David Barnard-Wills
@dbarnardwills.bsky.social
520 followers
750 following
84 posts
Political scientist working in tech. Emerging technology. Previously Research-Innovation Lead at Trilateral Research. Privacy, ethical AI and responsible innovation. Manchester UK
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Reposted by David Barnard-Wills
Can large language models stand in for human participants?
Many social scientists seem to think so, and are already using "silicon samples" in research.
One problem: depending on the analytic decisions made, you can basically get these samples to show any effect you want.
THREAD 🧵
Many social scientists seem to think so, and are already using "silicon samples" in research.
One problem: depending on the analytic decisions made, you can basically get these samples to show any effect you want.
THREAD 🧵
The threat of analytic flexibility in using large language models to simulate human data: A call to attention
Social scientists are now using large language models to create "silicon samples" - synthetic datasets intended to stand in for human respondents, aimed at revolutionising human subjects research. How...
arxiv.org
Reposted by David Barnard-Wills
Reposted by David Barnard-Wills
Connected by Data
@connectedbydata.org
· Sep 11
Public sector public engagement on data and AI
Whenever we speak to public servants who are keen to involve the public more on decisions about data and AI, an early subject to be raised is always: who’s already done it, and how did they do it? People are understandably keen to learn from what has already been tried.
This blog/case study is part of a series exploring how public sector organisations involve the public, workers and civil society in decisions about data and AI, and some of the consequences when they do not. Read more about our work on public involvement in public sector data and AI.
connectedbydata.org
Reposted by David Barnard-Wills
Reposted by David Barnard-Wills
ProfDanny
@profdanny.bsky.social
· Sep 2
On Critical Technologies
Policy@Manchester’s publication On Critical Technologies offers sharp insights, robust evidence, and forward-thinking policy recommendations from leading experts at The University of Manchester.
policyatmanchester.shorthandstories.com
Reposted by David Barnard-Wills
Reposted by David Barnard-Wills
Niall Firth
@niallfirth.bsky.social
· Jul 18
A major AI training data set contains millions of examples of personal data
Personally identifiable information has been found in DataComp CommonPool, one of the largest open-source data sets used to train image generation models.
www.technologyreview.com