Chris Bail

🚨New WP!🚨

Structured AI Dialogues Can Increase Happiness and Meaning in Life

In a preregistered RCT, four psychology-grounded #AI chatbots improved well-being across several outcomes.

Co-authors: Jonas Schoene, Johannes Eichstaedt, Aadesh Salecha, Sonja Lyubomirsky

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Job Market - Bocconi University Recruiting, Faculty, Post-doc Grant, Collaboration Contracts

Junior and senior faculty positions in computational social scientists at Bocconi, one of the world's best universiites: Assistant Prof: jobmarket.unibocconi.eu?id=841
Associate/Full Prof: jobmarket.unibocconi.eu?id=843

New jobs for computational social scientists at UNC and USC: unc.peopleadmin.com/postings/307... amd uscjobs.sc.edu/postings/194...

What we get wrong about political violence in the U.S. Podcast Episode · Apple News Today · 09/27/2025 · 27m

Really great discussion of political violence in the U.S. today featuring political scientist Sean Westwood: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/w...

The digitally accountable public representation database: online communication by U.S. officials - Scientific Data Scientific Data - The digitally accountable public representation database: online communication by U.S. officials

New dataset that describes social media activity of a very large group of US elected officials: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Partisan disparities in the funding of science in the United States Republican lawmakers consistently provided robust federal funding, often exceeding Democrats

One of the most perplexing things about the decrease in federal funding for research in universities is that Republicans have historically led the way on this (at least between 1980-2020) according to this fascinating new analysis from Dashun Wang's team): www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

How much did Elon's takeover reshape Twitter/X? How did the partisan tilt of social media use change from 2020 to 2024?

The ANES 2024 data is out — and this thread answers all your burning questions! 🔥

New Anthropic paper suggests LLMs have “personality vectors”: arxiv.org/pdf/2507.21509

Apertus: a fully open, transparent, multilingual language model EPFL, ETH Zurich and the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) released Apertus today, Switzerland’s first large-scale, open, multilingual language model — a milestone in generative AI for trans...

A new Open-Source LLM from ETH Zurich just came out: ethz.ch/en/news-and-...

Listening & Learning in a Polarized World Making use of a range of funding, networking and engagement mechanisms to discover innovations that can help humans flourish in a world confronted with…

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This program is made possible by the remarkable generosity of @TempletonWorld . Learn more about their amazing "Listening in a Polarized World" initiative here: www.templetonworldcharity.org/our-prioriti...

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👩‍💻 Want to be part of it? Apply to host a TOM site in 2026 and join the movement. Details here:
🔗 sicss.io
#TechForOpenMinds #SICSS #OpenScience #ComputationalSocialScience

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Now, TOM will provide funding for an additional 11 locations each year, expanding global collaborations, and growing a community of researchers exploring new solutions to address polarization using the tools of computational social science.

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This builds on last year’s SICSS-Templeton World Charity Foundation collaboration, which connected 11 sites across 5 continents studying tech & society — from climate discourse in Brazil to influence campaigns in Nigeria.

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TOM will:
✅ Host 11 free in-person training events worldwide each year as part of the Summer Institutes in Computational Social Science
✅ Create an annual conference at Duke, supported by our Society-Centered AI Initiative
✅ Share open-source videos and curricular materials for all

1/ 🚨 Big news 🚨 today we’re launching Tech for Open Minds (TOM) at @DukeU— a global program exploring how technology shapes open-mindedness, humility & polarization 🌍🧠
🔗https://sicss.io/stories/2025-08-18

Can Conversational AI Improve Survey Research? | Findings Early Insights from Testing a Chat-Based Survey

Open Research (OpenAI-linked research outfit) just put out a new report on using LLMs for public opinion polling that suggests they may improve response rates substantially: www.openresearchlab.org/findings/ai-...

Social media supercharged our disagreements. Could AI help us resolve them? Duke sociologist Dr. Christopher Bail on the tech’s potential to foster empathy in an age of division.

bigthink.com/the-well/soc...

Over the last 30 years, people a) walk faster in urban spaces; and b) linger less often according to an AI-Assisted study of video footage in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Congratulations!!! The citation is a classic already.

Darius Jonathan Needs a Kidney | Can You Help? Darius Jonathan Needs a Kidney | Can You Help?

My uncle Darius has been one of the most important people in my life-- constantly inspiring me with his generous spirit. Now his life depends on the generosity of a stranger who might be willing to donate an organ. Please help my family spread the word! nkr.org/XAX634

NIH will reinstate 900 grants in response to court order Projects touching on sensitive topics such as DEI had been illegally terminated, judge found

www.science.org/content/arti... NIH will reinstate 900 grants in response to court order | Science | AAAS

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Just wrapped up the 3rd edition of #SICSS AMU/Law – a summer school on using AI & computational social science to study law and human rights. This year, we leveled up. Big time. ⬇️

It's #SICSS O'clock!!!! Hundreds of students all over the world are learning about computational social science *for free* thanks to the hard work of so many brilliant young scholars who dedicated their time this summer to train the next generation-- from Colombia to Kenya! sicss.io

Stay tuned for exciting announcements about events and other networking opportunities for those interesting Society-Centered AI that we will host in Durham this fall in case you missed our Responsible AI Symposium featuring @yann-lecun.bsky.social: www.responsibleaisymposium.com

This effort, launched by our Society-Centered AI Initiative (scai.duke.edu) will compliment our new undergraduate constellation of coursework in AI and society and-- we hope-- seed a new generation of researchers to spread the gospel of society-centered AI. trinity.duke.edu/courses/cons...

Equipping Graduate Students to Tackle Emerging Challenges | Office of Interdisciplinary Studies The Office of the Provost and The Graduate School have chosen three faculty-led proposals to establish new Interdisciplinary Graduate Education Collaboratives focusing on

Excited to announce we are launching a Graduate Certificate in Society-Centered AI at Duke w/coursework in computer science, social science, and philosophy/ethics and provide support to 12 current Duke students each year thanks to a new $2.4 million grant interdisciplinary.duke.edu/news/equippi...

An engraved paving stone that says "publish." The word appears twice, in mirror image, so you can see it whether you're coming or going.

Christ's sake, Chicago, I'm just trying to go for a walk.

Why I’m Resigning from the NSF and Library of Congress I cannot participate in systems that require dishonesty as the price of belonging.

time.com/7285045/resi...

From concerns about social media addiction to urgent civil liberties issues, courts are asking scientists to be arbiters of alleged technology harms. How can scientists reliably inform courts and how can courts interpret our work?

New article with @penney.bsky.social
tsjournal.org/index.php/jo...

Here's some good news!

The file drawer problem may have diminished in recent years, at least in social science survey experiments

"This suggests increased recognition of the importance of null results."

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...