Shahan Ali Memon
@shahanmemon.bsky.social
Researching {science of AI-mediated science, metascience #SciSci, #AI4Science, generative #AI, LLMs, agents, alignment, misinformation in science}
PhD @ UW.
Visiting @ NYU & MSR
Alum @ Carnegie Mellon
Academic webpage: https://samemon.github.io
PhD @ UW.
Visiting @ NYU & MSR
Alum @ Carnegie Mellon
Academic webpage: https://samemon.github.io
Pinned
Shahan Ali Memon
@shahanmemon.bsky.social
· Nov 27
🚨 I recently came across a weird case of #AI in #preprints, with implications for burdening #SciComm with AI-mediated #PredatoryPublishing
What did I find? Issues with the article, questionable behavior by the author, indexing problems, and AI's potential for streamlining predatory publishing.
🧵
What did I find? Issues with the article, questionable behavior by the author, indexing problems, and AI's potential for streamlining predatory publishing.
🧵
Reposted by Shahan Ali Memon
According to an international survey conducted by Elsevier, 68 percent of scientists say that publication pressure has increased over the past two to three years. 3,200 researchers from 113 countries took part in the survey. www.elsevier.com/insights/con... @elsevierconnect.bsky.social
Researcher of the Future: Confidence in Research
In this report, learn how researchers are adapting to rapid AI change, shifting funding landscapes, and new expectations for collaboration and impact.
www.elsevier.com
November 10, 2025 at 7:39 AM
According to an international survey conducted by Elsevier, 68 percent of scientists say that publication pressure has increased over the past two to three years. 3,200 researchers from 113 countries took part in the survey. www.elsevier.com/insights/con... @elsevierconnect.bsky.social
Reposted by Shahan Ali Memon
Interesting workshop - March 19-20, 2026
datasociety.net/announcement...
datasociety.net/announcement...
The Craft of Science with AI: Evidence, Judgment, and Practice
We invite researchers and practitioners to join us in examining how scientific reasoning and imagination are being reconfigured as AI systems become a part of the everyday practice of science. Learn m...
datasociety.net
November 6, 2025 at 2:05 PM
Interesting workshop - March 19-20, 2026
datasociety.net/announcement...
datasociety.net/announcement...
Reposted by Shahan Ali Memon
It's #NSF #GRFP application season again so it's time to re-up my GRFP application advice post!
Also, check out the cool bsky comment integration I've added to the blog! Engagement with this post will go under the blogpost on my site as comments!
saxon.me/blog/2024/gr...
Also, check out the cool bsky comment integration I've added to the blog! Engagement with this post will go under the blogpost on my site as comments!
saxon.me/blog/2024/gr...
NSF GRFP Application Tips for NLP, AI, CS
Reflections and advice from my successful NSF GRFP proposal in NLP. Why I think my applications worked well, what I wish I did differently, and links to my actual statements and feedback from the GRFP...
saxon.me
October 30, 2025 at 8:03 PM
It's #NSF #GRFP application season again so it's time to re-up my GRFP application advice post!
Also, check out the cool bsky comment integration I've added to the blog! Engagement with this post will go under the blogpost on my site as comments!
saxon.me/blog/2024/gr...
Also, check out the cool bsky comment integration I've added to the blog! Engagement with this post will go under the blogpost on my site as comments!
saxon.me/blog/2024/gr...
Reposted by Shahan Ali Memon
Applying for a #PhD @ischool.uw.edu? Read 👇
Our student-run application feedback program will be open from October 20th through 1st November 2025.
Everyone applying, especially those from historically underrepresented groups or who have faced barriers in higher ed are highly encouraged to apply.
Our student-run application feedback program will be open from October 20th through 1st November 2025.
Everyone applying, especially those from historically underrepresented groups or who have faced barriers in higher ed are highly encouraged to apply.
September 26, 2025 at 11:00 PM
Applying for a #PhD @ischool.uw.edu? Read 👇
Our student-run application feedback program will be open from October 20th through 1st November 2025.
Everyone applying, especially those from historically underrepresented groups or who have faced barriers in higher ed are highly encouraged to apply.
Our student-run application feedback program will be open from October 20th through 1st November 2025.
Everyone applying, especially those from historically underrepresented groups or who have faced barriers in higher ed are highly encouraged to apply.
Reposted by Shahan Ali Memon
Our team presented five papers at the CSCW (computer supported cooperative work and social computing) conference this week in Bergen, Norway. (CSCW is an ACM conference and a “home conference” for my team.) I’m going to share a few highlights in a thread here.
October 22, 2025 at 11:16 AM
Our team presented five papers at the CSCW (computer supported cooperative work and social computing) conference this week in Bergen, Norway. (CSCW is an ACM conference and a “home conference” for my team.) I’m going to share a few highlights in a thread here.
Reposted by Shahan Ali Memon
"communication is not simply a transmission of data, but a negotiation of meaning, a shared labor of understanding. This is the promise of a rhetorical contextualization... to reimagine UX not as a set of optimized interactions.., but as a site of ethical deliberation and collective possibility"
October 27, 2025 at 4:46 PM
"communication is not simply a transmission of data, but a negotiation of meaning, a shared labor of understanding. This is the promise of a rhetorical contextualization... to reimagine UX not as a set of optimized interactions.., but as a site of ethical deliberation and collective possibility"
Reposted by Shahan Ali Memon
Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n
September 6, 2025 at 8:13 AM
Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n
Reposted by Shahan Ali Memon
Excellent post by the creator of the hoax FormatMyPaper.com.
"We’re a community of experts, terrified of a harmless prank site, yet seemingly unbothered by the multi-billion dollar publishing industry that actually takes our copyright, our labor, and our intellectual property every single day."
"We’re a community of experts, terrified of a harmless prank site, yet seemingly unbothered by the multi-billion dollar publishing industry that actually takes our copyright, our labor, and our intellectual property every single day."
Beware giving this site your unpublished data
Users noticed the website had fake testimonials and a domain name registered seemingly overnight.
ubadah.substack.com
October 24, 2025 at 4:08 PM
Excellent post by the creator of the hoax FormatMyPaper.com.
"We’re a community of experts, terrified of a harmless prank site, yet seemingly unbothered by the multi-billion dollar publishing industry that actually takes our copyright, our labor, and our intellectual property every single day."
"We’re a community of experts, terrified of a harmless prank site, yet seemingly unbothered by the multi-billion dollar publishing industry that actually takes our copyright, our labor, and our intellectual property every single day."
Reposted by Shahan Ali Memon
Yet again, we can't afford to let LLMs become a source of epistemic grounding for society.
Largest study of its kind shows AI assistants misrepresent news content 45% of the time – regardless of language or territory
An intensive international study was coordinated by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and led by the BBC
www.bbc.co.uk
October 24, 2025 at 5:21 AM
Yet again, we can't afford to let LLMs become a source of epistemic grounding for society.
Reposted by Shahan Ali Memon
Can AI simulations of human research participants advance cognitive science? In @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social, @lmesseri.bsky.social & I analyze this vision. We show how “AI Surrogates” entrench practices that limit the generalizability of cognitive science while aspiring to do the opposite. 1/
AI Surrogates and illusions of generalizability in cognitive science
Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have generated enthusiasm for using AI simulations of human research participants to generate new know…
www.sciencedirect.com
October 21, 2025 at 8:24 PM
Can AI simulations of human research participants advance cognitive science? In @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social, @lmesseri.bsky.social & I analyze this vision. We show how “AI Surrogates” entrench practices that limit the generalizability of cognitive science while aspiring to do the opposite. 1/
October 20, 2025 at 9:06 PM
Reposted by Shahan Ali Memon
We need new rules for publishing AI-generated research. The teams developing automated AI scientists have customarily submitted their papers to standard refereed venues (journals and conferences) and to arXiv. Often, acceptance has been treated as the dependent variable. 1/
September 14, 2025 at 5:15 PM
We need new rules for publishing AI-generated research. The teams developing automated AI scientists have customarily submitted their papers to standard refereed venues (journals and conferences) and to arXiv. Often, acceptance has been treated as the dependent variable. 1/
Reposted by Shahan Ali Memon
Replace coding with research and Karpathy's critique is also good for AI for science. We want to become better researchers, not just get served “research”.. And if AI for science isn't done well we might end up with "mountains of slop"
Karpathy starts by saying human supervision is needed only because models aren't yet capable enough. But if you look closely at the obstacle ("I want to learn... and become better as a programmer, not just get served mountains of code that I'm told works"), it doesn't go away "when we reach AGI." +
October 20, 2025 at 2:35 PM
Replace coding with research and Karpathy's critique is also good for AI for science. We want to become better researchers, not just get served “research”.. And if AI for science isn't done well we might end up with "mountains of slop"
Reposted by Shahan Ali Memon
Inspired by a post by @bayesianboy.bsky.social , I wrote something on the differences between information and insight — and why understanding remains a very human act
The point is to understand
Machines can’t make sense of the world for us.
renderghost.leaflet.pub
October 16, 2025 at 10:46 AM
Inspired by a post by @bayesianboy.bsky.social , I wrote something on the differences between information and insight — and why understanding remains a very human act
Scientists: We’re years away from AGI
Sam Altman: What if we just… let humans and ChatGPT fall in love?
#NeuralNetBabies #HumanAIAlignmentTakenToANextLevel
Sam Altman: What if we just… let humans and ChatGPT fall in love?
#NeuralNetBabies #HumanAIAlignmentTakenToANextLevel
How it started:
"Our goal is to advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return." (Introducing OpenAI blog post, 2015)
How it's going:
"Our goal is to advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return." (Introducing OpenAI blog post, 2015)
How it's going:
Sam Altman says ChatGPT will soon sext with verified adults
October 15, 2025 at 5:14 AM
Scientists: We’re years away from AGI
Sam Altman: What if we just… let humans and ChatGPT fall in love?
#NeuralNetBabies #HumanAIAlignmentTakenToANextLevel
Sam Altman: What if we just… let humans and ChatGPT fall in love?
#NeuralNetBabies #HumanAIAlignmentTakenToANextLevel
This new preprint on arXiv from New York University studies the media coverage bias in reporting on #Israel and #Gaza comparing coverage differences between western outlets i.e. New York Times #NYT, #BBC, #CNN against non-western outlet @aljazeera.com.
Findings 👇
arxiv.org/abs/2510.06453
Findings 👇
arxiv.org/abs/2510.06453
Media Coverage of War Victims: Journalistic Biases in Reporting on Israel and Gaza
October 7th 2023 marked the start of a war against Gaza, which is considered one of the most devastating wars in modern history and has led to a stark attitudinal divide within and between countries. ...
arxiv.org
October 13, 2025 at 7:02 AM
This new preprint on arXiv from New York University studies the media coverage bias in reporting on #Israel and #Gaza comparing coverage differences between western outlets i.e. New York Times #NYT, #BBC, #CNN against non-western outlet @aljazeera.com.
Findings 👇
arxiv.org/abs/2510.06453
Findings 👇
arxiv.org/abs/2510.06453
Reposted by Shahan Ali Memon
ReplicationResearch.org is now open for submissions!
Submit replications and reproductions from many different fields, as well as conceptual contributions. With diamond OA, open and citable peer review reports, and reproducibility checks, we push the boundaries of open and fair publishing.
Submit replications and reproductions from many different fields, as well as conceptual contributions. With diamond OA, open and citable peer review reports, and reproducibility checks, we push the boundaries of open and fair publishing.
October 10, 2025 at 6:12 AM
ReplicationResearch.org is now open for submissions!
Submit replications and reproductions from many different fields, as well as conceptual contributions. With diamond OA, open and citable peer review reports, and reproducibility checks, we push the boundaries of open and fair publishing.
Submit replications and reproductions from many different fields, as well as conceptual contributions. With diamond OA, open and citable peer review reports, and reproducibility checks, we push the boundaries of open and fair publishing.
Reposted by Shahan Ali Memon
This.
Much of the "AI Scientist" community focuses on an instrumentalist rather taylorist approach to science. What about the goal of "knowing" and "understanding" the world?
1/15
#ScienceOfAIMediatedScience #ScAISci #AI4Science
Much of the "AI Scientist" community focuses on an instrumentalist rather taylorist approach to science. What about the goal of "knowing" and "understanding" the world?
1/15
#ScienceOfAIMediatedScience #ScAISci #AI4Science
The vision of human-out-of-the-loop science fundamentally mistakes what knowledge production is. It aims at the production of, wait for it, knowledge: a thing that definitionally involves an epistemic agent or agents, unless you are theistic about it.
September 14, 2025 at 9:12 PM
This.
Much of the "AI Scientist" community focuses on an instrumentalist rather taylorist approach to science. What about the goal of "knowing" and "understanding" the world?
1/15
#ScienceOfAIMediatedScience #ScAISci #AI4Science
Much of the "AI Scientist" community focuses on an instrumentalist rather taylorist approach to science. What about the goal of "knowing" and "understanding" the world?
1/15
#ScienceOfAIMediatedScience #ScAISci #AI4Science
The future of peer review is here.
Introducing Nature Instant!
We've automated rejection so you can get disappointed faster. Because why wait 6 months for reviewer 2 when you can get roasted by an #AI in seconds?
Here is how it works.
#AI4Science #PeerReview #FictionScience #FiSci #AAAI #ScAISci
Introducing Nature Instant!
We've automated rejection so you can get disappointed faster. Because why wait 6 months for reviewer 2 when you can get roasted by an #AI in seconds?
Here is how it works.
#AI4Science #PeerReview #FictionScience #FiSci #AAAI #ScAISci
October 5, 2025 at 6:17 AM
The future of peer review is here.
Introducing Nature Instant!
We've automated rejection so you can get disappointed faster. Because why wait 6 months for reviewer 2 when you can get roasted by an #AI in seconds?
Here is how it works.
#AI4Science #PeerReview #FictionScience #FiSci #AAAI #ScAISci
Introducing Nature Instant!
We've automated rejection so you can get disappointed faster. Because why wait 6 months for reviewer 2 when you can get roasted by an #AI in seconds?
Here is how it works.
#AI4Science #PeerReview #FictionScience #FiSci #AAAI #ScAISci
Reposted by Shahan Ali Memon
In general I think it's hard to combat scientific misinformation when some of the best research is locked behind an academic paywall, while lots of nonsense gets published free for everyone to read in predatory journals.
September 28, 2025 at 5:25 PM
In general I think it's hard to combat scientific misinformation when some of the best research is locked behind an academic paywall, while lots of nonsense gets published free for everyone to read in predatory journals.
Reposted by Shahan Ali Memon
OpenAI's VP for education recently said the company wanted to become "core infrastructure" for schools and universities. Any infrastructure, though, always depends on habituating users to its technical affordances - so I've been trying to track how it's doing that 🧵 www.nytimes.com/2025/06/07/t...
Welcome to Campus. Here’s Your ChatGPT.
www.nytimes.com
September 26, 2025 at 9:51 PM
OpenAI's VP for education recently said the company wanted to become "core infrastructure" for schools and universities. Any infrastructure, though, always depends on habituating users to its technical affordances - so I've been trying to track how it's doing that 🧵 www.nytimes.com/2025/06/07/t...
Applying for a #PhD @ischool.uw.edu? Read 👇
Our student-run application feedback program will be open from October 20th through 1st November 2025.
Everyone applying, especially those from historically underrepresented groups or who have faced barriers in higher ed are highly encouraged to apply.
Our student-run application feedback program will be open from October 20th through 1st November 2025.
Everyone applying, especially those from historically underrepresented groups or who have faced barriers in higher ed are highly encouraged to apply.
September 26, 2025 at 11:00 PM
Applying for a #PhD @ischool.uw.edu? Read 👇
Our student-run application feedback program will be open from October 20th through 1st November 2025.
Everyone applying, especially those from historically underrepresented groups or who have faced barriers in higher ed are highly encouraged to apply.
Our student-run application feedback program will be open from October 20th through 1st November 2025.
Everyone applying, especially those from historically underrepresented groups or who have faced barriers in higher ed are highly encouraged to apply.
Reposted by Shahan Ali Memon
Early-career researchers more likely than others to stop publishing after a retraction — my latest for @nature.com:
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
@shahanmemon.bsky.social, @fangferric.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
@shahanmemon.bsky.social, @fangferric.bsky.social
Retractions can reshape scientists’ careers in unexpected ways
Institutions and publishers need to weigh context carefully and provide support when needed, says the author of a new study on the issue.
www.nature.com
September 26, 2025 at 2:59 PM
Early-career researchers more likely than others to stop publishing after a retraction — my latest for @nature.com:
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
@shahanmemon.bsky.social, @fangferric.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
@shahanmemon.bsky.social, @fangferric.bsky.social
Reposted by Shahan Ali Memon
1/ Exciting paper by @sh1m.bsky.social & Sophia Liu 🔥
“hypertext systems emphasize provenance, associative thinking, and user-driven meaning-making, while algorithmic systems tend to obscure process and flatten participation” arxiv.org/abs/2507.235...
“hypertext systems emphasize provenance, associative thinking, and user-driven meaning-making, while algorithmic systems tend to obscure process and flatten participation” arxiv.org/abs/2507.235...
September 25, 2025 at 3:28 PM
1/ Exciting paper by @sh1m.bsky.social & Sophia Liu 🔥
“hypertext systems emphasize provenance, associative thinking, and user-driven meaning-making, while algorithmic systems tend to obscure process and flatten participation” arxiv.org/abs/2507.235...
“hypertext systems emphasize provenance, associative thinking, and user-driven meaning-making, while algorithmic systems tend to obscure process and flatten participation” arxiv.org/abs/2507.235...
I just taught my first lecture as a predoctoral instructor for “INFO 371: Advanced Methods in Data Science” at the University of Washington Information School—and it was an incredible experience.
#academia
#academia
September 25, 2025 at 4:18 AM
I just taught my first lecture as a predoctoral instructor for “INFO 371: Advanced Methods in Data Science” at the University of Washington Information School—and it was an incredible experience.
#academia
#academia