Jason W. Burton

The governance & behavioral challenges of generative artificial intelligence’s hypercustomization capabilities - Christoph M. Abels, Ezequiel Lopez-Lopez, Jason W. Burton, Dawn L. Holford, Levin Brink... Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is changing human–machine interactions and the broader information ecosystem. Much as social media algorithms persona...

Generative AI (GenAI) can do more than just answer questions - it can tailor its responses based on users’ preferences, habits, and even emotional tone.

We call this capability hypercustomization - explored in our new paper in Behavioral Science & Policy. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

🔔

Often our tech policy interventions operate from linear, top-down assumptions that don't account for the complexity they seek to govern.

To dig into this I'm co-organizing a workshop at ACM CI 2025 with Jason Burton, Joe Bak-Coleman, + Naomi Shiffman. You should come!

ci-x-tp.github.io

I am privileged to announce the publication of the Anti-Autocracy Handbook: sks.to/autocracy 1/12

🚨 Workshop update 🚨

We're excited to announce that @naomishiffman.bsky.social will be joining to share her experience with designing and passing implementable tech policy.

Our half-day agenda is up (ci-x-tp.github.io) and early registration for @acmci.bsky.social ends on 23 June — don’t miss out!

(1/4) Ever wondered what tech policy might look like if it were informed by research on collective intelligence and complex systems? 🧠🧑‍💻

Join @jbakcoleman.bsky.social, @lukethorburn.com, and myself in San Diego on Aug 4th for the Collective Intelligence x Tech Policy workshop at @acmci.bsky.social!

🚨New podcast episode!!🚨

Ralph Hertwig calls for a shift from nudging to boosting—empowering people with the skills to make informed decisions. It’s a transparent way to strengthen agency in the face of challenges like misinformation, climate change, and more.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9r-...

(4/4) Interested in participating?


RSVP to get access to pre-workshop materials here: ci-x-tp.github.io.

Complete the official registration here: ci.acm.org/2025/

And stay tuned for more updates!

(3/4) The workshop will be interactive. We aim to involve participants from both sides of the science-policy interface, and a majority of the time will be spent collaboratively developing collective-intelligence-inspired policy recommendations.

(2/4) We’ll talk about what it means to adopt the collective intelligence perspective, and how that perspective can change the way we approach some of today’s most pressing tech policy issues — like how to reform social media and how to responsibly govern AI.

(1/4) Ever wondered what tech policy might look like if it were informed by research on collective intelligence and complex systems? 🧠🧑‍💻

Join @jbakcoleman.bsky.social, @lukethorburn.com, and myself in San Diego on Aug 4th for the Collective Intelligence x Tech Policy workshop at @acmci.bsky.social!

Moving towards informative and actionable social media research Social media is nearly ubiquitous in modern life, and concerns have been raised about its putative societal impacts, ranging from undermining mental health and exacerbating polarization to fomenting v...

New preprint with @jbakcoleman.bsky.social @lewan.bsky.social @randomwalker.bsky.social @orbenamy.bsky.social @lfoswaldo.bsky.social where we argue for a complex-system perspective to understand the causal effects of social media on society and for a triangulation of methods
arxiv.org/abs/2505.09254

I'm excited that I can finally share what I've been working on for the past 9 months:

The United Nations 2025 Human Development Report: "A matter of choice: People and possibilities in the age of AI" 🧵

hdr.undp.org/content/huma...

Another example of why we need a new approach to address the ethics of social media experiments

www.nature.com/articles/s44...

@vincentjstraub.bsky.social

A group of six people sits around a large wooden table working collaboratively with laptops, tablets, smartphones, and notebooks. The screens display a presentation slide titled “Discussion Outline.” The table also has coffee mugs, notebooks with handwritten notes, and small potted plants, suggesting a casual but focused team meeting or brainstorming session.

🚨🤖👥
Webinar "Collective Intelligence in the era of LLMs"
April 24 5-6pm CET
www.hacid-project.eu/hacid-webina...

Register
nesta.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

Speakers:
- Jason Burton, Copenhagen Business School
- Lucie Flek, University of Bonn
- Nikolas Zöller, Max Planck Institute for Human Development

🚨 UPCOMING EVENT: Artificial Intelligence and Democratic Freedoms, April 10-11 at @columbiauniversity.bsky.social & online. In collaboration with Senior AI Advisor @sethlazar.org & co-sponsored by the Knight Institute and @columbiaseas.bsky.social. RSVP: knightcolumbia.org/events/artif...

Revised ethical guidelines for social media experiments have not stuck. A participatory governance approach, akin to developments in AI, can improve practices & align the interests of researchers, platforms & users. @vincentjstraub.bsky.social @jasonburton.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Are the Internet and AI affecting our memory? What the science says Search engines, GPS maps and other tech can alter our ability to learn and remember. Now scientists are working out what AI might do.

Endlessly reading news, but can’t recall details of it later? Worried you rely on the internet/your phone to store things instead of your brain?

Me too. I explored for @nature.com whether the internet (and AI) is worsening human memory, according to research. www.nature.com/articles/d41... 1/3

Summer Institute

🚨 Applications for the 22nd Summer Institute on Bounded Rationality are now open!

🌐 Join us in Berlin @mpib-berlin.bsky.social from June 17–25, 2025 to explore "Decision Making in a Digital World".

✏️ Application deadline is March 9 - more info at 👇!!

www.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/research/res...

Thanks, Samuli!

This should work: www.researchgate.net/publication/...

Have you already read about the middleware proposal? fsi-live.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/...

And the exchange on "the future of platform power" here: www.journalofdemocracy.org/issue/july-2...

So, how will LLMs reshape CI?

Check out our paper for the good, the bad, and what we think should be done to safeguard CI amid rapid LLM development.

Open access: rdcu.be/dUytc

LLMs might have an important role to play in promoting CI. It even could be argued that LLMs are new kind of CI itself.

Yet, LLMs also seem to be leading us towards a more opaque, proprietary, and enclosed information environment, which could undermine much of the CI we know and rely on today.

We see collective intelligence (CI) wherever individuals act collectively to achieve outcomes that no individual could achieve alone.

CI underpins the the success of groups, organizations, markets, and societies.

But CI is fragile and only emerges when certain elements align.

How large language models can reshape collective intelligence - Nature Human Behaviour Collective intelligence is the basis for group success and is frequently supported by information technology. Burton et al. argue that large language models are transforming information access and tra...

There's been lots of speculation about potential societal impacts of LLMs 🌍

In a new Nature Human Behaviour (@natureportfolio.bsky.social) article, I and 27 researchers argue that we should be thinking about those impacts through the lens of collective intelligence

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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Academics! Where do you prefer or hope to publish?

Have a few minute to tell us? My group at CU Boulder is surveying the publication preferences of academics in a pairwise comparison survey called Publish or Comparish.

→ tinyurl.com/PubPrefs

Thanks for considering & pls share with colleagues!

Want to know more about it? Find me at #CogSci or #IC2S2, or drop me a message!

We test engagement-based ranking against alternative algorithms — bridging-based and intelligence-based ranking — and find that personalized engag.-based ranking amplifies posts that users perceive favorably, but simultaneously leads those users to form more polarized and less accurate beliefs.

Are social media algorithms affecting the beliefs people form? Can we design prosocial algorithms to promote belief accuracy and consensus?
 
Check out my recent work w/ @stefanherzog.bsky.social and @lorenzspreen.bsky.social for new evidence from a controlled, pre-reg'd experiment.
 
bit.ly/4bL1AOZ

Hi! I'd like to try a beta account.