Robb Willer

SWALWELL: You said you wanted to see a deportation process that was 'like Amazon Prime but with human beings.' How many times has Amazon Prime shot a mom 3 times in the face?

LYONS: None


SWALWELL: How many times has Amazon Prime shot a nurse 10 times in the back?

LYONS: None

How can you say that such a study is necessarily misguided without reading it? What if the paper addressed the sampling, latent assumptions, fair comparison, etc. points you make here, would it still have to be misguided?

49 years ago today

The Clash begin recording their debut album at CBS Studios in London with producer Micky Foote. The album was recorded over three weekend sessions.

📸 Caroline Coon

#punk #punks #punkrock #theclash #history #punkrockhistory #otd

Thank you for leading us, @kristianvsf.bsky.social!

The Way Back After Backsliding: Public Opinion and the Restoration of Democracy - Kristian Frederiksen, Robb Willer, Michael Bang Petersen, 2026 Abundant prior research has analyzed the mass public’s role in democratic backsliding. Comparatively little research has studied democratic restoration, the reh...

Great to see "The Way Back After Backsliding: Public Opinion and the Restoration of Democracy" with @robbwiller.bsky.social and @m-b-petersen.bsky.social out in @cpsjournal.bsky.social

journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

How to motivate collective action on climate One of the most effective ways to move individuals to act together on climate involves showing them how past collective actions have delivered structural change, a new study finds. What doesn’t work? ...

@stanforddoerr.bsky.social profiled new research by Stanford PACS faculty affiliates @madalina.bsky.social and
@smconstantino.bsky.social, Faculty Co-Director @robbwiller.bsky.social, and co-authors testing 17 different interventions intended to encourage people to join a collective #ClimateAction.

Election information often feels overwhelming. What if you could get personalized, nonpartisan info about the candidates and issues on your ballot? We built an AI voter guide to help. Check out our new working paper to learn more!

Clickable link to the working paper here: osf.io/preprints/ps...

H/t to @ballotpedia.org for their terrific work producing an excellent source of political information. Also to @yamilrvelez.bsky.social, @semrasevi.bsky.social, & Don Green for contributing to this growing area of study on AI voter guides.

**Major** kudos to @jsmernyk.bsky.social &
@jonnekamphorst.bsky.social for leading this project, and to co-authors Keshav Sivakumar and @adambonica.bsky.social

And thanks as well to
@pascl-stanford.bsky.social and the AI for Public Benefit Lab for supporting this project!

In summary: an AI voter guide grounded in a high-quality, nonpartisan information source can provide trusted and trustworthy information, constituting a potentially useful tool for voters:

👉https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/whsm8_v1

But are people willing to use AI voter guides?
In a national survey (N≈2,800), we found...
⚡50% of Americans said they would use a validated AI voter guide
⚡14% reported already using AI to learn about past elections

We also found evidence that the AI voter guide helped voters align preferences and decisions. Voters using the guide reported higher intentions to vote for candidates whose issue positions and political ideologies were closer to their own views (reported at baseline).

Participants who used the AI voter guide reported
⬆️turnout intentions
⬆️intentions to vote for Democrats (though no change in intentions to vote for Republicans). This may seem surprising for a nonpartisan tool, but aligns with other work on how voter info impacts candidate preferences

We audited the guide: 89% of politically relevant sentences came from Ballotpedia data, suggesting minimal hallucination. Many remaining sentences were common knowledge (e.g., # of votes required to win the electoral college).

Judge accuracy for yourself: jsmernyk.shinyapps.io/voter_bot_tr...

Democrat, Republican, and independent participants alike generally liked, trusted, and engaged with the guide:
⚡On avg, they sent 4 msgs and spent 7 min interacting with it (only 2 min required)
⚡They also rated the guide as trustworthy, accurate, not biased toward either party, and enjoyable to use

We tested the AI voter guide the week before the 2024 US general election with 2,474 eligible voters in CA and TX who had not yet voted. Participants completed a baseline survey, used the AI voter guide (or searched for election info from their usual sources), then completed an endline survey.

Our AI voter guide:
⚡Relied on a trusted, nonpartisan source (@ballotpedia.org)
⚡Used best practices to ensure neutrality and adhere to source material
⚡Suggested prompts based on issues and races participants said they cared about

Voting in US elections is complex! This creates informational challenges, likely ⬇️ turnout, and makes it hard to choose candidates who align w/ voters' preferences. Voters increasingly turn to LLMs. Therefore responsible design and rigorous evaluation of LLMs' provision of election info is essential

🚨New WP: Can an AI voter guide (grounded in information from a nonpartisan, fact-checked source) help voters’ decision making? 🚨

We built and evaluated an LLM-based chatbot that provided voting info in CA & TX (N=2,474) right before the 2024 election. 🧵👇

How to Talk About Climate Change Across Political Divides A “tournament” of common climate messaging strategies finds which are more likely to sway opinions.

Thanks @gsb.stanford.edu for covering our work in their piece "How to Talk About Climate Change Across Political Divides" stanford.io/4jQi2Ct

Amazing work from Jan Voelkel @nmalhotra.bsky.social @robbwiller.bsky.social & many others!

Original article in Nature Climate Change: rdcu.be/e1cbZ

Normal cops would have been furious at the first shooter just for opening fire into a fucking dogpile of cops.

We're mourning yet again in Minnesota — and struggling to square the gut-churning video of Alex Pretti's final moments with official accounts.

I'm teaching techniques of neutralization this term, so I made this quick slide on the DHS statement. Share if it's useful. www.nytimes.com/live/2026/us...

Who are you thinking of here with "free speech army"?

I shared last month that a descendant of my ancestors' enslavers has been in community for decades with some of my elders we've recently connected with. He's been essential toward uncovering much of our family histories.

My sisters and I wondered at first. But now we get it... and it's powerful.

Sometimes when I review an outstanding paper, I just think, "I can't believe I get to be one of the first people to read this and help make it better." Y'all are truly doing some amazing work out there. Keep going!

(also one author team is gonna get a really good review from me soon lol)

To get this right, be sure to consider both economic questions (see cost of living) and both immigration questions (US-Mexico border question) reported in these poll results!

These poll results show that if you consider multiple measures of immigration and the economy attitudes (by including the US-Mexico border and cost of living questions) then you see a Republican advantage on immigration and Democrats clearly advantaged on the economy.

"We've got to get this right."

Sociologist @robbwiller.bsky.social and political economist @nmalhotra.bsky.social designed a "mega tournament" to compare common strategies for talking about #ClimateChange

#UncommonCollaborators episode 🎥 bit.ly/4oxIe62
Read more: stanford.io/4pB7cRX