Stefan Herzog
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stefanherzog.bsky.social
Stefan Herzog
@stefanherzog.bsky.social
3.3K followers 1K following 190 posts
Senior Researcher @arc-mpib.bsky.social MaxPlanck @mpib-berlin.bsky.social, group leader #BOOSTING decisions: cognitive science, AI/collective intelligence, behavioral public policy, comput. social science, misinfo; stefanherzog.org scienceofboosting.org
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stefanherzog.bsky.social
Stefan Herzog @stefanherzog.bsky.social · Jan 23
🌟🧠💪📝
#BOOSTING: Empowering citizens with behavioral science

New, freely available paper in Annual Review of Psychology.
PDF: tinyurl.com/boosting2025

For more: scienceofboosting.org

@arc-mpib.bsky.social @mpib-berlin.bsky.social

@annualreviews.bsky.social
#policy #behavioralscience

1/ 🧵👇
The image is the cover page of an article from the "Annual Review of Psychology" titled "Boosting: Empowering Citizens with Behavioral Science" by Stefan M. Herzog and Ralph Hertwig. It features a brief abstract, keywords, and publication details. The abstract outlines the concept of "boosting" as a behavioral public policy that emphasizes empowering individuals to make informed decisions, in contrast to "nudging," which subtly steers behavior. The abstract reads: Behavioral public policy came to the fore with the introduction of nudging, which aims to steer behavior while maintaining freedom of choice. Responding to critiques of nudging (e.g., that it does not promote agency and relies on benevolent choice architects), other behavioral policy approaches focus on empowering citizens. Here we review boosting, a behavioral policy approach that aims to foster people's agency, self-control, and ability to make informed decisions. It is grounded in evidence from behavioral science showing that human decision making is not as notoriously flawed as the nudging approach assumes. We argue that addressing the challenges of our time—such as climate change, pandemics, and the threats to liberal democracies and human autonomy posed by digital technologies and choice architectures—calls for fostering capable and engaged citizens as a first line of response to complement slower, systemic approaches. List with summary points: 1. Behavioral public policy garnered widespread attention with the introduction of nudging, which aims to steer behavior while maintaining freedom of choice. 2. Criticisms of nudging include that it does not promote agency and competences and that it relies—overly optimistically—on the presence of benevolent choice architects. 3. The proliferation of environments threatening people's autonomy, the slow pace of systemic approaches to tackling societal issues, and the intrinsic benefits of empowerment make empowering citizens an indispensable objective of behavioral public policy. 4. Boosting is a behavioral public policy approach to empowerment grounded in evidence from behavioral science that shows that humans’ boundedly rational decision making is not as flawed as the nudging approach assumes. 5. Boosts are interventions that improve people's competencies to make informed choices that conform to their goals, preferences, and desires. 6. In self-nudging boosts, people learn to use architectural changes in their proximate choice environment to regulate their own behavior—that is, they are empowered to adapt their own choice environments. 7. There are boosts to foster core competences in many domains, including finance, online environments, and health, as well as broader, overarching areas, such as motivation, risk, and judgment and decision making. Boosts should be part of a policy mix that also includes system-level approaches. 8. When implementing boosts, policy makers need to avoid the trap of individualizing responsibility and to be mindful that, due to differences in cognition and motivation, inequalities in the desirable effects across boosted individuals may emerge.
Reposted by Stefan Herzog
vitotrianni.bsky.social
🧵 webinar announcement
1/
How can we combine human and machine intelligence to make better medical diagnoses? 🧠🤖
Join HACID and @HumanDx on Nov 12, 17:30 CET for a special webinar on Hybrid Human-AI Collective Intelligence in Medical Diagnostics.
🔗 events.teams.microsoft.com/event/8e607b...
Photo by Antoni Shkraba Studio: https://www.pexels.com/photo/doctors-examining-an-x-ray-image-on-a-laptop-5214994/
November 5, 2025 at 9:29 AM
Reposted by Stefan Herzog
onefouronefive.bsky.social
Okay das ist witzig, wenn man das so visualisiert
Ein Kreisdiagramm. Steuerhinterziehung ist Blau markiert, und nimmt einen Großteil des Kreises ein. Sozialbetrug in Anführungszeichen ist Lila markiert, und praktisch nicht sichtbar. Jens Spahn ist orange markiert, und nimmt einen deutlich sichtbaren Bereich ein
October 8, 2025 at 2:34 PM
Reposted by Stefan Herzog
dingdingpeng.the100.ci
Gambetta & Origgi on the LL Game, in which agents prefer to deliver and receive (!) low quality.

This paper is absolutely savage but also feels uncomfortably relevant to parts of academia outside of Italy 👀

diegogambetta.org/wp-content/u...
Abstract We investigate a phenomenon which we have experienced as common when dealing with an assortment of Italian public and private institutions: people promise to exchange high-quality goods and services, but then something goes wrong and the quality delivered is lower than had been promised. While this is perceived as ‘cheating’ by outsiders, insiders seem not only to adapt to, but to rely on this outcome. They do not resent low-quality exchanges; in fact, they seem to resent high-quality ones, and are inclined to put pressure on or avoid dealing with agents who deliver high quality. The equilibrium among low-quality producers relies on an unusual preference ranking which differs from that associated with the Prisoners’ Dilemma and similar games, whereby self-interested rational agents prefer to dish out low quality in exchange for high quality. While equally ‘lazy’, agents in our low-quality worlds are oddly ‘pro-social’: for the advantage of maximizing their raw self-interest, they prefer to receive low-quality goods and services, provided that they too can in exchange deliver low quality without embarrassment. They develop a set of oblique social norms to sustain their preferred equilibrium when threatened by the intrusion of high quality. We argue that high-quality collective outcomes are endangered not only by self-interested individual defectors, but by ‘cartels’ of mutually satisfied mediocrities.
October 16, 2025 at 2:08 PM
Reposted by Stefan Herzog
lobbycontrol.bsky.social
Wenn Reiche Reiche lobbyieren

@fragdenstaat.de zeigt, wie die Stiftung Familienunternehmen bei Ministerin Reiche lobbyierte – und die zeigt sich empfänglich.

Brisant: Die Stiftung lobbyierte für ein umstrittenes Vorhaben, gibt das aber nicht im Lobbyregister an. 1/

fragdenstaat.de/artikel/exkl...
Wirtschaftsministerium: Reiche berät Reiche
Bei Treffen mit der Stiftung Familienunternehmen gaben Ministerin Reiche und ihr Staatssekretär Tipps, wie die Superreichen-Lobby Steuersenkungen erreichen könne. Das zeigen interne Unterlagen.
fragdenstaat.de
October 9, 2025 at 2:01 PM
stefanherzog.bsky.social
🚨⬇️
___
Bald könnten ALLE Chat-Nachrichten von den Behörden durchsucht werden – selbst ohne Verdacht! Das entscheiden *heute* die Minister*innen. Sag Nein zur Chatkontrolle! Jetzt unterzeichnen ✍️ weact.campact.de/petitions/ch...
Chatkontrolle stoppen!
Die EU-Kommission will Messenger-Dienste wie WhatsApp und Signal zwingen, alle privaten Nachrichten und Fotos in Echtzeit zu scannen. Angeblich zum Kinderschutz. In Wahrheit bedeutet die Chatkontrolle...
weact.campact.de
October 8, 2025 at 11:49 AM
Reposted by Stefan Herzog
sciencefeedback.bsky.social
🚨 New report out: the first cross-platform, cross-country baseline on misinformation in Europe

Based on large scale data analysis: ~2.6M posts (24B views) collected on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, X & YouTube

science.feedback.org/first-measurement-disinformation-major-platforms-europe
What our first measurement says about disinformation on major platforms in Europe - Science Feedback
Science Feedback and partners have released a first measurement of Structural Indicators across six Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) in four EU member states (France, Spain, Poland, Slovakia). Belo...
science.feedback.org
September 29, 2025 at 3:03 PM
Reposted by Stefan Herzog
jamiecummins.bsky.social
Can large language models stand in for human participants?
Many social scientists seem to think so, and are already using "silicon samples" in research.

One problem: depending on the analytic decisions made, you can basically get these samples to show any effect you want.

THREAD 🧵
The threat of analytic flexibility in using large language models to simulate human data: A call to attention
Social scientists are now using large language models to create "silicon samples" - synthetic datasets intended to stand in for human respondents, aimed at revolutionising human subjects research. How...
arxiv.org
September 18, 2025 at 7:56 AM
Reposted by Stefan Herzog
adfichter.bsky.social
Wir werden alle Datenfutter für die KI von LinkedIn (zu Microsoft zugehörig), wenn wir uns nicht wehren. LinkedIn nutzt das Opt-Out-Land Schweiz aus (ob EU weiss ich nicht). Und setzt den Toogle bei uns allen auf ON.

Ja, es ist verdammt frech.

Hier ⬇️aussteigen:
www.linkedin.com/mypreference...
Daten zur Verbesserung generativer KI Darf LinkedIn Ihre auf LinkedIn erstellten personenbezogenen Daten und Inhalte verwenden, um generative KI-Modelle von LinkedIn zu schulen, die zum Erstellen von Inhalten verwendet werden? Ihre Daten zum Schulen von KI-Modellen verwenden, um Inhalte zu erstellen ein/aus
September 18, 2025 at 11:37 AM
Reposted by Stefan Herzog
sixtus.net
Eine Partei, die Frauen, die über ihren Körper selbst bestimmen, zu Straftäterinnen macht, die sich dagegen wehrt, ein Verbotsprüfungsverfahren gegen eine faschistische Partei einzuleiten, setzt sich mit einer frauenhassenden, religiös-faschistischen Terrorregierung an einen Tisch. Passt.
Migrationspolitik: Dobrindt verteidigt Gespräche mit Taliban über Abschiebungen
Bundesinnenminister Alexander Dobrindt will "regelmäßig" weitere Straftäter nach Afghanistan abschieben. Zugleich verteidigt er im Bundestag Gespräche mit den Taliban.
www.zeit.de
September 18, 2025 at 11:43 AM
Reposted by Stefan Herzog
patrickbreitenbach.de
"Free Speech" wird als taktisches Werkzeug genutzt, um gesellschaftlich eher geächtete Positionen (Rassismus, Sexismus, Klassismus) wieder in die breite Akzeptanz zurück zu holen. Es geht dabei nicht um "Free Speech", denn wir sehen ja, dass Gegenrede von den gleichen Leuten hart sanktioniert wird.
September 17, 2025 at 8:19 AM
Reposted by Stefan Herzog
olivia.science
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
Abstract: Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or even imposed on users — in past centuries with tobacco and combustion engines, and in the 21st with social media. For these collective blunders, we now regret our involvement or apathy as scientists, and society struggles to put the genie back in the bottle. Currently, we are similarly entangled with artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For example, software updates are rolled out seamlessly and non-consensually, Microsoft Office is bundled with chatbots, and we, our students, and our employers have had no say, as it is not considered a valid position to reject AI technologies in our teaching and research. This is why in June 2025, we co-authored an Open Letter calling on our employers to reverse and rethink their stance on uncritically adopting AI technologies. In this position piece, we expound on why universities must take their role seriously toa) counter the technology industry’s marketing, hype, and harm; and to b) safeguard higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, and scientific integrity. We include pointers to relevant work to further inform our colleagues. Figure 1. A cartoon set theoretic view on various terms (see Table 1) used when discussing the superset AI (black outline, hatched background): LLMs are in orange; ANNs are in magenta; generative models are in blue; and finally, chatbots are in green. Where these intersect, the colours reflect that, e.g. generative adversarial network (GAN) and Boltzmann machine (BM) models are in the purple subset because they are both generative and ANNs. In the case of proprietary closed source models, e.g. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Apple’s Siri, we cannot verify their implementation and so academics can only make educated guesses (cf. Dingemanse 2025). Undefined terms used above: BERT (Devlin et al. 2019); AlexNet (Krizhevsky et al. 2017); A.L.I.C.E. (Wallace 2009); ELIZA (Weizenbaum 1966); Jabberwacky (Twist 2003); linear discriminant analysis (LDA); quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA). Table 1. Below some of the typical terminological disarray is untangled. Importantly, none of these terms are orthogonal nor do they exclusively pick out the types of products we may wish to critique or proscribe. Protecting the Ecosystem of Human Knowledge: Five Principles
September 6, 2025 at 8:13 AM
stefanherzog.bsky.social
🧠🤖 Ever wondered about the risks of the increasing customization capabilities of AI/AI-powered chatbots & what we can do about it? Check out our recent-ish paper:

The governance & behavioral challenges of generative artificial intelligence’s hypercustomization capabilities. doi.org/10.1177/2379...
September 11, 2025 at 7:22 AM
Reposted by Stefan Herzog
vitotrianni.bsky.social
🌍 Join us for #HACID Webinar #4: Gender & Diversity in Hybrid Collective Intelligence 🧠🤖
🗓 Sept 29, 2025 | ⏰ 18:00 CEST

Register here: events.teams.microsoft.com/event/71775f...
Photo by cottonbro studio: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-people-using-their-smartphones-8088445/
September 9, 2025 at 9:51 AM
Reposted by Stefan Herzog
anasofiamorais.bsky.social
We’ve all heard it: people make 200 mindless food decisions a day. But is it true? In our latest episode, Almudena Claassen reveals why this number is misleading and offers strategies that help families and individuals make healthier choices. tinyurl.com/3k2tjw6x
September 4, 2025 at 9:46 AM
Reposted by Stefan Herzog
levinbrinkmann.bsky.social
You sound like ChatGPT -- that is what The Verge said about our recent preprint on how ChatGPT is reshaping human spoken communication.

Chatbots are becoming a cultural medium and agent of cultural homogenisation. Is this inevitable, or can model diversity help? www.theverge.com/openai/68674...
You sound like ChatGPT
AI isn’t just impacting how we write — it’s changing how we speak and interact with others. And there’s only more to come.
www.theverge.com
June 21, 2025 at 4:35 PM
Reposted by Stefan Herzog
eloplop.bsky.social
New paper out! 📣
We explore GenAI’s hypercustomization capabilities, the behavioral and governance challenges they may introduce in the foreseeable future, and potential strategies to address them.
July 7, 2025 at 9:19 AM
Reposted by Stefan Herzog
iyadrahwan.bsky.social
Great coverage by @sciam.bsky.social of our research on how ChatGPT is influencing the words we use in conversation!

Work led by Hiromu Yakura & @levinbrinkmann.bsky.social

www.scientificamerican.com/article/chat...
ChatGPT Is Changing the Words We Use in Conversation
Words frequently used by ChatGPT, including “delve” and “meticulous,” are getting more common in spoken language, according to an analysis of more than 700,000 hours of videos and podcasts
www.scientificamerican.com
July 15, 2025 at 5:54 PM
Reposted by Stefan Herzog
cabels18.bsky.social
🔍 “I just want a second opinion.”

More people are turning to ChatGPT for health advice. Many would use it for self-diagnosis.

But here's the problem: These tools don’t just answer, they align. And that’s where things get risky.

🧵 on GenAI, health, and confirmation bias
eloplop.bsky.social Ezequiel Lopez-Lopez @eloplop.bsky.social · Jul 28
New research out!🚨

In our new paper, we discuss how generative AI (GenAI) tools like ChatGPT can mediate confirmation bias in health information seeking.
As people turn to these tools for health-related queries, new risks emerge.
🧵👇
nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
NYAS Publications
Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) applications, such as ChatGPT, are transforming how individuals access health information, offering conversational and highly personalized interactions. Whi...
nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
July 28, 2025 at 10:38 AM
Reposted by Stefan Herzog
eloplop.bsky.social
New research out!🚨

In our new paper, we discuss how generative AI (GenAI) tools like ChatGPT can mediate confirmation bias in health information seeking.
As people turn to these tools for health-related queries, new risks emerge.
🧵👇
nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
NYAS Publications
Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) applications, such as ChatGPT, are transforming how individuals access health information, offering conversational and highly personalized interactions. Whi...
nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
July 28, 2025 at 10:15 AM
Reposted by Stefan Herzog
claesdevreese.bsky.social
The discussions about big platforms are intense. The systemic risks are real.

Now the #DSA Delegated Act is finally here to ensure data access for researchers. Time to put this system to work.

W @lkseiling.bsky.social, we show how @techpolicypress.bsky.social

www.techpolicy.press/time-to-deli...
Time To Deliver: Stakeholder Roles In The EU’s Delegated Act On Data Access | TechPolicy.Press
The Delegated Act on data access under the DSA provides much-needed clarity about both the access process and expectations towards the actors involved in it.
www.techpolicy.press
July 14, 2025 at 8:02 PM
Reposted by Stefan Herzog
kathrinkuehn.bsky.social
Meinungsbildung über Social Media. Eigentlich wissen es alle - was hier läuft, ist nicht repräsentativ, im Gegenteil. Das Bild ist verzerrt, das Extreme bekommt mehr Raum. In den Dlf Systemfragen hat @lucarehseknauf.bsky.social die Lage gebündelt: www.deutschlandfunk.de/social-media... 1/
Social Media: Wer bricht das Schweigen der stillen Beobachter?
Bis zu 90 Prozent der User auf Social Media sind stille Beobachter. Extreme Meinungen werden so sichtbarer, Diskussionen polarisierter. Wie wäre das zu ändern?
www.deutschlandfunk.de
July 15, 2025 at 7:10 AM
Reposted by Stefan Herzog
tobiasgalla.bsky.social
Review "Opinion dynamics: Statistical physics and beyond"
arxiv.org/abs/2507.11521

Lab experiments, data, models, analytical/computational tools. 93 pages, >1k references.

With Fabian Baumann, David Garcia, Gerardo Iñiguez, Márton Karsai, Jan Lorenz, Katarzyna Sznajd-Weron. Led by Michele Starnini
Opinion dynamics: Statistical physics and beyond
Opinion dynamics, the study of how individual beliefs and collective public opinion evolve, is a fertile domain for applying statistical physics to complex social phenomena. Like physical systems, soc...
arxiv.org
July 16, 2025 at 5:57 AM
Reposted by Stefan Herzog
lewan.bsky.social
Fully transparent and open AI coming out of Switzerland soon. Something worth monitoring. ethz.ch/en/news-and-...
A language model built for the public good
ETH Zurich and EPFL will release a large language model (LLM) developed on public infrastructure. Trained on the “Alps” supercomputer at the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS), the new LLM ma...
ethz.ch
July 14, 2025 at 6:30 AM
Reposted by Stefan Herzog
jamiecummins.bsky.social
Social scientists should not use chat interfaces when using LLMs in their research: they are impressively inefficient, and obscure/impose important methodological decisions that require thought.

THREAD🧵
June 23, 2025 at 4:31 PM
Reposted by Stefan Herzog
jamiecummins.bsky.social
New preprint commentary from me, @malte.the100.ci, and @ianhussey.mmmdata.io.

Cognitive dissonance in large language models is neither cognitive nor dissonant.

THREAD BELOW 🧵

osf.io/preprints/ps...
OSF
osf.io
July 7, 2025 at 1:39 PM