Philine Widmer

phinifa.bsky.social

10 March 2026 18:51

Can feed algorithms shape what people think about politics? Our paper "The Political Effects of X's Feed Algorithm" is out today in Nature and answers "Yes." www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Colin

colin-fraser.net

10 March 2026 18:48

It’s crazy how often this seems to be missed. You guys think the teacher likes reading 30 eighth grade book reports on the same book? You think the teacher is depending you to find the right answers to the math exam?

Colin

colin-fraser.net

10 March 2026 18:45

I of course have maintained the exactly perfect balance of these two perspectives which has remained constantly correct the whole time

Colin

colin-fraser.net

10 March 2026 18:44

On the one hand of course there’s now a kind of computer program that you can talk to in plain English and it somewhat autonomously does stuff and colloquially it’s called an “agent” but I think the term is loaded with meaning that doesn’t exactly apply, in particular around things like goal-seeking

Colin

colin-fraser.net

10 March 2026 18:44

It’s incredibly easy to trick yourself into believing the first person account and subsequently that there’s a guy there with drives and desires and to whom things can be left up, in the same way it’s easy to convince yourself a volcano erupts because it’s angry.