iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Politics and Social Change Lab @pascl-stanford.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Thanks to @herbertchang.bsky.social for sharing his insightful work on how AI can influence politics under geopolitical threat in the lab last week! @robbwiller.bsky.social

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Robb Willer @robbwiller.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Note: flexible start date! January to September 2027. Applications received by Oct 31 will get full consideration, and we'll keep reviewing until the position is filled, so later applications are welcome. Position + how to apply: postdocs.stanford.edu/prospective/...

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Robb Willer @robbwiller.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Past and present lab-affiliates and collaborators include many great folks, including @mbernst.bsky.social, @jurafsky.bsky.social, Percy Liang, @persily.bsky.social, @dgrand.bsky.social, @ashwinia.bsky.social, Johannes Eichstaedt, Jeff Hancock, & @5harad.com Team: ai4pb.stanford.edu/people

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Robb Willer @robbwiller.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

The fellow will be affiliated with @stanfordhai.bsky.social, a world-leading hub for human-centered AI, and our lab.

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Robb Willer @robbwiller.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

What do we do? Large-scale studies on how AI can benefit people, and where it creates risks. Recent work: ⚡Out in @nature.com: LLMs can predict social science experiment results: doi.org/10.1038/s415... ⚡Our AI persuasion work in last issue of @science.org www.science.org/content/arti...

science.org

AI chatbots are becoming experts at changing people's minds. What's their secret?

ChatGPT and other AIs use a flood of facts, and the occasional lie, to persuade humans

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Robb Willer @robbwiller.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

2/ The fellow will lead projects on applications of AI to public benefit in one or more of our lab’s research areas: ⚡Building scientific knowledge ⚡Social service delivery ⚡Safety and alignment ⚡Democratic engagement ⚡Emotional well-being ⚡Persuasion Learn more: ai4pb.stanford.edu/project-home

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Robb Willer @robbwiller.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

🚨Come work with us! 🚨 We're hiring a postdoc for Stanford's AI for Public Benefit Lab (ai4pb.stanford.edu), in partnership with @stanfordhai.bsky.social Open to PhDs from psych, poli sci, sociology, CS, econ, HCI, data science, etc. Please share! Position: postdocs.stanford.edu/prospective/...

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davidbroska.bsky.social @davidbroska.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Americans favor predistributive policies over redistributive policies. Our new paper is now out in PNAS 🚨 Paper: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... We have also written a summary of the article for Kudos, a brief report on our brief report: link.growkudos.com/1eb04zt75ds

Americans favor predistributive over redistributive policies

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Ed Maibach @maibached.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Candidates & journalists who avoid talking about climate change should reflect on the findings of this study: Climate messages are helpful in building public support for climate action. @robbwiller.bsky.social @nmalhotra.bsky.social @mattomildenberger.bsky.social @coveringclimatenow.org

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Behavior Change for Good Initiative @bcfginitiative.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Can AI predict how people will respond in social science experiments? A new @nature.com paper by Team Scientist @robbwiller.bsky.social and collaborators had LLMs act as survey respondents. bit.ly/4bWppFw

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Ashwini Ashokkumar @ashwinia.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

New paper in @nature.com with @lukebeehewitt.bsky.social, @isaiasghezae.bsky.social, & @robbwiller.bsky.social: Can LLMs predict results of social science experiments? Across 70 experiments, we find a strong correspondence (r=.85) between predicted and observed effects. doi.org/10.1038/s415... 🧵

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Robb Willer @robbwiller.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

It was such a pleasure working with Ashwini, Luke, and Isaias on this project over the past few years. They are a lot of fun, take the work seriously, have great values, and are seriously awesome people. 🧵👇

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Jeremy Freese @jeremyfreese.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Interesting read for sociologists given how sociologists vary in whether anthropology is to be seen as a role model or cautionary tale.

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Titania @titaniasrealm.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

The world needs more bookish gargoyles and grotesques

A collage consisting of six photos of gargoyles and grotesques reading books, including one owl and one frog.

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M Meerkat @kackbro.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

AOC Makes A Great Point 👉.......

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Robb Willer @robbwiller.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

The movie version of The Graduate was so much better than the book.

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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

As always: if there's any class of people who do not have due process rights, then *nobody* has due process rights, because the government can just claim someone is in that class and there's no process to establish otherwise.

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ceej @ceej.online · 16/07/2026

gonna start talking like this to my boss

screenshot where claude is saying "Good catch -- I fabricated that figure."

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Robb Willer @robbwiller.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Good. Or "The Fourth of May" by Goya, 1814.

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Mark Harris @markharris.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

I watched the Questlove documentary Earth, Wind and Fire: To Be Celestial vs. That's the Weight of the World (HBO Max) and it was just about everything I could ask from a music doc. Enthralling, revelatory, and makes the case (as if the case needed to be made) for EWF's greatness AND weirdness.

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Justin Wolfers @justinwolfers.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

US inflation is the highest in the G7.

Line chart titled "The United States currently has the highest inflation in the G7" showing year-ended consumer price inflation rates across G7 countries. The United States leads at 3.5%, followed by Canada at 3.2% and Italy at 3.1%, while Japan has the lowest rate at 1.5%. The 2.0 percentage point gap between the highest and lowest rates reveals divergent price pressures among major advanced economies, with the US experiencing notably stronger inflation than its peers.

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Robb Willer @robbwiller.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Whew, there are some very strange quotes in there.

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shauna @goldengateblond.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

it’s hard to explain how much shit like this has radicalized people. like i’m a white middle-aged broad who’s always been liberal but i’ve gone full-on “abolish ICE/reform scotus/the next dem candidate must commit to mass prosecutions” and you will not sway me from that position.

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Kristian Frederiksen @kristianvsf.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

New public pre-print with @aarslew.bsky.social and Martin Bisgaard 🧵 We introduce a perspective on democratic erosion that focuses on quiet anticipation among political elites: what do they think happens to those who cross a strongman that challenges democracy? www.researchgate.net/publication/...

researchgate.net

(PDF) The Imagined Strongman: How Elites Anticipate the Cost of Opposing Trump

PDF | What happens to politicians who speak up against a strongman that challenges democracy? Political scientists typically answer this question using... | Find, read and cite all the research you ne...

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IGN @ign.com · 06/07/2026

“The most preposterous rainbow was coming out of the castle I was supposed to be going home to... It looked like something out of My Little Pony.” - Tom Holland on the rainbow that delayed shooting on Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey.

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Adam Berinsky @adamberinsky.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Boy this was a long road, but glad it's finally out! @dgrand.bsky.social @robbwiller.bsky.social @arechar.bsky.social (along with Michael N. Stagnaro, James N. Druckman, not tagable)

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Robb Willer @robbwiller.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

I listened to a couple episodes of the Lessig podcast, and he seems much more interested in really specific procedural concerns, than whether Gino is/is not guilty of massive scientific fraud and dishonesty. So, it's entirely possible the podcast continues unaffected by the latest evidence.

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Malte Elson @malte.the100.ci · 05/06/2026

The forensic report is available here: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us... Incredible stuff

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Brian Nosek @briannosek.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

Amazing.

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Robb Willer @robbwiller.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

Whoa, Joan Cusack has a tchotchke shop named for the greatest Barbara Streisand film character and I wasn't told? That's totally next level.

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David Broockman @dbroockman.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

New short paper w @jkalla.bsky.social ! Candidates gain from moderation, but less than many theories expect. Many conclude voters must not care about issues. This is wrong. Small *average* effects mask large effects on specific issues & are consistent with widespread issue-based voting 🧵

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Brian Nosek @briannosek.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

This is a welcome and important step to normalize and popularize the use of Registered Reports. Thanks @magdalenaskipper.bsky.social for your leadership, and for the work of the neuroscience and behavioral research editors to test and validate the model at Nature.

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Robb Willer @robbwiller.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Glad to see this WP from our lab out today, a labor of love over last year. Kudos to @davidbroska.bsky.social and @jonnekamphorst.bsky.social for their hard work on it! Please share any comments, suggestions, or criticisms of the research. All are welcome!

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Ricky Davila @therickydavila.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

Bruce Springsteen has no fucks to give. 👏

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Stanford Sociology @stanfordsoc.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

New in Nature Climate Change, Prof. @robbwiller.bsky.social and @pascl-stanford.bsky.social examine the most persuasive climate change messaging strategies. bsky.app/profile/robb...

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Johnnie Johnstone @johnniejohnstone.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

Nina. Newport Jazz Festival, July 4, 1968. David Redfern.

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Myra Cheng @myra.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

Dear ChatGPT, Am I the Asshole? While Reddit users might say yes, your favorite LLM probably won’t. We present Social Sycophancy: a new way to understand and measure sycophancy as how LLMs overly preserve users' self-image.

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Oxford Internet Institute @oii.ox.ac.uk · 29/04/2026

New study from @oii.ox.ac.uk researchers finds friendlier chatbots make more mistakes. Lead author @lujain.bsky.social, second author Franziska Sofia Hafner, senior author @rocher.lc. Read more: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

bbc.co.uk

Friendly AI chatbots more prone to inaccuracies, study finds

Researchers found adjusting AI systems to be more warm and friendly to users would result in an

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Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

New ASR paper finds no effect of state right-to-work laws on employment or number of business establishments (1946-2019). Argues that state spillovers, such as tax breaks in non-right-to-work states, explain the non-effect of right-to-work. gated: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

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Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

The past decade has had a silver lining: Chuck evolving from Jordanesque business class self-interest to a moral leader on behalf of LGBT people and immigrants

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Jay Van Bavel, PhD @jayvanbavel.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

Considerable progress has been made in the field of leadership. However, this is undermined by a commitment to ideas which have been repeatedly debunked that refuse to die--called "Zombie Leadership" This paper outlines 8 core claims of zombie leadership: leadershiphq.com.au/wp-content/u...

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More Perfect Union @moreperfectunion.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

BREAKING: Congressman Johnny Olszewski (D-MD) is introducing a constitutional amendment to establish term limits for Supreme Court Justices. The ROBE Act would establish 18-year term limits for justices.

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Mike Feher @saxmike71.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

Same energy:

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Robb Willer @robbwiller.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

How did polarization research play a role in ending the VRA? FWIW, I think you can study/care about polarization and not think it is *the* problem (I don't).

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Mike Frank @mcxfrank.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

For a year and a half, @carorowland.bsky.social, @lehersingh.bsky.social, Marisa Casillas, Shanley Allen, and I have been meeting to discuss whether innateness is still a useful concept to think about in studying language acquisition. Here's our take: osf.io/preprints/ps...

The origins of language have been a persistent object of philosophical and scientific inquiry, in part
because they offer a window into the origins of thought. Classic innatist theories of language have argued
that languages share universal elements that arise because language acquisition is guided by rich,
biologically specified structures in the form of a universal grammar. However, different versions of this
hypothesis that posit substantial amounts of innate content are not consistent with recent evidence. We
review new evidence from language diversity, human interaction, and large language models (LLMs), all
of which challenge classical innatist views. Yet we believe there is still value in asking what elements of
language development are innate. In this Perspective, we integrate evidence from these three areas
towards a broader conception of innateness, one that seeks to explain both consistency and variation in
language acquisition. On this view, innateness remains a key orienting principle for understanding the
origins of language.

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