Paul Smaldino @psmaldino@qoto.org

For my (obligatory) lectures on consciousness in my Intro CogSci class, I assign Douglas Hofstadter's "Careenium" essay from 1982. No matter how many times I re-read it, I always find new stuff in there. What a delight.

Publication day! The modeling textbook I started five years ago is finally out today. I'm proud of it, and really grateful to everyone who helped make it better.

PUP: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691224145/modeling-social-behavior

AMZN: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0691224145?tag=it_books_com-20

My book, Modeling Social Behavior, comes out in just 5 days in North America and the EU. Zounds! I think it's very good and you should get it, but you don't have to take my word for it -- the 1st chapter is free on the PUP website.
PUP: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691224145/modeling-social-behavior
AMZN: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0691224145?tag=it_books_com-20

In four weeks, my book comes out in the US. Insanity. If you're interested, you can pre-order at the usual spots.

PUP: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691224145/modeling-social-behavior

AMZN: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0691224145?tag=it_books_com-20

I kind of hate the standard Cognitive Science "hexagon." The disciplines feel totally false to the realities of actually understanding human cognition and behavior. When I teach intro to cogsci, here's the version I present, in case it's useful to anyone.

Diggin’ the way my book looks on the old modelin’ shelf.

As promised, here's the full album, out today. DAD SONGS is 13 indie/garage/art-rock songs about the milieu of fatherhood. Enjoy.
https://open.spotify.com/album/0fJnZzY6vsdLALXy5XU9tC?si=otWcjuOJQEq7qrCmRiZlhA

Advance copies of my book just showed up! I’m really happy with every aspect of this thing, including the spine. Available now for pre-order, out October 3 (US).

PUP: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691224145/modeling-social-behavior
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Modeling-Social-Behavior-Mathematical-Agent-Based/dp/0691224145

Minor life goal: solve NYT Saturday crossword in under 10 minutes. Closing in on it.

I'm an author on the research being profiled in this LA Times article, but few things have convinced me about the extent to which Twitter has become a toxic place as much as the responses to the tweet of the article by the @latimes. https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2023-04-27/hate-speech-twitter-surged-since-elon-musk-takeover

(link to tweet: https://twitter.com/latimes/status/1651583247707430919?s=20)

LA Times covering our research on hate speech on Twitter:
"One billionaire owner, twice the hate: Twitter hate speech surged with Musk, study says" https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2023-04-27/hate-speech-twitter-surged-since-elon-musk-takeover

New paper on auditing Elon's early impact on Twitter.
- Hateful users became more hateful
- Hate increased dramatically
- There was no overall change in bots

Paper (accepted to ICWSM 2023) is here:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.04129

I'm prepping a lecture on social learning strategies, and took the opportunity to revisit this scene that is irrevocably seared into my memory.

How many potatoes could fit in a pair of pants?

I'm really into learning Julia and Agents.jl (mastering these is my top summer goal), but I have really come around to loving NetLogo -- I wanted a stochastic block model with visualization, and made this from scratch in literally 5 minutes.

Here’s a new preprint w Zack Dunivin: Dynamics of covert signaling: Modeling the emergence and extinction of identity signals.

We use theoretical modeling to explore the dynamics of identity signals when their use is penalized by a hostile outgroup.

Depending on the benefits of coordination and expected costs of discovery by outgroups individuals, we should expect a wide range of dynamics for the emergence and persistence of identity signals.

Feedback much appreciated.

https://psyarxiv.com/3tz2r/

My last semester teaching my modeling course without a physical copy of my book. This is still probably my favorite figure, from Chapter 5: Opinion Dynamics.

I was recently on the @sfiscience@mastodon.sdf.org #Complexity Podcast with C Thi Nguyen. We had a bonkers far-reaching conversation about selection, incentives, institutions and #CulturalEvolution. Good times. https://complexity.simplecast.com/episodes/101

Our grad group discussed #ChatGPT today, and I argued that it should never be considered an author because it has no agency or accountability. Nor should it. I direct interested parties to
@j2bryson 's evergreen essay "Robots Should Be Slaves" http://www.cs.bath.ac.uk/~jjb/ftp/Bryson-Slaves-Book09.html

New paper with Cody Moser. We use modeling to explore how the network structures that best support innovation are also (1) less efficient per capita, and (2) create more severe inequality of knowledge among individuals. The latter is likely to be linked to other forms of inequality. https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/n3hc6