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Aaron Shaw

@aaronshaw

Usually professoring, parenting, running, etc. Social science and design of digital public goods in online communities. Northwestern University, Chicagoland. https://communitydata.science

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03.05.2023
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Latest posts by Aaron Shaw @aaronshaw

The Impacts of Organizational Interventions in Open Source Software Engineering - CommunityData

Virtual event starting soon! My lab @communitydata.science is hosting a discussion about new research on organizing software communities. Sign up & join us! wiki.communitydata.science/The_Impacts_...

07.11.2025 15:16 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Hey how's it going here? been a minute.

07.11.2025 15:13 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Computational Turing Test Reveals Systematic Differences Between Human and AI Language Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly used in the social sciences to simulate human behavior, based on the assumption that they can generate realistic, human-like text. Yet this assumption rem...

LLMs are now widely used in social science as stand-ins for humansβ€”assuming they can produce realistic, human-like text

But... can they? We don’t actually know.

In our new study, we develop a Computational Turing Test.

And our findings are striking:
LLMs may be far less human-like than we think.🧡

07.11.2025 11:13 πŸ‘ 334 πŸ” 134 πŸ’¬ 14 πŸ“Œ 38

kudos to @zarine.net whose research and expertise really drove this. thanks also to @gowder.io for inspiring conversation in the event that precipitated the writeup.

05.06.2025 21:58 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

#2 distinct categories of threats require different response strategies, which must also be localized depending on context, resources, etc.

05.06.2025 21:58 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

#1 public information goods created in online communities face distinct threats over different phases of their lifecycle (e.g., a new community software project that hasn't built much yet is vulnerable in different ways than a more mature project)...

05.06.2025 21:58 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

(at least) two valuable ideas here...

05.06.2025 21:58 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
Online Community Resilience: Governing Public Information Goods Under Attack Online communities steward a complex set of public information goods. These goods face a range of urgent threats: strategic information pollution and governance capture; legitimacy attacks by external...

Defending public information goods and online communities under attack. zenodo.org/records/1560... A @communitydata.science strategy brief led by @zarine.net (with @mako.cc and me riding shotgun)

05.06.2025 21:49 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
Online Community Resilience: Governing Public Information Goods Under Attack Online communities steward a complex set of public information goods. These goods face a range of urgent threats: strategic information pollution and governance capture; legitimacy attacks by external...

a new short research brief with @mako.cc and @aaronshaw.bsky.social synthesizes some of the work I presented at @communitydata.science Science of Community Dialogues back in April! zenodo.org/records/1560...

05.06.2025 21:19 πŸ‘ 9 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Misinformation research continues to be urgent science By one account, roughly 70% of Americans regard misinformation as a major threat, outpacing fears about climate change and infectious disease (1). This is true although the current and longer-term imp...

Important message from @ethanvporter.bsky.social @aaronshaw.bsky.social @emmaspiro.bsky.social

β€œNSF has accepted a dangerous myth that misinformation research (and research more generally) is really just partisan activism […] Nothing could be further from the truth”

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

03.06.2025 06:30 πŸ‘ 63 πŸ” 27 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 3

Some of this stuff is obvious, of course, but we think it's important to say certain obvious things out loud, in print, etc. when the attacks are overt, misinformed and/or made in bad faith.

03.06.2025 03:15 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Misinformation research continues to be urgent science By one account, roughly 70% of Americans regard misinformation as a major threat, outpacing fears about climate change and infectious disease (1). This is true although the current and longer-term imp...

Misinformation research continues to be urgent science. By @ethanvporter.bsky.social, @emmaspiro.bsky.social, and me. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

03.06.2025 03:12 πŸ‘ 79 πŸ” 27 πŸ’¬ 6 πŸ“Œ 3

A policy brief on what generative AI simulations of people might be good for! (based on work with the amazing team of @joon-s-pk.bsky.social @cqzou.bsky.social @mako.cc @robbwiller.bsky.social @mbernst.bsky.social Merrie Morris, Carrie Cai, and Percy Liang)

21.05.2025 19:23 πŸ‘ 10 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

🧡🧡🧡 effective commons governance doesn't mean you get the equilibrium you want...

11.05.2025 16:58 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

That part of the timeline where I'm watching the White Sox game and realize maybe I'm in solidarity with the pope 🧦

10.05.2025 02:23 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

anyhow, just awesome. thank you @rahaeli.bsky.social

10.05.2025 02:19 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

And also also, author says they'd like to write a dissertation. Hermeneutical skills βœ…βž•

10.05.2025 02:19 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Also, while I'm waiting, has anyone got a word count on this monster?

10.05.2025 02:19 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Find me a better Bluesky thread. Go ahead, I'll wait.

10.05.2025 02:19 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

University leaders are looking for capital. They have political capital. As with their endowments, they are inclined to sit on it. The thing about political capital though, is that if you spend it wisely it grows.

09.05.2025 23:55 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Camille Acey: Organizational closures Organizations too often fail to prepare for their inevitable end; The Wind Down shares best practices for healthy closures.

New interview up at the Protocol Oral History Projectβ€”Camille Acey on organizational closures: protocol.ecologies.info/interviews/a...

09.05.2025 21:32 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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NU Faculty Senate joins Big Ten peers, signs Mutual Defense Compact Northwestern’s Faculty Senate voted to sign an amended version of the Mutual Defense Compact signed by faculty senates at several Big Ten Academic Alliance universities at its meeting Wednesday evenin...

dailynorthwestern.com/2025/05/08/c...

08.05.2025 15:55 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Post image

(what have we been waiting for? idk, but grateful that were here)

08.05.2025 00:56 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Northwestern faculty Senate has passed a version of the Rutgers mutual defense compact tonight, making it (I think) a dozen faculty governance bodies around the country to do so. Go cats!

08.05.2025 00:56 πŸ‘ 33 πŸ” 8 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

AI-generated from a model prompted with someone's truth social feed?

06.05.2025 01:43 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

πŸ‘€πŸ‘€πŸ‘€

05.05.2025 01:41 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Person trailing after a car shouting "Uber STOP" as if the driver would respond to it like their name

26.04.2025 22:16 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

welcome back!

26.04.2025 04:00 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

the fascist Trump admin is coming after Wikipedia now. the letter reads like a crowd-sourced listicle.

25.04.2025 22:31 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

"With Rogers’ arrest, there have been nine firearm-related busts in or near the Naperville Topgolf parking lot this year, Krakow confirmed."

25.04.2025 13:26 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0