iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Lindsay Popowski

JaeWon Kim @jaewonk.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Positech is back #CSCW2026 ! Join the wonderful group of organizers for a day of collaborative discussions on how social technologies can help people build the capacity to care about global challenges in ways that are both effective and sustainable :)

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Lindsay Popowski @popowski.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

People today are drowning in awareness of suffering with nowhere productive to put it. This is a problem that social technology research can and should tackle! At our #CSCW2026 workshop, we’ll spend the day exploring how to design toward sustainable care. Apply by Aug 3: positech.github.io/cscw2026

Positech @ CSCW 2026
The Capacity to Care: Designing Social Technology for Sustained Engagement With Societal Challenges
Applications due Aug. 3
Website for details: https://positech.github.io/cscw2026

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Jose A. Guridi @jaguridi.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

[Qualitative Researchers] We are researching how qualitative researchers are using and/or thinking about AI in their research pipeline. If you are a qualitative researcher and can spare some minutes, please answer this survey: cornell.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_... #AI #QualitativeResearch

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This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn

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Lindsay Popowski @popowski.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

I think it is more broadly applicable! the question is whether the interpretation effort to predictive payoff ratio still makes sense. I think it would take judicious application of the characteristics, as it may be a little harder to reason about them for different system classes

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Louisa Conwill @louisaconwill.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

babe wake up, lindsay popwski just dropped a new paper 🔥

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Lindsay Popowski @popowski.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

and yeah, data is a huge piece of the puzzle! We’re using “algorithm” in the colloquial sense to describe the whole sociotechnical system that users experience and form theories around, so data is a critical part of that

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Lindsay Popowski @popowski.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

Definitely agree! Alignment was a tricky choice of terminology because of how overloaded the word is but we wanted to make the point about individual priors/perspectives on different concepts (in contrast to accuracy).

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Reposted by Lindsay Popowski

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:

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Lindsay Popowski @popowski.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

This work was done with an amazing team! Thanks to my collaborators and advisors: @helenasresearch.bsky.social, Ignacio Javier Fernandez, Chijioke Chinaza Mgbahurike, Ralf Herbrich, Jeff Hancock, @mbernst.bsky.social It'll get presented this fall at #CSCW2026 but should be out sooner in PACM HCI

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Lindsay Popowski @popowski.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

Alignment is the factor with greatest flexibility, perhaps because people are used to errors in their algorithms. Users are willing to tolerate relatively high error rates if a single obvious feature has more signal than noise, e.g., if the like count is highly correlated.

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Lindsay Popowski @popowski.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

When users cannot explain an algorithm with one clear idea, they often juggle multiple (incorrect) mental models. Compactness becomes a kind of crumple zone: by vaguely combining additional factors, users avoid being clearly proven wrong.

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Lindsay Popowski @popowski.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

These properties also shape which mental models users deploy when reasoning about algorithm behavior. Users default to incorporating highly available engagement signals into their mental models regardless of whether they are present in the underlying algorithm.

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Lindsay Popowski @popowski.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

We find that users predict algorithm behavior accurately if and only if all three properties hold, regardless of algorithmic complexity. For non compliant algorithms, prediction accuracy falls to around chance.

$A bar plot of prediction accuracy by ACA criteria. The bar for ACA algorithms is around 85\%, while the bars for all other configurations range around 45-55\%. There is no apparent difference for 2/3 ACA criteria versus 1/3 or 0/3 ACA criteria.$

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Lindsay Popowski @popowski.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

We test this theory in a large pre-registered study (N=1250) where participants predicted the behavior of 25 social media feed-ranking algorithms systematically varying the ACA properties, ranging from single-feature rankings to complex, LLM-based systems.

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Lindsay Popowski @popowski.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

Three factors matter here: (cognitive) availability means the algorithm is built on concepts users already reason with, (conceptual) compactness means those concepts cohere to a single construct, and alignment means people and the algorithm apply the concept in similar ways.

The core proposition: If an algorithm satisfies all three conditions (Available, Compact, Aligned), then a person will be able to accurately predict its behavior, even if the algorithm is complex. Characteristics improving and worsening each characteristic are shown. For available: visible features and concepts users are predisposed to notice help, hidden features and hard-to-extract features hurt. For compact: a single concept or many that can be united into one help, multiple divergent concepts combined hurts. For aligned, high accuracy of the underlying algorithm and unambiguous concepts help, low accuracy or concepts subject to disagreement hurt.

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Lindsay Popowski @popowski.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

It is tempting to say that unpredictability is inevitable as algorithms grow more complex, in our social media feeds and beyond. But that intuition fails. Predictability hinges instead on whether users can faithfully translate an algorithm’s behavior into a usable mental model.

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Lindsay Popowski @popowski.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

Is the only way we can create algorithms that people understand to make them trivially simple? We argue, no. People can predict the behavior of algorithms that are arbitrarily complex, if and only if they are available, compact and aligned. arxiv.org/abs/2601.18966

A search for factors for algorithm understanding results in multiple terms displayed as documents, including available, compact, and aligned. These are shown to be necessary and sufficient. Other, similar terms are shown in the background faded, like intuitive, rule-based, grounded, modular, linear, decomposable, accurate, symbolic, causal, and personalized.

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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

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Reposted by Lindsay Popowski

Casey Newton @caseynewton.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

A novel new study finds you can reduce polarization on X simply with a simple change to the algorithm. I spoke with the researchers: www.platformer.news/stanford-pol...

The results: reducing exposure to divisive content improved feelings toward the other party by about 2 points on a 100-point scale. On the other hand, boosting that content cooled feelings by about 2.5 points. The researchers say the shift is equivalent to about three years of rising partisan animosity in America, created (or reversed) in just a week.

Remarkably, researchers found this result without adding or removing hyper-partisan material — it simply changed the order in which the posts appear. (For people who saw less polarizing content, for example, it was still in their feeds — just way lower, and thus less likely to be seen.)

“I think the general intuition is that there's a little bit of a failure of imagination going on with a lot of the platforms,” Michael S. Bernstein, a researcher at Stanford and co-author of the paper, told me in an interview. “We think they were sort of painted into a box where they felt like they had to optimize for certain engagement criteria, like that's the only thing they could do. It just felt like that didn't necessarily have to be the case anymore."

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Lindsay Popowski @popowski.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

No, but literally! (I also love the parasol protectorate, btw)

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Lindsay Popowski @popowski.bsky.social · 15/07/2025

We're doing a follow-up (in-person) workshop @ CSCW! Positech 2: Design for Hope will explore how design methodologies can help us envision and achieve positive social futures AND how these processes cultivate hope in the face of otherwise overwhelming challenges. More: positech-cscw-2025.github.io

Screenshot of the workshop website. Title: Design for Hope: Cultivating Deliberate Hope in the Face of Complex Societal Challenges. Date: Saturday, October 18th, 2025, 9am-5pm (TBU). Overview: Societal challenges, such as those at the heart of CSCW research, are often complex, and responses to them frequently prioritize harm reduction and prevention as immediate goals. While these efforts are essential, they can unintentionally narrow our sense of what is possible, centering our attention on mitigating risks rather than expanding possibilities.

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JaeWon Kim @jaewonk.bsky.social · 14/07/2025

Following up on last year’s Positech workshop, thrilled to announce our workshop @acm-cscw.bsky.social 2025 on how design might help us cultivate deliberate hope in the face of complex societal challenges, whether in our everyday or broader aspirations 🌱 cfp 👉 positech-cscw-2025.github.io

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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 08/07/2025

a couple of hours before my keynote, I went through an intense negotiation with the organisers (for over a hour) where we went through my slides and had to remove anything that mentions 'Palestine' 'Israel' and replace 'genocide' with 'war crimes' 1/

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 30/06/2025

i think it is a sign of low character to post something controversial knowing it will get angry comments and then insult the people who responded to your ragebait

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Yutong Zhang @yutongzhang.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

AI companions aren’t science fiction anymore 🤖💬❤️ Thousands are turning to AI chatbots for emotional connection – finding comfort, sharing secrets, and even falling in love. But as AI companionship grows, the line between real and artificial relationships blurs.

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Crystal Frasier @amazonchique.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

As infuriating as the conservative SCOTUS is, never forget that America’s genocide against its trans population is the child of “moderate” liberal outlets like the Atlantic and the New York Times, and especially Jesse Singal and Katie Herzog, who made healthy careers out of polishing bigotry.

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Lindsay Popowski @popowski.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

also an incredible researcher/mentor/collaborator/colleague but like, whatever. we know what's really important here.

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Lindsay Popowski @popowski.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

what is stanford hci going to do without our funniest member next year?

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Tiziano Piccardi @tiziano.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

I'm so excited to join the CS department at Johns Hopkins University (@jhu.edu) as an Assistant Professor! I'm looking for students interested in social computing, HCI, and AI—especially around designing better online systems in the age of LLMs. Come work with me! piccardi.me

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Lindsay Popowski @popowski.bsky.social · 31/05/2025

They’re so lucky to land you!!!!!!!! Congrats congrats congrats!

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Kristina Gligoric @IC2S2 @gligoric.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

I'm excited to announce that I’ll be joining the Computer Science department at Johns Hopkins as an Assistant Professor this Fall! I’ll be working on large language models, computational social science, and AI & society—and will be recruiting PhD students. Apply to work with me!

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Lindsay Popowski @popowski.bsky.social · 25/05/2025

The Tainted Cup Ancillary Justice Jade City The Ninth Rain Godkiller A Memory Called Empire Blood Over Bright Haven I’ve heard very good things about the raven scholar and the incandescent but I can’t yet vouch for either

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Lindsay Popowski @popowski.bsky.social · 28/04/2025

Omg!!!!! Congratulations!!!! So so so well deserved ♡

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Tzu-Sheng Kuo 郭子生 @tskuo.bsky.social · 27/04/2025

@kjfeng.me and @rockpang.bsky.social are kicking off the panel on sociotechnical AI governance! #CHI2025

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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

As Mariam Kaba said, "hope is a discipline." As Václav Havel said (well before he helped liberate his country from totalitarianism), “Hope is … is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something is worth doing, regardless of how it turns out.”

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ACLU @aclu.org · 04/03/2025

BREAKING: We're sending an open letter to universities across the country, offering support and urging them to reject pressure to punish international students and faculty for exercising their First Amendment rights. Schools must hold firm against the Trump administration's censorship attempts.

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Hakeem Jefferson @hakeemjefferson.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

I just sent our university president and provost an urgent request to defend First Amendment freedoms at Stanford, given this administration’s willingness to punish those who disagree with it. I urge you to do the same with your university leaders.

Dear President Levin and Provost Martinez:

In light of the recent arrest of a former student at Columbia University and the ongoing threats to fundamental freedoms posed by the current administration, I urge you both to clearly and publicly denounce these dangerous attacks on First Amendment rights. Silence or neutrality in this critical moment risks complicity. Students and faculty urgently need reassurance that Stanford will vigorously protect our community members against threats of arrest, censorship, or sanctions for engaging in constitutionally protected expression.

You have consistently emphasized the importance of free speech and academic freedom as foundational to our institution. Now is the time to unequivocally reaffirm those commitments. Our community must know that Stanford stands firmly behind them, ready to use every resource available to safeguard their right to express themselves freely, without fear of intimidation.

I urge you to act swiftly and decisively to demonstrate our unwavering dedication to protecting constitutional rights, especially as threats against these freedoms escalate.

I have cc’d the Stanford Daily on this correspondence because I believe our entire community should be engaged in encouraging decisive action from our administration at this crucial moment.

Sincerely,

Hakeem Jefferson
Assistant Professor of Political Science
Faculty Director of the Program on Identity, Democracy, and Justice at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law

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Kat Tenbarge @kattenbarge.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

Hard to overstate just how much of the tech industry’s horrifically dystopian present grew right out of its transparently misogynistic past

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Dave Willner @dwillner.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

Zuck positioned these changes as a return to history practice but, for these policy changes, that is untrue. The specific examples I called out above have been prohibited on the site since I wrote the first set of hate speech standards in 2009. 🧵 8/11

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Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · 07/01/2025

Dismantling the fact-checking infrastructure is going to be super handy when things start going wrong in the new administration and they want to redirect blame onto the left.

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danah boyd @zephoria.bsky.social · 04/01/2025

My advisor warned me that academics trend towards bitterness. He encouraged me to intentionally resist this, remember where I came from, and never forget the privilege of getting to spend a life working with knowledge and ideas. He too said that bitterness and resentment is easy.

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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

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Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

The future (imo) will be filled with a constant ache and continual search for — with increasingly diminished capacity for discovery / identification of — authenticity.

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Adam Bell @adambell.games · 27/11/2024

hey coca cola is officially on the BDS list now so no more buying Topo Chico or starlight coke or whatever else they make

Why boycott Coca-Cola? Because it's implicated in Israeli war crimes. According to research by WhoProfits, the Central Beverage Company, known as Coca-Cola Israel, which is the exclusive franchisee of the Coca Cola Company in Israel, "operates a regional distribution center and cooling houses in the [Israeli] Atarot Settlement Industrial Zone." Furthermore, its subsidiary, Tabor Winery, "produces wines from grapes sourced from vineyards located on occupied land in settlements in the West Bank and Syrian Golan."

Why now? Human rights and health activists, among many others, have been campaigning against Coca-Cola and similarly complicit corporations for decades, including grassroots drives targeting the company for its complicity in Israel's gross violations of Palestinian human rights. During Israel's ongoing, livestreamed genocide, Israeli soldiers have often been pictured with Coke cans, donated to them by various genocide-enabling groups. This has provoked even more anger against the company, particularly given that Israel is starving 2.3 million Palestinians in the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip, severely limiting their access to clean water and, as a result, inducing the mass spread of contagious diseases. Given this context, Palestinian activists in Gaza and many BDS activists in the Arab world, in many Muslim-majority countries, and in some European countries as well, have called on the BDS movement to add Coke to its priority targets.

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Tiziano Piccardi @tiziano.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

New paper: Do social media algorithms shape affective polarization? We ran a field experiment on X/Twitter (N=1,256) using LLMs to rerank content in real-time, adjusting exposure to polarizing posts. Result: Algorithmic ranking impacts feelings toward the political outgroup! 🧵⬇️

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Tiziano Piccardi @tiziano.bsky.social · 13/11/2024

Academic job market post! 👀 I’m a CS Postdoc at Stanford in the Stanford HCI group. I develop ways to improve the online information ecosystem by designing better social media feeds & improving Wikipedia. I work on AI, Social Computing, and HCI. piccardi.me 🧵

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Michael Bernstein @mbernst.bsky.social · 01/11/2024

This paper argues that online spaces become ghost towns because it's too easy to lurk without contributing, and that asking people to regularly re-commit—or the incoming messages start getting muted—reverses the trend. arxiv.org/abs/2410.23267 It works! #cscw2024 paper by @popowski.bsky.social .

arxiv.org

Commit: Online Groups with Participation Commitments

In spite of efforts to increase participation, many online groups struggle to survive past the initial days, as members leave and activity atrophies. We argue that a main assumption of online group de...

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