Paul Smaldino @psmaldino@qoto.org

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

Driving my daughter (3.5) to preschool, “Left Behind” by Slipknot came on the radio. I asked her if she liked it because otherwise we could change it, and she gave me a sly grin and a thumbs up. I found this funny, so texted my wife when I got to the school. When I got home, opened insta to find this. The cookies never sleep.

OK, last one I promise.

For the die-hard Only Connect fans.

So I started messing around with ChatGPT.

My book has a cover. I like it.

Just found out that my book can be pre-ordered! Release date is October 3, 2023. Text has been finalized, cover is still being designed.
PUP: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691224138/modeling-social-behavior
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0691224145?tag=it_books_com-20

From the custom editor's style guide used for copyediting my upcoming book -- here are the B's and W's. The intersection of many things.

My grad students designed real t-shirts for our fictional intramural team, The Hydras (symbolizing interdisciplinarity, and I guess perseverance?). I love this.