Chris Bail
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chrisbail.bsky.social
Chris Bail
@chrisbail.bsky.social
Duke Professor directing https://scai.duke.edu, https://sicss.io & https://polarizationlab.com. Author of Breaking the Social Media Prism.
Reposted by Chris Bail
some good climate/energy news:

* 96% of new US power capacity was carbon-free in 2024 (56 gigawatts!)

* 2025 included the first month ever when 51% of power on the U.S. grid was carbon-free

* The golbal trend is overwhelming: The world is now investing more $ in clean energy than fossil fuels
December 26, 2025 at 2:09 PM
Reposted by Chris Bail
December 16, 2025 at 8:55 PM
Applications to host a 2026 Summer Institute in Computational Social Science are due Sunday (December 1st) by 5pm. Don't forget to check out our new "Tech for Open Minds" program too. Apply here: sicss.io/host
Host a Partner Location
sicss.io
November 28, 2025 at 3:38 PM
Reposted by Chris Bail
🚨Out in PNAS🚨
Examining news on 7 platforms:
1)Right-leaning platforms=lower quality news
2)Echo-platforms: Right-leaning news gets more engagement on right-leaning platforms, vice-versa for left-leaning
3)Low-quality news gets more engagement EVERYWHERE - even BlueSky!
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
November 14, 2025 at 2:35 PM
Reposted by Chris Bail
What is the most profitable industry in the world, this side of the law? Not oil, not IT, not pharma.

It's *scientific publishing*.

We call this the Drain of Scientific Publishing.

Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Background: doi.org/10.1162/qss_...

Thread @markhanson.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy 👇
November 12, 2025 at 10:31 AM
The ENSAE-CREST is hiring a computational sociologist -- Assistant or Associate Professor.

Date of appointment: September 2026.
Details here : www.css.cnrs.fr/assistant-or...
www.css.cnrs.fr
October 24, 2025 at 11:48 PM
Reposted by Chris Bail
This is absolutely wild. I’m on a cross country flight. We are being diverted midway through to Denver. The reason? Some dude is sitting in the exit row who didn’t pay the $155 fee and he refuses to move back to his seat.
October 8, 2025 at 4:55 PM
$10 million for a computer scientist who is interested in building a lab that creates new technology to increase civil discourse-- really looking forward to working with the Laude Institute on this new "moonshot" program: moonshots.laude.org
Laude Institute | Moonshots
Seed funding and multi-year labs for proven academic researchers using AI to tackle species-level challenges. Apply for Moonshot funding in civic discourse, scientific acceleration, frontline healthca...
moonshots.laude.org
October 10, 2025 at 11:22 AM
Reposted by 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

🧵👇
October 7, 2025 at 7:04 PM
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
Job Market - Bocconi University
Recruiting, Faculty, Post-doc Grant, Collaboration Contracts
jobmarket.unibocconi.eu
October 7, 2025 at 10:43 PM
Really great discussion of political violence in the U.S. today featuring political scientist Sean Westwood: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/w...
What we get wrong about political violence in the U.S.
Podcast Episode · Apple News Today · 09/27/2025 · 27m
podcasts.apple.com
September 28, 2025 at 5:12 PM
New dataset that describes social media activity of a very large group of US elected officials: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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
www.nature.com
September 28, 2025 at 5:10 PM
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/...
Partisan disparities in the funding of science in the United States
Republican lawmakers consistently provided robust federal funding, often exceeding Democrats
www.science.org
September 19, 2025 at 6:05 PM
Reposted by Chris Bail
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! 🔥
September 16, 2025 at 11:20 AM
New Anthropic paper suggests LLMs have “personality vectors”: arxiv.org/pdf/2507.21509
arxiv.org
September 5, 2025 at 11:32 AM
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
August 29, 2025 at 4:06 PM
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-...
Can Conversational AI Improve Survey Research? | Findings
Early Insights from Testing a Chat-Based Survey
www.openresearchlab.org
August 27, 2025 at 2:35 AM
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/...
PNAS
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...
www.pnas.org
July 29, 2025 at 3:35 PM
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
Darius Jonathan Needs a Kidney | Can You Help?
Darius Jonathan Needs a Kidney | Can You Help?
nkr.org
July 16, 2025 at 3:41 PM
www.science.org/content/arti... NIH will reinstate 900 grants in response to court order | Science | AAAS
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
June 27, 2025 at 1:23 PM
Reposted by Chris Bail
🧵1/
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. ⬇️
June 22, 2025 at 1:04 PM