Helen Margetts
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helenmargetts.bsky.social
Helen Margetts
@helenmargetts.bsky.social

Professor at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford and the Alan Turing Institute, trying to make sense of governance and democracy in a digital world #public policy #digital government #data science #AI #democracy #behavioural science .. more

Helen Zerlina Margetts, is Professor of Internet and Society at the Oxford Internet Institute (OII), University of Oxford and from 2011 to 2018 was Director of the OII. She is currently Director of the Public Policy Programme at The Alan Turing Institute. She is a political scientist specialising in digital era governance and politics, and has published over a hundred books, journal articles and research reports in this field. .. more

Political science 50%
Communication & Media Studies 19%
Pinned
AI needs social science. Cosmina Dorobantu and I explain why in a new blog post @lsedatascience.bsky.social @oii.ox.ac.uk blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandp...
Why AI needs social science | British Politics and Policy at LSE
AI is about humans, that's why it needs to be shaped not just by computer science, but by social science.
blogs.lse.ac.uk

So did I, but why wasn’t he at the funeral?

Reposted by Helen Margetts

The audience have won #bbcqt

Reposted by Helen Margetts

"The risk of inequity is always there, wherever you've got AI"

Anya Pearson asks @helenmargetts.bsky.social, Professor of Society and the Internet at the Oxford Internet Institute, about digital government and the opportunities and challenges of AI.
"The Risk of Inequity is Always There, Wherever You've Got AI": Interview with Helen Margetts
Anya Pearson interviews Helen Margetts on the relationship between digital technology and government, politics and public policy.
politicalquarterly.org.uk

What can AI do for policy making and public services? Cosmina Dorobantu and I @oii.ox.ac.uk forward key possibilities in this new blog - great to be at the Labour Party Conference to discuss @lsedatascience.bsky.social @labourlist.bsky.social labourlist.org/2025/08/arti...
'From passports to policymaking: where AI can boost the public sector' - LabourList
The public sector in the UK employs almost six million people. The sheer size means that, in theory, the scope for benefits from AI-driven innovation is huge.
labourlist.org

Reposted by Helen Margetts

Reposted by Helen Margetts

Reposted by Helen Margetts

Reposted by Helen Margetts

Good morning here is your thread of Weekend FT highlights:
1. Nobel winning economist and author of "How Nations Fail" Daron Acemoglu shows how this weakening of institutions could lead to the end of the era of US prosperity on.ft.com/4hOXBU5
The real threat to American prosperity
[FREE TO READ] Nobel-winning economist Daron Acemoglu on trade wars, tech industry hubris — and how loss of faith in US institutions could spiral
on.ft.com

Reposted by Helen Margetts

It's the latest episode of 'Uncovering Politics'.

How far could AI tools help to tackle stagnant public sector productivity? What are the dangers?

@helenmargetts.bsky.social, Cosima Dorobantu and Jonathan Bright discuss.

https://buff.ly/4jUQgEm

@ucl.ac.uk @uclpolicylab.bsky.social
We are very happy to host the WEP 5️⃣0️⃣th Anniversary Workshop @lmumuenchen.bsky.social today & tomorrow!

Great presentations, intense debates & we are grateful for colleagues all around the globe joining us.

Sessions on:
👉elections, parties, mobilization
👉welfare politics
👉🇪🇺
👉policy & administration

Reposted by Helen Margetts

📈Out today in @PNASNews!📈

In a large pre-registered experiment (n=25,982), we find evidence that scaling the size of LLMs yields sharply diminishing persuasive returns for static political messages. 

🧵:

Reposted by Joanna Bryson

I am so proud of the brilliant @oii.ox.ac.uk DPhil @kobihackenburg.bsky.social and this wonderful “bees-knees” paper on conversational AI and political persuasion @AISecurityInst - it is a “must-read”, comments welcome!
Today (w/ @ox.ac.uk @stanford @MIT @LSE) we’re sharing the results of the largest AI persuasion experiments to date: 76k participants, 19  LLMs, 707 political issues.

We examine “levers” of AI persuasion: model scale, post-training, prompting, personalization, & more! 

🧵:
Today (w/ @ox.ac.uk @stanford @MIT @LSE) we’re sharing the results of the largest AI persuasion experiments to date: 76k participants, 19  LLMs, 707 political issues.

We examine “levers” of AI persuasion: model scale, post-training, prompting, personalization, & more! 

🧵:

I thought they were skeets?

Yes, but is that the only cancer - 26(ish) years ago? Statistically, in comparison with heart attacks - does it stand up?