Elina Halonen
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squarepegmind.bsky.social
Elina Halonen
@squarepegmind.bsky.social
Behavioural Strategist
Reposted by Elina Halonen
Boast post: It took a lot of time, but this paper is in the AER.
Forthcoming in the AER: "Gender Differences in Economics Seminars" by Pascaline Dupas, Amy Handlan, Alicia Sasser Modestino, Muriel Niederle, Mateo Seré, Haoyu Sheng, Justin Wolfers, and Seminar Dynamics Collective. www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...
Gender Differences in Economics Seminars
(Forthcoming Article) - We assess whether men and women are treated differently when presenting their economics research. We collected data across thousands of seminars, job market talks and conferenc...
www.aeaweb.org
October 21, 2025 at 3:47 PM
Reposted by Elina Halonen
Exclusive: Anthropic spent $2.66 billion on Amazon Web Services in the first three quarters of 2025, around 100% of their estimated revenue. Its costs appear to increase with their revenue, showing little path to profitability.
www.wheresyoured.at/costs/
This Is How Much Anthropic and Cursor Spend On Amazon Web Services
So, I originally planned for this to be on my premium newsletter, but decided it was better to publish on my free one so that you could all enjoy it. If you liked it, please consider subscribing to su...
www.wheresyoured.at
October 20, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Reposted by Elina Halonen
This newsletter pairs well with the standalone episode of Better Offline I recorded. Both communicate much the same story, but the podcast is a little more entertaining. This is the culmination of months of reporting and investigation.

open.spotify.com/episode/5Tyq...
linktr.ee/betteroffline
Exclusive: Here's How Much Anthropic Spends on AWS
open.spotify.com
October 20, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Reposted by Elina Halonen
New preprint 🌟 Psychology is core to cognitive science, and so it is vital we preserve it from harmful frames. @irisvanrooij.bsky.social & I use our psych and computer science expertise to analyse and craft:

Critical Artificial Intelligence Literacy for Psychologists. doi.org/10.31234/osf...

🧵 1/
October 4, 2025 at 5:33 AM
Reposted by Elina Halonen
One side, "AI 2027" is led by a bunch of privileged white people working at the companies causing the other side (AI con/Empire of AI).

One side, the "AI is gonna be so powerful if you don't let US be the AGI builders" is making money from stealing data, killing the environment & exploiting labor.
October 9, 2025 at 6:43 PM
Reposted by Elina Halonen
These are all flagrant lies, unsourced yet printed in a newspaper that allegedly fact checks things. The rest of it is meandering panic-bait that treats jail breaking LLMs. They don’t even describe the virus! They just said someone made one. Bullshit!
October 10, 2025 at 5:11 PM
Reposted by Elina Halonen
The administration “is currently pressuring OpenAI and other AI companies to make their models more conservative-friendly.”
OpenAI is trying to clamp down on ‘bias’ in ChatGPT
GPT-5 is better at resisting liberal ‘pressure,’ the company says.
www.theverge.com
October 11, 2025 at 12:02 PM
Reposted by Elina Halonen
interesting little experiment by @squarepegmind.bsky.social

"Comparing AI models isn’t just about what they say—it’s about how they say it. (...) Some aim to solve the problem, and others focus on explaining why the problem is complicated."

thinkingaboutbehavior.substack.com/p/how-llms-t...
How LLMs think differently
What a historical currency question revealed about how AI models interpret ambiguity, frame problems, and shape our understanding of the past.
thinkingaboutbehavior.substack.com
March 26, 2025 at 11:15 AM
Reposted by Elina Halonen
Boy do I have the right measurement instrument for you.
March 25, 2025 at 2:16 PM
Less than a week ago I wrote about the new US gov meddling in scientific research - I imagine many ppl thought "Unfortunate, but at least we're safe here in Europe"...
February 17, 2025 at 5:24 PM
𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗻𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱𝘀 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 "𝗯𝗶𝗮𝘀," "𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘁𝘂𝘀," 𝗮𝗻𝗱 "𝘀𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗼𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗰" 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗯𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵?

open.substack.com/pub/thinking...
What happens to science when words like "bias" get banned from research?
New U.S. restrictions on research language threaten to reshape global scientific progress - including behavioral science
open.substack.com
February 17, 2025 at 5:22 PM
𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗻𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗮𝗻 𝗟𝗟𝗠 𝗱𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗯𝗲𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱’𝘀 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗯𝗶𝗴𝗴𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘀𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗴𝗮𝘀𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀 𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺 𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗳𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗲?
February 17, 2025 at 5:19 PM
Reposted by Elina Halonen
I am really frustrated that the press is discussing the destruction of USAID as something that has happened rather than an illegal action that will likely be undone in two weeks when courts tell the world that it was illegal.
February 7, 2025 at 12:34 AM
There's been a lot of discussion recently about the safety and security of Chinese LLMs. Setting aside the specifics, it's good to reflect on on the country of origin for tech in general, and how we might be subtly biased... some thoughts 🧵
February 7, 2025 at 4:24 PM
Reposted by Elina Halonen
Here is a Behavioural Science starter pack with 150 people working in behavioural science - unfortunately numbers are capped so I can't add others - see go.bsky.app/CzLwTyZ
January 20, 2025 at 12:10 PM
Reposted by Elina Halonen
In 2023, Harvard Business School suspended a star professor over charges of research misconduct.

As it happens, one of her papers also had funny data from a *different* B-school superstar -- a "mad, fraudulent unicorn,” per @jamesheathers.bsky.social... (1/3)

www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...
The Fraudulent Science of Success
Business schools are in the grips of a scandal that threatens to undermine their most influential research—and the credibility of an entire field.
www.theatlantic.com
November 19, 2024 at 4:20 PM
Reposted by Elina Halonen
Just saw Francesca Gino's name in my TL. I first heard of her in 2018 when I googled the person who weirdly copied a tweet of mine word-for-word and gave me a hat tip for it.

Hypothesis: Sketchy behavior on social media is a predictor of much more serious sketchiness.
November 19, 2024 at 11:52 PM
Reposted by Elina Halonen
Highly recommend this paper. Groundbreaking research using AI/ML to predict behavioural outcomes across varied scenarios. A necessary ingredient is organising knowledge by #ontologies. See www.humanbehaviourchange.org. Also on BlueSky. #BehaviouralScience #Ontologies
November 20, 2024 at 10:46 AM
Reposted by Elina Halonen
the fallout from the Francesca Gino research misconduct scandal isn't over. @engber.bsky.social writes about how an effort by some of her colleagues to self-audit their work with her ended up raising even more questions — for them personally and their whole field www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...
The Business-School Scandal That Just Keeps Getting Bigger
The rot runs deeper than almost anyone has guessed.
www.theatlantic.com
November 19, 2024 at 10:17 PM