Simone Zhang
sxz.bsky.social
Simone Zhang
@sxz.bsky.social
Assistant Professor of Sociology at NYU. Classification, prediction, and AI in decision-making, social policy, and law.

www.simonezhang.com
Reposted by Simone Zhang
TWO new Assistant Professor positions in Sociology at USC! Seeking candidates with expertise in the following: 1) Institutions & Inequalities and 2) Socially Informed AI and/or Data Science (links to job ads below👇). Happy to talk about what it's like to work/live here! #sociology (1/3)
September 8, 2025 at 2:39 PM
Reposted by Simone Zhang
On Prolific, "we estimate that about 34% of online study participants use LLMs to answer open-ended questions atleast some of the time..."

Seems like a very timely paper for behavioural scientists using online samples: osf.io/preprints/so... ;

We really need more papers on this issue
August 29, 2025 at 9:46 AM
Reposted by Simone Zhang
I’m delighted to share that the August 2025 special issue of Sociological Methods & Research on Generative AI is out now. Along with my co-editor, Daniel Karell, we put together this issue to build on the conference we organized last year.

Here's a thread on each of the ten papers:
August 1, 2025 at 2:54 PM
Big thank you to many people who've provided feedback and supported this project!
May 20, 2025 at 8:34 PM
Using a nationally representative sample of U.S. parents, we find that most parents view algorithms as fairer than status quo methods like lotteries, counselor discretion, parent requests, and admin. rules.

But there's polarization: higher-SES, liberal parents are more supportive of algorithms.
May 20, 2025 at 8:34 PM
New paper with Rebecca Johnson (@rebeccaj.bsky.social) on parental perceptions of using algorithms to allocate scarce resources in schools, now out in Sociological Science (@sociologicalsci.bsky.social):
May 20, 2025 at 8:34 PM
Reposted by Simone Zhang
NEW: Rebecca A. Johnson, Simone Zhang, "Predictive Algorithms and Perceptions of Fairness: Parent Attitudes Toward Algorithmic Resource Allocation in K-12 Education." sociologicalscience.com/articles-v12...
sociologicalscience.com
May 16, 2025 at 4:33 PM
Many thanks to our RAs, reviewers, and terrific special issue editors @thomasdavidson.bsky.social
and Danny Karell. Special thank you to the incredible community resource that is the Time-sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences (TESS) program @jeremyfreese.bsky.social @mocraig.bsky.social
May 7, 2025 at 3:32 PM
You can also check out this great write-up of our paper here: www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/ai-...
AI-Generated Survey Responses Could Make Research Less Accurate (And a Lot Less Interesting)
www.gsb.stanford.edu
May 7, 2025 at 3:32 PM
Do you field online surveys and experiments? Ever get back text responses that look unusually diplomatic and polished?

In this paper, now out at Sociological Methods & Research, we study the emerging use of AI among online study participants.
May 7, 2025 at 3:32 PM
Thanks for sharing Hakeem!

Our project started when we too were piloting open-ended questions for a study and noticed unusually long/typo-free/diplomatic responses. Others reported similar experiences.

Latest version of the paper here: osf.io/preprints/so...
December 21, 2024 at 5:22 PM
This is an emerging challenge! My colleagues and I have a working paper on this issue: osf.io/preprints/so...
OSF
osf.io
December 21, 2024 at 5:16 PM
Very cool! I laughed out loud when I reached that sentence on false positive hosts because I immediately heard "hey, Ryan Reynolds here"
November 15, 2024 at 3:05 PM
I'd also love to be added, thank you!
November 11, 2024 at 2:44 PM
It's COMPASlicated is such a great paper 🙂
October 4, 2023 at 5:49 PM