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Meryl Ye

@merylye.bsky.social
225 followers 925 following 23 posts

Societal Computing PhD Student @ CMU | Cornell CS alum | merylye.github.io

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Reposted by Meryl Ye
Briana Vecchione @briana-v.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
🌟 NEW PAPER PREPRINT 🌟 "I Felt Very Seen, But Still Very Alone": For 6 months, we followed people who use LLMs (e.g., ChatGPT, Claude, etc.) for mental/emotional support to track how it changed 🧵 Full paper here: arxiv.org/abs/2609.123... @merylye.bsky.social, @livgar.bsky.social, Ranjit Singh
arxiv.org
"I Felt Very Seen, But Still Very Alone": Longitudinal Trajectories of General-Purpose LLM Use for Socioemotional Support
People increasingly use general-purpose chatbots such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini for mental health and emotional support. We report a multi-stage longitudinal qualitative study of 18 U.S. adults, ...
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Meryl Ye @merylye.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
What if caring about the world’s problems led somewhere, instead of leaving people discouraged and hopeless? At our third #CSCW2026 Positech workshop, we’ll explore how social technologies can help people build the capacity to care. Applications now due Aug. 7! positech.github.io/cscw2026
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Meryl Ye @merylye.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
What if caring about the world’s problems led somewhere, instead of leaving people discouraged and hopeless? At our third #CSCW2026 Positech workshop, we’ll explore how social technologies can help people build the capacity to care. Applications due Aug. 3! positech.github.io/cscw2026
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Reposted by Meryl Ye
Briana Vecchione @briana-v.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
I'd also like to personally thank my brilliant, curious, and dedicated collaborators, @livgar.bsky.social, @merylye.bsky.social, and Ranjit Singh! This has been a truly fulfilling project, and I couldn't have done it without them.
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Meryl Ye @merylye.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
Check out the full paper here: arxiv.org/abs/2605.21778 with @steverathje.bsky.social @lujain.bsky.social Jessica Bo @myra.bsky.social Ida Mattsson Daniel Vennemeyer Robert Kraut
arxiv.org
What Counts as AI Sycophancy? A Taxonomy and Expert Survey of a Fragmented Construct
AI sycophancy has become a prominent concern in large language model (LLM) research. Yet the term lacks a consistent definition and has been applied to behaviors ranging from agreeing with a user's fa...
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Meryl Ye @merylye.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
Future work on sycophancy depends on a shared understanding of what sycophancy actually is. We don't yet have one. Our taxonomy offers a common vocabulary so that researchers, companies, and policymakers can be precise about which behaviors they mean.
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Meryl Ye @merylye.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
Construct fragmentation extends outside of academic research. But how legislation describes sycophancy differs from how researchers and companies do. If different stakeholders are targeting different behaviors, what does "less sycophantic" actually mean?
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Meryl Ye @merylye.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
Behaviors involving a user's position were recognized as sycophantic whether expressed explicitly or implicitly. Person-directed behaviors divided researchers, particularly implicit ones. It's not always clear where appropriate affective responsiveness ends and sycophancy begins.
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Meryl Ye @merylye.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
We asked 106 experts to rate how sycophantic 24 behaviors were. Experts agreed that some behaviors are clearly sycophantic. Others, particularly implicit and person-directed behaviors, were not reliably recognized as sycophantic.
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Meryl Ye @merylye.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
Mapping the literature to these dimensions revealed that research has focused heavily on explicit and position-directed behaviors, leaving implicit and person-directed behaviors relatively understudied.
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Meryl Ye @merylye.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
We reviewed 70 papers and developed a taxonomy along two dimensions: Referent: Does the model respond to the user's position or to the user as a person? Explicitness: Is the behavior explicit or implicit?
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Meryl Ye @merylye.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
"Sycophancy" has been applied to behaviors ranging from agreeing with a user's false claim, to excessively praising their work, to selectively presenting information that supports their views. These are not the same behavior.
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Meryl Ye @merylye.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
Academic and public interest in AI sycophancy has exploded in the past two years. "Sycophancy" now appears in research papers, model specifications, and legislation. But as the term has spread, so has confusion about what it actually means.
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Meryl Ye @merylye.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
🚨 New preprint 🚨 We developed a sycophancy taxonomy based on prior literature and surveyed 106 experts. 94% agreed it's a serious problem. But they substantially disagreed about which behaviors actually count as sycophancy.
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Reposted by Meryl Ye
Data & Society @datasociety.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
When a research participant referred to his AI companion as a “diet girlfriend,” Research Assistant @merylye.bsky.social saw a useful metaphor: chatbots lack social nutrition; they “offer comfort in the moment, but are rarely filling on their own." datasociety.net/points/socia...
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Meryl Ye @merylye.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
Studying AI sycophancy? We’re running a 10-min expert survey on how researchers define & evaluate it. If you’ve authored ≥1 paper on sycophancy or related areas (alignment, personalization, preference learning), you’re eligible to participate. Sign up here: forms.gle/dY5L79cAxb95...
forms.gle
AI Sycophancy Expert Survey Sign-Up
We’re conducting a 10-minute expert survey to better understand how researchers define and evaluate AI sycophancy. If you’re interested in participating, please sign up using this form. We’ll email yo...
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Meryl Ye @merylye.bsky.social · 24/12/2025
Oddly accurate
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Reposted by Meryl Ye
Data & Society @datasociety.bsky.social · 09/12/2025
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...
datasociety.net
Comment to the FDA on Generative AI-Enabled Digital Mental Health Medical Devices
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Reposted by Meryl Ye
Steve Rathje @steverathje.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
🚨 New preprint 🚨 Across 3 experiments (n = 3,285), we found that interacting with sycophantic (or overly agreeable) AI chatbots entrenched attitudes and led to inflated self-perceptions. Yet, people preferred sycophantic chatbots and viewed them as unbiased! osf.io/preprints/ps... Thread 🧵
Abstract and results summary
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Meryl Ye @merylye.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
laurenkuehne.github.io/grfpChanges/
laurenkuehne.github.io
Petition to NSF to Restore Eligibility for the 2026 Graduate Research Fellowship Program Competition
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Reposted by Meryl Ye
Yuxuan Li @yuxuanli1225.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
Huge thanks to Aoi(naito-aoi.github.io) and Hiro(shirado.net)! 👉 arxiv.org/abs/2505.11556 Please boost this thread if you find it interesting! [n/n]
arxiv.org
Assessing Collective Reasoning in Multi-Agent LLMs via Hidden Profile Tasks
Multi-agent systems built on large language models (LLMs) promise enhanced problem-solving through distributed information integration, but also risk replicating collective reasoning failures observed...
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Reposted by Meryl Ye
Jonathan Edward Durham @thisone0verhere.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
All the books I ordered last week just arrived! Can't wait to pour myself a drink, relax, be too tired to read and play around on my phone all night
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Reposted by Meryl Ye
Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 15/04/2025
I would love to never see the phrase "little is known about" in a paper ever again. (1) Most of the time the authors are far more confident about that statement than they should be. (2) There are lots of things we know little about because no one cares. Just not knowing isn't a good motivation.
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Meryl Ye @merylye.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
I’m actually waiting for another Boston tea party
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Reposted by Meryl Ye
Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 26/04/2025
This is one of the worst violations of research ethics I've ever seen. Manipulating people in online communities using deception, without consent, is not "low risk" and, as evidenced by the discourse in this Reddit post, resulted in harm. Great thread from Sarah, and I have additional thoughts. 🧵
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Reposted by Meryl Ye
nikitharao.bsky.social @nikitharao.bsky.social · 04/04/2025
Successfully defended my thesis today! Call me Doctor now :D Big thank you to my advisors @vhellendoorn.bsky.social and @clegoues.bsky.social! :)
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Meryl Ye @merylye.bsky.social · 03/04/2025
At this point, “breaking news” should just be called “broken news”.
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Reposted by Meryl Ye
CMU Software & Societal Systems (S3D) @cmus3d.bsky.social · 26/03/2025
We're leaving Twitter behind and moving to Bluesky! Here, we'll keep tackling the toughest challenges at the intersection of technology, ethics, and society—without all the noise. Follow us to join thoughtful conversations, responsible innovation, and real-world impact. #SolveBig #ResponsibleTech
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Meryl Ye @merylye.bsky.social · 03/03/2025
Found an old notepad from elementary school. Not exactly sure what I was up to…but it seems like I’ve had a longstanding interest in social media users? Hopefully now I know better than to use USA Today as a reference.
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Reposted by Meryl Ye
Yuxuan Li @yuxuanli1225.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
Huge thanks to my advisors Hiro(www.shirado.net) and Sauvik @sauvik.me! 👉 arxiv.org/abs/2501.17420 Please boost this thread if you find it interesting! [n/n]
arxiv.org
Actions Speak Louder than Words: Agent Decisions Reveal Implicit Biases in Language Models
While advances in fairness and alignment have helped mitigate overt biases exhibited by large language models (LLMs) when explicitly prompted, we hypothesize that these models may still exhibit implic...
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Meryl Ye @merylye.bsky.social · 19/01/2025
I think the negative aspects overshadow the positive ones once the size of our networks/amount of content exposure pass a certain threshold. Everything in moderation…right?
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Meryl Ye @merylye.bsky.social · 13/01/2025
Hi Jaz, I was wondering if you have time stamps for edge creations, or other ways that would allow for historical snapshots of the Bluesky network structure. I would be interested in studying the network growth.
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Reposted by Meryl Ye
David Rand @dgrand.bsky.social · 07/01/2025
🚨In Nature🚨 Meta is dropping fact-checking to avoid anti-conservative bias- but is there actually evidence of bias? We this test empirically & find that conservatives * ARE suspended more * BUT share more misinfo So suspension isn't necessarily evidence of bias www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Differences in misinformation sharing can lead to politically asymmetric sanctions - Nature
We find that conservatives tend to share more low-quality news through social media than liberals, and so even if technology companies enact politically neutral anti-misinformation policies, political...
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Meryl Ye @merylye.bsky.social · 02/01/2025
The examples you give are much more direct, but this kind of question makes me think about the butterfly effect and chaos theory.
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Meryl Ye @merylye.bsky.social · 16/12/2024
This fall, I was TA for Network Analysis, taught by @vasilescu.bsky.social and @patpark.bsky.social . To make it fun(ner), we played a song for each lecture. Check out our website and playlist! I would love suggestions of other network-related songs for next year. open.spotify.com/playlist/468...
bvasiles.github.io
Network Analysis
The Hidden Structures behind the Webs We Weave17-338 / 17-668 Fall 2024
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Reposted by Meryl Ye
Mark Hamill @markhamillofficial.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
Posted this at the old place, but thought folks on @bsky.app might like to know I finally met my "mother".
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Reposted by Meryl Ye
Nicolas Christin @nc2y.bsky.social · 08/12/2024
I am making a Societal Computing starter pack for folks that (broadly) look at the impact of computer science on society. So far, mostly people affiliated with the eponymous program in the school of computer science at CMU, but pls respond to this thread if you want to be added. go.bsky.app/2avpExM
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Meryl Ye @merylye.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
Congrats Sanjay! Awesome news! Since you’re not at the helm anymore, what’s going to happen to Reddit for Researchers?
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