Thomas Davidson

Assistant Professor of Sociology @RutgersU | Computational social science, politics, and AI

[Thomas Davidson @thomasrdavidson]

New paper in Nature Human Behaviour.

I use a conjoint experiment to evaluate the capabilities of the latest models for context-sensitive moderation and compare the results with those from human subjects, demonstrating how social science techniques can enhance AI auditing. 💻🤖💬

[Workshop on Online Abuse and Harms @WOAHWorkshop]

📢 Call for Reviewers: WOAH @ #EMNLP2026

WOAH is looking for reviewers to help evaluate submissions for our 10th edition at EMNLP 2026.

Interested in serving as a reviewer?

🔗 https://t.co/1pPuTGFCXL

Thank you for helping us make #WOAH2026 a success!

#NLP #AI #OnlineSafety

[William J. Brady @william__brady]

✨New paper out @SpringerNature✨ For 8 weeks around the 2024 US election, we randomly assigned 2,000 people to use social media algos we custom-built. Do engagement-based algorithms amplify intergroup, moral & emotional content + does that distort how we see political norms? 🧵

[Thomas Davidson @thomasrdavidson]

Mercor has some interesting opportunities for getting involved in evaluating frontier AI models. I have found it an insightful experience, and you can get paid for helping to make AI less sloppy! Happy to chat if anyone has questions.

https://t.co/LFAtR61MRc

[Workshop on Online Abuse and Harms @WOAHWorkshop]

🚨 Update: WOAH Mentorship @ #EMNLP2026 🚨

Deadline extended to April 17! 📅

Still time to apply as mentor or mentee and develop your WOAH submission with expert guidance 💡

📝 Mentor: https://t.co/Z9OUFx8kRe
📝 Mentee: https://t.co/gtFinlUxsU

Join us! 🌍 #NLP #WOAH

[Xi Song @xisong]

📢 Applications Open!

Join the 2026 Summer Academy on Large Language Models for Social Science at Columbia University
🗓 May 26 – June 5, 2026

📅 Apply by March 20, 2026
#LLM #SocialScience #AIResearch #ComputationalSocialScience #NLP

[PNAS Nexus @PNASNexus]

AI-generated summaries of history led to more liberal opinions compared to Wikipedia, while summaries by chatbots prompted to use a conservative framing produced more conservative opinions—but primarily among conservative readers. In PNAS Nexus: https://t.co/7h5RgyQ1Rj

[Emma Zang 臧熙璐 @DrEmmaZang]

Call for Submissions: AI for Social Science Methodology @yaledatascience
• Keynote: @NAChristakis
• Panel with editors of leading journals on publishing AI research
• Mentoring roundtables for early-career scholars
• Generous travel support
Discussion-driven, high-quality research.
📩 Submit your work:
https://t.co/ABS3tc3VAn
Please share with colleagues working at the AI × social science frontier! @Yale @PopAssocAmerica

[Chris Bail @chris_bail]

Want to learn about computational social science *for free* and identify new research partners across academic fields? Apply to one of the 2026 Summer Institutes in Computational Social Science (described in yellow in the attached map) here: https://t.co/trE4O9OhCc

[Thomas Davidson @thomasrdavidson]

New paper in Nature Human Behaviour.

I use a conjoint experiment to evaluate the capabilities of the latest models for context-sensitive moderation and compare the results with those from human subjects, demonstrating how social science techniques can enhance AI auditing. 💻🤖💬

[Nature Human Behaviour @NatureHumBehav]

Article by @thomasrdavidson examines how multimodal LLMs evaluate hate speech: larger models aligned with human judgment in context-sensitive decisions, but pervasive demographic and lexical biases remain, and visual identity cues may amplify disparities.
https://t.co/Rv7i9PrqvU

[Thomas Davidson @thomasrdavidson]

The paper is out now: https://t.co/N8kt3yYHhp

You can read it without a paywall using this guest link: https://t.co/GeKNHj2EZs

[Thomas Davidson @thomasrdavidson]

New paper in Nature Human Behaviour.

I use a conjoint experiment to evaluate the capabilities of the latest models for context-sensitive moderation and compare the results with those from human subjects, demonstrating how social science techniques can enhance AI auditing. 💻🤖💬

[Thomas Davidson @thomasrdavidson]

Overall, these results show that MLLMs can make more context-sensitive moderation decisions than text-based classifiers. These systems still make mistakes, and context can cut both ways, eliminating some biases while enabling others. Human oversight thus remains essential.

[Kristina Gligorić @krisgligoric]

I'm recruiting multiple PhD students for Fall 2026 in Computer Science at @JHUCompSci 🍂
Apply to work on AI for social sciences/human behavior, social NLP, and LLMs for real-world applied domains you're passionate about!
Learn more https://t.co/KbTJevMb8J & help spread the word!

[David Pettinicchio @d_pettinicchio]

Happy to announce the 2025-2026
@UTM @UTMsoc Speaker Series @UofT @UofTNews @LucaMPesando @MarotoMichelle @thomasrdavidson

[Thomas Davidson @thomasrdavidson]

@cbarrie Congrats, looks like an amazing resource, particularly the multimodal component (something I have been kicking myself for not collecting in earlier times!)

[Workshop on Online Abuse and Harms @WOAHWorkshop]

Should WOAH start a mentorship programme? 🤔

As the workshop grows, reviewer expectations are rising.
We don’t want contributors from adjacent communities penalised by *CL norms.

Senior PhDs and beyond could be mentors.

Share your thoughts:

👉 https://t.co/P81Tg5c8U2