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#socialscience

8 posts7 participants0 posts today

A quotation from Orwell

Power worship blurs political judgement because it leads, almost unavoidably, to the belief that present trends will continue. Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible. […] This habit of mind leads also to the belief that things will happen more quickly, completely, and catastrophically than they ever do in practice. The rise and fall of empires, the disappearance of cultures and religions, are expected to happen with earthquake suddenness, and processes which have barely started are talked about as though they were already at an end.

George Orwell (1903-1950) English writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
Essay (1946-05), “Second Thoughts on James Burnham,” Polemic Magazine

Sourcing, notes: wist.info/orwell-george/19106/

It seems that a clear majority of teens are doing okay with chatbot companions. There is a minority, who are at risk. This seems typical for anything new.

the study:
2025 Talk, Trust, and Trade-Offs: How and Why Teens Use AI Companions commonsensemedia.org/sites/def

AP article:
Teens say they are turning to AI for advice, friendship and ‘to get out of thinking’. apnews.com/article/ai-companio

“AI is always available. It never gets bored with you. It’s never judgmental. When you’re talking to AI, you are always right. You’re always interesting. You are always emotionally justified.”

Replied in thread

@GermanRepro @ReproducibiliTeaGlobal Thanks, we're very happy to join the @GermanRepro family! 🥳

If you're a #humanities or #SocialScience student or researcher, do join our mailing list to be the first to know about our winter semester programme starting in October 2025: lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/lis. 📬

Most of our events are hybrid so you can either join us in Cologne for tea and cookies or from the comfort of your own office/home! 🫖 🍪

Note that, for security reasons, Zoom links for online participation are communicated via the mailing list only. 📩

Das letzte Puzzlestück für den Forschungszugang für nicht öffentlich verfügbare #Plattformdaten ist da. Die Aufgaben für #DSCs, #Forschende und #Plattformen sind nun klar verteilt.

Die Wissenschaftler:innen @lkseiling , @dscheykopp , @claesdevreese & @ulrikeklinger warnen davor, das Vertrauen auf allen Seiten nicht zu enttäuschen und schnell zu liefern.

🔗 background.tagesspiegel.de/dig

"War. Climate change. Unemployment. Against these headline-dominating issues, AI still feels like a gimmick to many. Yet experts warn that AI will reshape all of these issues and more - to say nothing of potential changes to our work and relationships. The question is: do people see the connection? What will make them care?

This research is the first large-scale effort to answer those questions. We polled 10,000 people across the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, and Poland to understand how AI fits into their broader hopes and fears for the future
(...)
The truth is that people are concerned that AI will worsen almost everything about their daily lives, from relationships and mental health to employment and democracy. They’re not concerned about “AI” as a concept; they’re concerned about what it will do to the things they already care about most.
(...)
People continue to rank AI low in their list of overall concerns. But we have discovered that there is a strong latent worry about AI risks, because people believe AI will make almost everything they care about worse.

This concern is not even. Rather, it plays into existing societal divisions, with women, lower-income and minority respondents most concerned about AI risks.

When it comes to what we worry about when we worry about AI, we have found that concern to be evolving rapidly. People worry most about relationships, more even than about their jobs.

People don't perceive AI as a catastrophic risk like war or climate change; though 1 in 3 are worried that AI might pursue its own goals outside our control, this is actually a lower proportion than
some surveys found for the same question two years ago.

Instead, our respondents see AI as a pervasive influence that modifies risk in a host of other areas, with concern about specific harms on the rise."

report2025.seismic.org/

@51north/project-template-nuxtSeismic Report 2025 | Seismic FoundationIn this report, through original research, we show how public opinion about AI is changing.

"It's happened again. This time it's the new western darling, "good #syria" that is coming under direct attack by Israel for the crime of still existing.
At the same time, in Colombia there is some much needed multilateralism forming against the #gaza #genocide and in the West, the Anti-Russian propaganda bubble still pretends that #russia is losing 10x the soldiers #ukraine loses." - Pascal Lottaz

--

#socialscience #geopolitics #mena

📲 Video: Neutrality Studies

youtube.com/watch?v=a3HzO77bjL4

Watch CPC-CG Director Professor Jane Falkingham CBE speaking to #BBC South Today Breakfast about a new CPC-CG Report on rising public health #funerals in England, highlighting a need to tackle older people's deprivation.

Catch the longer bulletin on tonight's BBC South Today at 18:30.

youtu.be/Fr2gnC3mRbs?si=0fueSm

Full story: cpc.ac.uk/news/latest_news/?ac

youtu.be- YouTubeEnjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

📢 New paper: Who owns the future of Artificial Intelligence?

In a Discussion Paper titled “Big Tech vs. the Common Good: Pathologies of the Technology Race for Artificial Intelligence”, Florian Butollo and Esther Görnemann examine the consequences of the global race for dominance in artificial intelligence and develop policy recommendations.

🔗 weizenbaum-institut.de/en/news

#AI #BigTech #CommonGood #research #socialscience #socialmedia #digitalization
@WZB_Berlin @WZB_GlobalWork

🤼 To understand America today, study the zero-sum mindset, writes Stefanie Stantcheva

Young people and city-dwellers are among those most likely to see one group’s gain as another’s loss

(great insight into political psychology!)

economist.com/by-invitation/20

🆓 archive.ph/fW8sW

The Economist · To understand America today, study the zero-sum mindset, writes Stefanie StantchevaBy The Economist

🌐 As we mark #WorldPopulationDay2025, find out more about recent CPC-CG #fertility and #family research providing insights and policy evidence under this year's #UnitedNations theme:

"Empowering #youngpeople to create the #families they want in a fair and hopeful world"

Read the full story - with plenty of further reading material to get your teeth into: cpc.ac.uk/news/latest_news/?ac