Sign in

Michael Bernstein

@mbernst.bsky.social
3.4K followers 298 following 54 posts

CS Professor at Stanford

PostsRepliesMedia
Michael Bernstein @mbernst.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
Empirical evidence that people can build highly predictive mental models of even complex AIs, if and only if the algorithm fulfills three criteria:
0133
Michael Bernstein @mbernst.bsky.social · 03/12/2025
CSCW folks, I wanted to highlight how excited and proud I am to see work from our community (dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/..., CSCW '24 best paper winner led by @jiachenyan.bsky.social and @mlam.bsky.social) grow and expand ambition into this Science paper. CSCW has a ton to offer the world.
0265
Reposted by Michael Bernstein
Samidh @samidh.bsky.social · 03/12/2025
This was such a cool experiment that I created a Zentropi labeler with a simplified version of the authors' Partisan Animosity criteria. Now anyone can experiment directly with using this labeler to try to reduce the temperature of affective polarization in their feeds. zentropi.ai/labelers/b30...
science.org
Reranking partisan animosity in algorithmic social media feeds alters affective polarization
Today, social media platforms hold the sole power to study the effects of feed-ranking algorithms. We developed a platform-independent method that reranks participants’ feeds in real time and used thi...
092
Reposted by Michael Bernstein
Martin Saveski @msaveski.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
New paper in Science: In a platform-independent field experiment, we show that reranking content expressing antidemocratic attitudes and partisan animosity in social media feeds alters affective polarization. 🧵
Today, social media platforms hold the sole power to study the effects of feed-ranking algorithms. We developed a platform-independent method that reranks participants’ feeds in real time and used this method to conduct a preregistered 10-day field experiment with 1256 participants on X during the 2024 US presidential campaign. Our experiment used a large language model to rerank posts that expressed antidemocratic attitudes and partisan animosity (AAPA). Decreasing or increasing AAPA exposure shifted out-party partisan animosity by more than 2 points on a 100-point feeling thermometer, with no detectable differences across party lines, providing causal evidence that exposure to AAPA content alters affective polarization. This work establishes a method to study feed algorithms without requiring platform cooperation, enabling independent evaluation of ranking interventions in naturalistic settings.
515468
Michael Bernstein @mbernst.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
@jennyallen.bsky.social and @jatucker.bsky.social add a fantastic Perspective piece on the importance of platform-independent experiments on social media's impact on us: science.org/doi/10.1126/... Strongly agree!
science.org
Platform-independent experiments on social media
Changing algorithms with artificial intelligence tools can influence partisan animosity
083
Michael Bernstein @mbernst.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
Article with @tiziano.bsky.social, @msaveski.bsky.social, @jiachenyan.bsky.social, Jeff Hancock, and Jeanne Tsai www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
Reranking partisan animosity in algorithmic social media feeds alters affective polarization
Today, social media platforms hold the sole power to study the effects of feed-ranking algorithms. We developed a platform-independent method that reranks participants’ feeds in real time and used thi...
241
Michael Bernstein @mbernst.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
Our new article in @science.org enables social media reranking outside of platforms' walled gardens. We add an LLM-powered reranking of highly polarizing political content into N=1256 participants' feeds. Downranking cools tensions with the opposite party—but upranking inflames them.
screenshot of the title and authors of the Science paper that are linked in the next post
14813
Reposted by Michael Bernstein
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford @casbsstanford.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
Current CASBS fellow Jeanne Tsai & fmr fellow @mbernst.bsky.social among coauthors of NEW ARTICLE @science.org unveiling a new method to reduce exposure to highly partisan social media posts & improve users’ attitudes Coverage: news.stanford.edu/stories/2025... Pub: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
Reranking partisan animosity in algorithmic social media feeds alters affective polarization
Today, social media platforms hold the sole power to study the effects of feed-ranking algorithms. We developed a platform-independent method that reranks participants’ feeds in real time and used thi...
072
Reposted by Michael Bernstein
Robb Willer @robbwiller.bsky.social · 07/10/2025
🚨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 🧵👇
1136
Michael Bernstein @mbernst.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
Stanford Engineering (@StanfordEng) launched an open-rank faculty search in design. It can place candidates in any department in our School of Engineering: facultypositions.stanford.edu/en-us/job/49... I'm thrilled to bring in more colleagues at the intersection of engineering+design!
facultypositions.stanford.edu
Stanford | Faculty Positions: Details - Open Rank Faculty Position in School of Engineering, Design
171
Michael Bernstein @mbernst.bsky.social · 27/07/2025
Thank you so much, Ludwig! I hope you’re doing well!
000
Michael Bernstein @mbernst.bsky.social · 08/07/2025
Thank you!
020
Michael Bernstein @mbernst.bsky.social · 08/07/2025
Thank you!!
010
Michael Bernstein @mbernst.bsky.social · 08/07/2025
Thank you!!
000
Michael Bernstein @mbernst.bsky.social · 08/07/2025
Thank you!
010
Michael Bernstein @mbernst.bsky.social · 08/07/2025
Thank you Danaé!
010
Michael Bernstein @mbernst.bsky.social · 08/07/2025
90s kid sitting in front of CRT display giving a thumbs up!
000
Michael Bernstein @mbernst.bsky.social · 08/07/2025
:) Thank you sir!
010
Michael Bernstein @mbernst.bsky.social · 08/07/2025
Thank you Martin!
000
Michael Bernstein @mbernst.bsky.social · 08/07/2025
Thank you!!
000
Michael Bernstein @mbernst.bsky.social · 07/07/2025
Thank you to everyone for your energy and enthusiasm in joining this adventure with me so far!
11690
Reposted by Michael Bernstein
Zana Buçinca @zbucinca.bsky.social · 31/05/2025
Thrilled to share that I’ve successfully defended my PhD dissertation and I will be joining MIT as an Assistant Professor starting Fall 2026, with a shared appointment between Sloan and EECS! I will be recruiting 1-2 PhD students this upcoming cycle. Consider applying to MIT EECS!
6687
Michael Bernstein @mbernst.bsky.social · 01/06/2025
Congratulations!!!
110
Reposted by Michael Bernstein
Politics and Social Change Lab @pascl-stanford.bsky.social · 21/05/2025
Very cool to see this research developed into a policy brief! Impactful work from a superstar team: @joon-s-pk.bsky.social @cqzou.bsky.social ‬ @aaronshaw.bsky.social @mako.cc Carrie Cai, Meredith Ringel Morris, @robbwiller.bsky.social Percy Liang, @mbernst.bsky.social
074
Reposted by Michael Bernstein
Robb Willer @robbwiller.bsky.social · 21/05/2025
Take a 👀 at this policy brief from @stanfordhai.bsky.social on how AI agents can test ideas in social science. Honored to be part of this amazing team: @joon-s-pk.bsky.social @cqzou.bsky.social @aaronshaw.bsky.social @mako.cc Carrie Cai, Meredith Ringel Morris, Percy Liang, @mbernst.bsky.social
0103
Reposted by Michael Bernstein
Aaron Shaw @aaronshaw.bsky.social · 21/05/2025
A policy brief on what generative AI simulations of people might be good for! (based on work with the amazing team of @joon-s-pk.bsky.social @cqzou.bsky.social @mako.cc @robbwiller.bsky.social @mbernst.bsky.social Merrie Morris, Carrie Cai, and Percy Liang)
0102
Reposted by Michael Bernstein
Angel Hsing-Chi Hwang @angelhwang.bsky.social · 22/04/2025
📣 Calling all #CHI2025 attendees who work with human participants: Join our panel discussion on #LLM, #simulation, #syntheticdata, and the future of human subjects research on Apr 30 (Wed), 2:10 - 3:40 PM (JP Time) Post your questions for panelists here: forms.gle/m2mXY3xFafAX...
2165
Reposted by Michael Bernstein
Jacy Reese Anthis @jacyanthis.bsky.social · 04/04/2025
Should we use LLMs 🤖 to simulate human research subjects 🧑? In our new preprint, we argue sims can augment human studies to scale up social science as AI technology accelerates. We identify 5 tractable challenges and argue this is a promising and underused research method 🧪🧵 arxiv.org/abs/2504.02234
arxiv.org
LLM Social Simulations Are a Promising Research Method
Accurate and verifiable large language model (LLM) simulations of human research subjects promise an accessible data source for understanding human behavior and training new AI systems. However, resul...
3207
Reposted by Michael Bernstein
Surya Ganguli @suryaganguli.bsky.social · 24/03/2025
This might be the most useful thing I have come across in social media - a personalized feed of academic papers filtered by your follower network! Highly recommend. #academicsky
23211
Michael Bernstein @mbernst.bsky.social · 18/03/2025
Thanks @dorazhao.bsky.social for creating this!
030
Michael Bernstein @mbernst.bsky.social · 18/03/2025
Step 1) Install the #chi2025 module to your Claude/ChatGPT: knollapp.com/add/ZlRKvCmB... Step 2) Ask the LLM, "Given my interests, what are some CHI 2025 papers I should check out?" (If the model doesn't already know your interests, you might need to state them.)
172
Michael Bernstein @mbernst.bsky.social · 16/03/2025
I'm sorry this has taken so long for me to reply! It's a really good question. Taking Meta's walkback of its moderation policies as an example, it's couched as a public debate logic (about.fb.com/news/2025/01...). But the broader story of that change was about a cold political calculation, so...
110
Reposted by Michael Bernstein
Tiziano Piccardi @tiziano.bsky.social · 16/03/2025
New funding opportunity for Wikimedia-related research! Grants up to $150K available. Apply by April 16th: meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:...
meta.wikimedia.org
Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Research & Technology Fund/Wikimedia Research Fund - Meta
01510
Michael Bernstein @mbernst.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
My position is that agentic AI relies on “sharp edged” problems for which there are big costs if it makes a mistake, implying very high accuracy requirements—and for most agentic uses, we aren’t at that level yet. We do discuss AI generative agents a bit in the book! arxiv.org/abs/2304.03442
arxiv.org
Generative Agents: Interactive Simulacra of Human Behavior
Believable proxies of human behavior can empower interactive applications ranging from immersive environments to rehearsal spaces for interpersonal communication to prototyping tools. In this paper, w...
130
Michael Bernstein @mbernst.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
Yay, thank you!
010
Michael Bernstein @mbernst.bsky.social · 05/03/2025
Book announcement: with Melissa Valentine, we are publishing "Flash Teams: Leading the Future of AI-Enhanced, On-Demand Work." It's a leadership book synthesizing a decade of Stanford research on how computing, online platforms, and AI reshape teamwork. Coming October from @mitpress.bsky.social!
Book cover of the Flash Teams book. "Flash Teams: Leading the Future of AI-enhanced, on-demand work". A lightning bolt image made out of square pixels.
1346
Reposted by Michael Bernstein
CMU Human-Computer Interaction Institute @hcii.cmu.edu · 05/03/2025
It was great to see so many attendees at the seminar from Michael Bernstein on Friday. Thanks for visiting, @mbernst.bsky.social. The recording of "Generative Agents: Interactive Simulacra of Human Behavior" is available at the web page below. @kenholstein.bsky.social @bradamyers.bsky.social
182
Michael Bernstein @mbernst.bsky.social · 05/03/2025
Thank you for including me!
020
Reposted by Michael Bernstein
CMU Human-Computer Interaction Institute @hcii.cmu.edu · 27/02/2025
Our next #HCIISeminarSeries talk & Sujeath Pareddy Memorial Lecture will be Michael Bernstein @mbernst.bsky.social of Stanford University. 🎙️"Generative Agents: Interactive Simulacra of Human Behavior" 📅 Feb. 28, 2025 🕜1:30pm ET 📍NSH 1305 + livestream 🔗 Details: hcii.cmu.edu/news/event/2...
hcii.cmu.edu
HCII Seminar Series - Michael Bernstein | Human-Computer Interaction Institute
Michael Bernstein is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, where he is a Bass University Fellow and Interim Director of the Symbolic Systems program. His research focuses ...
031
Michael Bernstein @mbernst.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
Weiser (2025)—Sal awakens: she smells coffee. A few minutes ago her alarm clock had quietly asked "coffee?", and she had mumbled "OK." Her Alexa alarm clock did its best with the mumbled response: "Playing OK Go." Sal cried out: "Alexa, stop!" The assistant leered at her. "Alexa. Alexa! ALEXA!"
000
Michael Bernstein @mbernst.bsky.social · 21/02/2025
The move to use LLMs to enforce platform codes of conduct is going to expose all the intentional vagueness in the policies. LLMs can certainly enforce what is written in the policies, but I bet it’s going to yield a bunch of undesired changes to enforcement patterns.
161
Michael Bernstein @mbernst.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
Applications to the Stanford Symbolic Systems lecturer position is due on the 15th. If you're interested in teaching and mentoring careers in academia, consider applying!
000
Reposted by Michael Bernstein
Estelle Smith @estellesmithphd.bsky.social · 31/01/2025
📣 The #CSCW2026 deadline (@acm-cscw.bsky.social) has been posted. Big change this year. There is **only one deadline** for 2026 and it is May 13, 2025. 📣 Please spread the word! #CSCW #CHI #HCI #socialcomputing cscw.acm.org/2025/index.p...
cscw.acm.org
CALL FOR PAPERS – CSCW 2025
22713
Michael Bernstein @mbernst.bsky.social · 15/01/2025
Amazing, congratulations!!!
020
Reposted by Michael Bernstein
Lorne Campbell @lornejcampbell.bsky.social · 12/01/2025
I thoroughly enjoy reading this methods paper by McGrath (1981) www2.psych.ubc.ca/~schaller/52... He views the research process as not a set of problems that need to be solved but dilemmas that need to be lived with. There is not "one true" method free of limitations; all are flawed in dif ways
1174
Reposted by Michael Bernstein
Tim Hwang @timhwang.bsky.social · 11/01/2025
You wouldn't last an hour in the asylum where they raised me
3915
Reposted by Michael Bernstein
Tiziano Piccardi @tiziano.bsky.social · 05/01/2025
How do people *really* read Wikipedia? 📖 👀 We explored how readers navigate, fall into rabbit holes, and engage with information in a chapter for the ‘Handbook of Computational Social Science,’ edited by @tahayasseri.bsky.social. Stay tuned for the full book! 📚 Preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2501.00939
0184
Michael Bernstein @mbernst.bsky.social · 03/01/2025
Stanford's Symbolic Systems Program is hiring a three-year lecturer position: academicjobsonline.org/ajo/program/...
academicjobsonline.org
Stanford University, Symbolic Systems Program
Full service online faculty recruitment and application management system for academic institutions worldwide. We offer unique solutions tailored for academic communities.
045
Michael Bernstein @mbernst.bsky.social · 03/01/2025
(This particular folly of rewarding A, while hoping for B, was identified by Thomas Barnet-Lamb)
010
Michael Bernstein @mbernst.bsky.social · 03/01/2025
Problematic incentives for faculty parking
A series of cars parked next to a sign that says "Permit restricted parking area. Violators will be cited." Violators will be cited is highlighted in red.
2292