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Nikhil Garg

@nkgarg.bsky.social
3K followers 1.4K following 457 posts

I study algorithms/learning/data applied to democracy/markets/society. Asst. professor at Cornell Tech. gargnikhil.com. Helping building personalized Bluesky research feed: bsky.app/profile/paper-feed.bsky.so…

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Reposted by Nikhil Garg
Eugene Vinitsky 🍒 @eugenevinitsky.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
In our Nature paper, we introduce the first superhuman Stratego AI, which we built using general techniques that we developed for RL & test-time compute under imperfect information. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Scalable decision-making for games of imperfect information - Nature
Ataraxos, an AI for the board wargame Stratego, establishes a design pattern for reinforcement learning and search that is effective under large amounts of hidden information, a longstanding desiderat...
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Isabel Silva Corpus @isabelcorpus.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
In 2023, Change.org integrated an AI-assisted writing tool into their platform. We found that access to the tool changed platform trends in petition text, but that outcomes (signatures and comments) did not improve... Excited that this paper is out, check it out! 🔗: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Introducing AI to an online petition platform changed outputs but not outcomes - Nature Human Behaviour
Corpus et al. examine how the introduction of an AI writing tool impacted Change.org petitions, finding that it increased petition homogeneity but did not improve petition outcomes.
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Clément Canonne @ccanonne.github.io · 29/09/2026
The report from the AI + TCS Working Group held at the @simonsinstitute.bsky.social is out, including "twelve concrete near-term recommended actions." Currently reading it: while I have some reservations, but there is some good in it! Notably items 7, 8, and 11. simons.berkeley.edu/ai-tcs-worki...
7. Best works and technical talks in interviews.

- Emphasize quality over quantity. Evaluate candidates on no more than three  works of their choosing, with this fact explicit in the instructions for candidates and their letter writers.

- Test technical depth. Evaluate the depth of the candidates’ understanding of the aforementioned works more than was done normally until now.

8. Additional postdocs. Establish additional postdoctoral positions for the TCS community, a temporary measure that will be phased out after a few years.

9. Workshops for identifying new theory directions. First, organize a workshop (or several) with the goal of identifying a list of modern topics related to AI; and second, run a series of workshops on each of these topics to identify fundamental directions and establish foundations and agendas for future work.

10. “TCS in the Age of AI” series at the Simons Institute. Establish a recurring and widely accessible “TCS in the Age of AI” series at the Simons Institute.

11. Opportunities for training and evaluation without AI assistance. To ensure development of necessary skills for a successful career in academia, a PhD in TCS should partially include training and evaluation components where the use of AI is forbidden.
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Maria Antoniak @mariaa.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
behold! #colm2026 with a new filter 👀 on lea.ac
A screenshot of Lea showing the COLM conference page with the "Papers" tab selected. The listed papers are filtered to those with authors whom I follow on Bluesky / ATProto.
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Daniel de Kadt @dandekadt.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Very excited: Cornell Arts & Sciences seeks up to 5 postdoctoral scholars working on AI and the humanities/social sciences. Not involved in selection but could serve as a faculty sponsor if you are working on topics related to ~"how to do social science in the age of AI." Happy to chat.
academicjobsonline.org
Cornell University, College of Arts and Sciences Fellowships
Job #AJO32791, Postdoctoral Associate, AI in Social Sciences & Humanities, College of Arts and Sciences Fellowships, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, US
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Gautam Kamath @gautamkamath.com · 16/09/2026
Nihar Shah did a heroic experiment for TMLR: he spent 20-25 hours over two weeks interviewing authors of seemingly low-quality submissions about their own papers. He confirmed what we all suspected: people submitting these papers have *no idea* what is going on in them.
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Aaron Roth @aaroth.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
A world without open problems Here are some that fell today: K-server: arxiv.org/abs/2609.15979 Matroid Secretary: arxiv.org/abs/2609.145... Matrix Spencer: arxiv.org/abs/2609.15025 (Well Matrix Spencer was maybe also a few weeks ago, but who's counting? arxiv.org/abs/2608.28816 )
arxiv.org
The $k$-server conjecture is true
The $k$-server conjecture states that a deterministic online algorithm can achieve competitive ratio $k$ on every metric space. We prove the conjecture. Specifically, we show that the work function al...
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Tony Zhou @tyzhou.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Bluesky gives users the power to choose their algorithms, but how does this actually work in practice? In our new preprint, we explore the ecosystem of Bluesky custom feeds and the feed creators behind them! 🧵 arxiv.org/abs/2609.12958
arxiv.org
Middleware for Feed Recommendation in Practice: How Feed Creators Build, Maintain, and Sustain Custom Feeds on Bluesky
Scholars have long proposed third-party middleware as an alternative to centralized algorithmic feeds: feeds built and distributed by independent feed creators. This vision saw no large-scale instanti...
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Nikhil Garg @nkgarg.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Very cool and important work! Curious to see results
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Nikhil Garg @nkgarg.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
I love reading data colada posts. Besides their importance in catching fraud, many implicit lessons for what good data science looks like. (1) curiosity + simple methods go very far. Most of their posts are "we took this average and stared at the raw data, and funny things popped out".
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Nikhil Garg @nkgarg.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
This all rings true to me. I still credit my summer of Kumon (in early 2000s) as accelerating my math education by several years. (and then my parents wanted to stop paying for it)
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Wesley Finck @wesleyfinck.org · 26/08/2026
Some preliminary product insights from our recent onboarding launch: It's no coincidence that the most popular suggested link is "From Feeds to Trails". People are ready for a new kind of social media experience! leaflet.pub/p/did:plc:ld...
leaflet.pub
From Feeds to Trails
To design the future of social media, rethink the interface before the algorithm.
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Nikhil Garg @nkgarg.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Then, we worked with NYCPS to nudge applicants to apply to high-performing schools, while being congestion aware! The paper (full version out soon) won Best Paper with Student Lead Author at EC`26 -- see Erica's great thread here! bsky.app/profile/eric...
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Nikhil Garg @nkgarg.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
New paper out, for a project 3+ years in the making! First, in this paper, we quantified sources of disparities in NYC high the NYC high school match -- see Kenny's great thread here! www.nature.com/articles/s44...
nature.com
Connecting application behavior to undermatching in New York City school choice - Nature Cities
Cities are challenged to allocate educational resources efficiently and equitably. This study of the 2022–2023 New York City High School Match program finds that Black and Hispanic students undermatch...
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Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
“X’s algorithm learns what you hate and shows you more of it, according to a new study just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” www.404media.co/xs-algorithm...
404media.co
X's Algorithm Feeds Off Ragebait and Impacts Democrats More, Study Finds
X is driving engagement by making users fight in the replies.
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Nikhil Garg @nkgarg.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
I've logged in and giving it a serious go! Crazy impressive work by them + cool that the protocol supports innovation like this
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Eugene Vinitsky 🍒 @eugenevinitsky.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
For the past six months @mariaa.bsky.social and I have been working on creating an improved research experience on atproto. It's now live! Check out: lea.ac
leaflet.pub
Lea: research-oriented social media
Introducing a beta-version of our new research-focused social media platform
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Nikhil Garg @nkgarg.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
Very interesting thread on, among other things, human verification and understanding of the latest AI proofs
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Jonathan Stray @jonathanstray.com · 31/07/2026
Would you like to try the first ever algorithmic feed with CONTROLS? GreenEarth is built to serve you, not the platform or anybody else. Now in beta. www.greenearth.social/p/welcome-to...
greenearth.social
Welcome to the GreenEarth Feeds
Social media algorithms built for people who hate social media algorithms
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Thomas Dietterich @tdietterich.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
I'm delighted that Dr. Penelope Lewis is joining arXiv as our CEO!
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Sayash Kapoor @sayash.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Thrilled to share that I am joining UC Berkeley as an Assistant Professor in the School of Information! I start in Fall 2027, and I am recruiting PhD students this cycle. List me in your application if you want to work with me! More on what I'm looking for (and a form to indicate interest) 🧵
Image of the UC Berkeley campus
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Nikhil Garg @nkgarg.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
At my first #IC2S2 this week -- would be great to meet and chat with folks here!
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Martin Saveski @msaveski.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Looking forward to giving a tutorial on 𝗦𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗠𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗮 𝗙𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝗥𝗮𝗻𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗔𝗹𝗴𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗺𝘀 with @tiziano.bsky.social at @ic2s2.bsky.social! 🕜 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲: Tuesday, 1-4 pm 📍 𝗟𝗼𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: Mansfield (210). 🌐 𝗪𝗲𝗯𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗲: social-media-ais.github.io/ic2s2-26-tut...
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Robin Berjon @robin.berjon.com · 16/07/2026
Do you like your social media less toxic? Yeah, we do too. @eurosky.social and Germany's Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation (SPRIND) just signed an agreement to collaborate on precisely that: eurosky.tech/news/eurosky...
eurosky.tech
Eurosky is collaborating with SPRIND to test a non-toxic algorithm for the first time - Eurosky
Eurosky is a European initiative to build and operate sovereign social web infrastructure
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Ronen Tamari @ronentk.me · 14/07/2026
I've been a @zotero.org user for more than 6 years and have thousands of references - I've always dreamed of being able to see who else was reading those references on my virtual bookshelves. That dream is starting to come true ✨ With Zemble, every reference becomes a portal 🌀 >
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Alondra Nelson @alondra.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Pleased to support Mayor Mamdani's PIT Crew initiative. Done right, digital government saves people time and money. Done wrong, it can be costly, useless, or discriminatory. How a city interacts with its people shouldn't be outsourced. It should be local and accountable. www.nyc.gov/mayors-offic...
nyc.gov
Mayor Mamdani Launches "Public Interest Technology (PIT) Crew" to Rapidly Build Digital Solutions to Public Problems
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Kenny Peng @kennypeng.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
🧵Can we reconcile excitement for SAEs with negative results? Our #ICML2026 position paper argues that even if SAEs underperform baselines when acting on knowns (e.g. probing, steering), they're a powerful tool for ~discovering unknowns~ Poster: Tue 2pm, HALL A #1715
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Nikhil Garg @nkgarg.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
This workshop starts at a couple of hours in case you're here at EC!
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Reposted by Nikhil Garg
Aaron Roth @aaroth.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
On Monday @ncollina.bsky.social @iraglobusharris.bsky.social and I are giving a tutorial at ICML on (multi)calibration and its applications. You can find slides and an annotated bibliography on the website: calibration-tutorial.github.io as well as an interactive demo of online calibration algs.
calibration-tutorial.github.io
Calibration, Decisions, and Collaboration in Learning | ICML 2026
An ICML 2026 tutorial on making probabilistic predictions trustworthy for downstream decision-making and collaboration.
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Nikhil Garg @nkgarg.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
1/7 Excited to share EconCSLib: a Lean library/workflow. Our vision is to enable researchers who don't know Lean to formalize their Applied Modeling papers. Why? I, and most theorists, are terrified of fatal mistakes in our papers Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2606.13306 Project: gargnikhil.com/EconCSLib/
gargnikhil.com
EconCSLib
EconCSLib is a Lean 4 library and workflow for formalizing Economics and Computation research papers with language-model assistance.
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Jennah Gosciak @jennahgosciak.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
I am excited to be at @facct.bsky.social this year presenting a new 📝 "Scrutinizing Index-Based Risk Assessments: A Case Study in NYC Decision-making for Heat Emergency Management" (work with Luke Boyce, @angelinawang.bsky.social , and @allisonkoe.bsky.social ). 🔗: dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/... (1/10)
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logan koepke @jlkoepke.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
🧵 How do companies in highly regulated domains actually test their AI systems for and mitigate discrimination? Our new @upturn.org paper at @facct.bsky.social w/ Emily Black, @mbogen.bsky.social, @s010n.bsky.social, and @wesleydeng.bsky.social, tries to answer this question: arxiv.org/abs/2606.02957
The Fair Lending Model: How the Longest-Running Algorithmic
Fairness Programs Work in Practice
EMILY BLACK∗, New York University, USA
MIRANDA BOGEN∗, Center for Democracy & Technology, USA
LOGAN KOEPKE∗, Upturn, USA
SOLON BAROCAS, Microsoft Research, USA
WESLEY DENG, Carnegie Mellon University, USA
MINGWEI HSU, Upturn, USA
U.S. financial institutions subject to fair lending laws have been running algorithmic fairness programs for decades. Despite
this long history, remarkably little is known about how these requirements operate in practice. In this paper, we offer the first
empirical account of how financial institutions test for and mitigate algorithmic discrimination on the ground. In doing so, we
shed light on how the regulatory design of fair lending law and regulation have shaped the policies, processes, and practices
of fair lending programs. Drawing on 35 semi-structured interviews with participants across the fair lending ecosystem, we
find that while financial institutions have a floor of fairness practices aimed at preventing discrimination in lending largely
absent in other domains, the specifics of how firms test for discrimination and search for less discriminatory algorithms varies
widely. We also find that regulatory supervision via fair lending examinations has been the key driver of compliance work, but
that the practical impact of fair lending programs often depends on how well they can navigate competing business incentives,
perceived legal tensions, and regulatory uncertainty. Ultimately, our findings highlight the unique role that supervisory
authority has played in successfully fostering fair lending practices—a regulatory design feature that is distinct from other
areas of civil rights law and almost completely absent from recent policy proposals for dealing with algorithmic discrimination.
CCS Concepts: • Social and professional topics → Computing / technology policy
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Naomi Saphra @nsaphra.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
We don’t always know what problems are hard for LLMs. So devs evaluate on tasks HUMANS find hard or on broad benchmarks. What if we could instead anticipate which scenarios a model will fail on—all without evaluating specific input examples? 🧵NEW PAPER by @jenniferlumeng.bsky.social
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Aaron Roth @aaroth.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
Modern LLMs are incredibly good compression algorithms, which can shed light on why autonomous data science agents don't overfit as much as you might think. arxiv.org/abs/2606.11045
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Nikhil Garg @nkgarg.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
David Shmoys wrote an op-ed in the SF chronicle, based on our paper on how multimember districts with ranked choice voting would several limit gerrymandering www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/open...
sfchronicle.com
The partisan gerrymandering war is out of control. Here’s how we can end it
OPINION: To end partisan gerrymandering, the U.S. should redraw Congressional districts, making them larger and so that each one would have multiple representatives.
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William J. Brady @williambrady.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
✨New paper out @nature.com ✨ For 8 weeks around the 2024 US election, we randomly assigned 2,000 people to use social media algos we built ourselves. Do engagement-based algorithms amplify intergroup, moral & emotional (IME) content—and does that distort how we see political norms? 🧵🔗 👇
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James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 23/05/2026
This is the best thing I've read on baseball's new ABS system. Balls and strikes are made, not found. arxiv.org/pdf/2605.16237
arxiv.org
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hal @harold.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
an agent system and a single 404 error got me in trouble with OpenAI and Cornell campus security. how did this happen? introducing: "agent meltdowns" (1/11) arxiv.org/abs/2605.19149
an email to me from OpenAI saying that my API key was suspended for weapons-related queries
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angela zhou @angelamczhou.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
Excited to share our paper! Due Process on Hold: A Queueing Framework for Improving Access in SNAP arxiv.org/abs/2605.15165 Millions of Americans interface with the social safety net via call centers that are too congested. In Holmes v. Knodell, bad operations = procedural due process violation.
arxiv.org
Due Process on Hold: A Queueing Framework for Improving Access in SNAP
The U.S. social safety net delivers essential services at mass scale, but access burdens persist, as congested contact or call centers serve as a primary mode of application completion and assistance....
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Nikhil Garg @nkgarg.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
Giving a "pub talk" tomorrow evening thanks to @pintofscience.us. (And folks talking all week, e.g. see @informor.bsky.social on Wednesday). www.pintofscience.us/event/who-de...
pintofscience.us
Who Decides? Law, Values, and Algorithms in an Automated World
From courtrooms to code, how much should we trust algorithms? Explore why judges using LLMs may be misguided, how values are socially constructed, and how …
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Brandon Stewart @bstewart.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
1/ New @Nature! We study how powerful institutions shape the information environment for LLMs. Commercial LLM training is opaque, so we trace a path from state-coordinated media -> training data -> model responses.
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Nikhil Garg @nkgarg.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
We are very excited to announce our first workshop on From Theory to Practice: behind the scenes on research deployments at EC’26 (July 6 in Rome)! Call for posters and submissions now open! Organized by myself, @ericachiang.bsky.social , Bailey Flanigan, @brwilder.bsky.social
sites.google.com
Home
About This workshop will focus on the practical realities of deploying algorithmic and economic systems from academic research, especially with government and non-profit partners. While economics and ...
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Johan Ugander @jugander.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
A post from @wtgowers.bsky.social on math research with reasoning LLMs (e.g., ChatGPT 5.5-Pro). Having similar experiences and agree with his reflections. gowers.wordpress.com/2026/05/08/a...
gowers.wordpress.com
A recent experience with ChatGPT 5.5 Pro
We are all having to keep revising upwards our assessments of the mathematical capabilities of large language models. I have just made a fairly large revision as a result of ChatGPT 5.5 Pro, to whi…
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PubChat @pubchat.org · 05/05/2026
Add Bluesky discussion to academic papers: 1. enter the arxiv url here: pubchat.org 2. replace the arxiv link on your webpage with the resulting PubChat link. 3. comments added via Bluesky are aggregated on your paper's PubChat page.
pubchat.org
PubChat
Attach Bluesky discussion to academic papers.
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Nikhil Garg @nkgarg.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
As an avid word-game player, I think @kennypeng.bsky.social and Nicholas built a really fun one! Also some fun "small worlds" math underneath. Please play and let us know how you like it!
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Nikhil Garg @nkgarg.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
The EAAMO conference deadline is coming up! conference.eaamo.org/cfp/ Great community at intersection of CS-Operations-Econ and social good. Flexible publication format (e.g., non-archival option) and so costless to submit here as well!
conference.eaamo.org
Call for Participation
ACM Conference on Equity and Access in Algorithms, Mechanisms, and Optimization
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Maria Antoniak @mariaa.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
What are the worst ethical disasters in NLP history? (I'm teaching "ethics of NLP" tomorrow and history is good for teaching this topic.) Most are data breaches/releases (AOL search logs, OKCupid profiles, Finnish therapy records...) but what others? I'll put some other examples in thread --> 1/n
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Nikhil Garg @nkgarg.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
See Kenny's post for his vision for a more exploratory social media! He's articulating (and building!) an inspiring possibility of how modern language technologies can support as opposed to degrade human understanding
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Marissa Kumar Gerchick @mkgerchick.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
The Tech Team at ACLU is hiring! We are looking for a Data Scientist with expertise in NLP and AI ethics to work on using language tech to support ACLU's mission. Come help us tackle questions about how AI systems can be carefully applied to support the public interest. www.aclu.org/careers/appl...
aclu.org
Careers at ACLU
Join our team! We’re looking for committed, passionate people for open roles at the ACLU.
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Berna Devezer @devezer.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
Brief fun survey from Jessica, Andrew & myself: If you are a faculty member, research scientist, postdoc, or senior Ph.D. student in any area of science, please take five minutes and fill it out. We’ll share the results widely along with some reflections. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
docs.google.com
Epistemic Virtues for Scientific Inquiry — Community Survey
In Six Memos for the Next Millenium, Italo Calvino proposed six literary virtues he felt should be preserved and cultivated in literature regardless of how the world changed: lightness, quickness, exa...
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