MUST READ: New blog from former CDT Fellow Varun Nagaraj Rao (Princeton University) + UC Boulder’s @samanthadalal.bsky.social, investigating how opaque AI and algorithmic decisions impact rideshare drivers. cdt.org/insights/the...
Samantha Dalal
@samanthadalal.bsky.social
**On the job market!** InfoSci PhD Candidate @ CU Boulder MSR SMC '23; MSR TAIX '24 Community-based methods for tech accountability
The mods of r/ChangeMyView shared the sub was the subject of a study to test the persuasiveness of LLMs & that they didn't consent. There’s a lot that went wrong, so here’s a 🧵 unpacking it, along with some ideas for how to do research with online communities ethically. tinyurl.com/59tpt988
From the changemyview community on Reddit
Explore this post and more from the changemyview community
tinyurl.com
With respect to the researchers' claims that the "the potential benefits of this research substantially outweigh its risks," it seems to mostly rely on "warning call" benefits. I am personally not a fan of "we need to do harm to show that harm can be done" ethical justifications.
NEW Blog Post! Check out how CITP researchers are making real-world impact on the side of workers. Read "Revolutionizing Rideshare: Researchers Develop FairFare App to Empower Workers" 🔻 🙌 @andresmh.com @samanthadalal.bsky.social @dana.witchy.business blog.citp.princeton.edu/2025/03/25/r...
Revolutionizing Rideshare: Researchers Develop FairFare App to Empower Workers - CITP Blog
On February 1, 2025, Colorado’s Transportation Network Transparency Bill (SB24-075) took effect. CITP scholars, along with their colleagues, played a key role in supporting advocacy around the bill by...
blog.citp.princeton.edu
The Department of Education, among other things, is what funds special education for children with disabilities. Trump’s executive order will hurt kids and parents in virtually every school district in the country.
Welp (University of California system-wide hiring freeze and other cost-cutting measures implemented) ucnet.universityofcalifornia.edu/employee-new...
A message from UC President Michael V. Drake on the University of California’s financial outlook | UCnet
President Drake shares a message with the UC community on the university's response to federal and state funding reductions.
ucnet.universityofcalifornia.edu
Not an FTC commissioner using the Notes app to write his statement response to being fired by Tr*mp 😭 but fr damn this administration, their corruption, and their cronyism
Alvaro M. Bedoya@bedoyausa.bsky.social · last yr.I am a commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission. Earlier today, the president attempted to illegally fire me. This is corruption, plain and simple. I will see the president in court. My full statement:
@narijohnson.bsky.social and Sanika have a FAccT paper about this (and also compiled cases of abandoned algorithms): arxiv.org/abs/2404.13802
The Fall of an Algorithm: Characterizing the Dynamics Toward Abandonment
As more algorithmic systems have come under scrutiny for their potential to inflict societal harms, an increasing number of organizations that hold power over harmful algorithms have chosen (or were r...
arxiv.org
One of the core points of Community Notes was that the COMMUNITY trusts it. This was built into so many aspects of the original, including making the code open source
Ryan J. Gallagher@ryanjgallag.com · last yr.Trillion dollar company doing a `git clone` on an open source project and then not even giving back to it. Of course "Meta doesn’t plan to open source or publicly release more technical details about its Community Notes system"
They're called public records for a reason. Starting today, WIRED will *stop paywalling* articles that are primarily based on public records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, becoming the first publication to partner with @freedom.press to offer this for our new coverage.
Wired is dropping paywalls for FOIA-based reporting. Others should follow
As the administration does its best to hide public records from the public, Wired magazine is stepping up to help stem the secrecy
freedom.press
by the way these are literally the exact same dumbass motherfuckers, not like them, the literal exact same fucking guys, saying government is inefficient and you should cancel it to give them all the governments money so they can provide you services instead
Aftermath@aftermath.site · last yr.Meta has spent over $100 billion on VR. aftermath.site/meta-horizons-...
"Instead, to advance justice, we must radically transform not just the technology itself, but our ideas about it, and develop it from the bottom up, from the perspectives of those who stand the most risk of being harmed."
Charles Logan@charleswlogan.bsky.social · last yr.Speaking of AI Empire: it's always a good time revisit this @bigdatasoc.bsky.social open article by Jasmina Tacheva and Srividya Ramasubramanian available at: journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1...
happy to announce the launch of my newsletter, String in a Maze. i'll be writing about the law, politics and media at least a few times a month, with a mix of free and premium content. thank you and bless up.
String in a Maze
Law, politics, and power.
stringinamaze.beehiiv.com
This is one of the most basic insights from 20th century polisci. The paradox of a democracy that presumes mass knowledge and participation, and manages to (at least barely) function in their absence, is one of our foundational puzzles. This is intro-level shit. And Balaji is failing the test.
Seen a lot of people dunking on this Microsoft (MSFT) CHI paper on the impacts of GenAI and critical thinking in knowledge work and I have to say a lot of this critique feels unfair. 🧵 1/n
Ketan Joshi@ketanjoshi.co · 2y agoMicrosoft's own research confirms something that was already pretty obvious: relying on a text generating machine to come up with answers erodes critical thinking, and is a method favoured by those who never liked doing critical thinking in the first place advait.org/files/lee_20...
I am once again begging companies to STOP shoving AI integrations down our throats!!! WE DON'T WANT IT
now that DeepSeek has completed AI, we hope that Silicon Valley will turn its attention to the next best thing: investing in rural history museums
Just because something is shorter does not mean it's simpler or easier to read. Sometimes longer narrative text is needed to tell a cohesive story and motivate a contribution.
Holiday gift idea for your grad student friends: Send them a nice note about a paper of theirs that you enjoyed. It takes max 5 mins, costs $0, and makes them feel warm and fuzzy on the inside.
If taken seriously, the first three will essentially subsidize Big Tech's experimental, glitchy products. Search for smart cities in old policy reports and replace them with "AI opportunity."
Shannon Mattern@shannonmattern.bsky.social · 2y ago"Offer subsidized compute to incentivize AI startups to move to NYC." "Massively unlock city data accessibility." "Recruit the most coveted AI conferences to New York for the next five years." Or not!
It should be noted that the original person who said this is @mollycrabapple.bsky.social - artist and activist. I find it odd that her name got cropped out of the original screenshot (from an article in LA Times, btw) and the uncredited version is the one that makes the viral rounds.
zee@zeekidvicious.bsky.social · 2y ago
6. Lastly, public policy interest is on the rise. But many departments are actively navigating the role that HCI/CSCW/CS should actually play in public policy. Open question to track going forward.
2. Post-docs are now pretty much required to get a tenure track job. No one is really talking publicly about this shift and its implications for the academic market. Plenty of people are talking about it behind the scenes.
Since some seem determined not to get it: Arguing science shouldn’t be political is like arguing that ducks shouldn’t be waterfowl. Sure, whatever floats your boat, but they wouldn’t be ducks then would they? Science is a collective human effort at sensemaking—the very definition of political.
Carl T. Bergstrom@carlbergstrom.com · 2y agoWhen I was 5, I loved science, which I took to be planets and magnets and chemicals and shit. Soon I realized science was a collective human activity, and these were just the objects of its attention. Anyway, whenever I read an OpEd on how science isn't political, I think "Are you 5 years old?"
My feeling seeing yet another job I need to apply to
Hi Friends <3 making my bluesky debut in the best way possible - with a new paper announcement! I had the privilege to work with Nari Johnson & Siobhan Mackenzie Hall on a NeurIPS EvalEval paper interrogating the promised benefits of participation in AI dev to socially marginalized communities 🧵
