science | AAAS

🧵1/ Just wrapped up the 3rd edition of #SICSS AMU/Law – a summer school on using AI & computational social science to study law and human rights. This year, we leveled up. Big time. ⬇️