Lisa Messeri
@lmesseri.bsky.social
anthropologist of sci & tech. Prof @Yale. author of "Placing Outer Space" and VR book "In the Land of the Unreal". tech criticism with good vibes.
Pinned
Lisa Messeri
@lmesseri.bsky.social
· Oct 21
AI Surrogates and illusions of generalizability in cognitive science
Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have generated enthusiasm for using AI simulations of human research participants to generate new know…
www.sciencedirect.com
Can the human sciences exist w/out the human? Proposals for using AI as human research subjects suggest yes. But @mjcrockett.bsky.social and I respond with, ‘not so fast.’ In fact, silicon subjects say more about the problems of the research paradigm than the promises of AI. 🚨New article, thread 1/
Tragic. This funded my dissertation research and many of the students in our program.
NEW from me - NSF cancels grant scheme for social science research.
Seems the NSF quietly archived ALL calls for DDRIG grants in the SBE directorate. This is a massive blow for PhD students wanting to do cutting-edge social science research. 🏺🧪
Seems the NSF quietly archived ALL calls for DDRIG grants in the SBE directorate. This is a massive blow for PhD students wanting to do cutting-edge social science research. 🏺🧪
Today's biggest science news: Doomed comet explodes | Comet 3I/ATLAS course alteration | Dark matter detected?
Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025: Your daily feed of the biggest discoveries and breakthroughs making headlines.
www.livescience.com
November 27, 2025 at 12:52 PM
Tragic. This funded my dissertation research and many of the students in our program.
i'm staring into the future forged by "AI scientists" and, my friends, it is bleak. Humans might be slow and expensive, but let's all just agree that this trade off is worth it, m'kay?
November 25, 2025 at 8:36 PM
i'm staring into the future forged by "AI scientists" and, my friends, it is bleak. Humans might be slow and expensive, but let's all just agree that this trade off is worth it, m'kay?
Reposted by Lisa Messeri
My amazing department is hiring a Linguistic Anthropologist!
careercenter.americananthro.org/job/707272/a...
careercenter.americananthro.org/job/707272/a...
Assistant Professor of Anthropology (Linguistic Anthropology) - Williamsburg, Virginia job with William & Mary | 707272
Tenure track position at the Assistant Professor level in linguistic anthropology
careercenter.americananthro.org
November 25, 2025 at 1:49 PM
My amazing department is hiring a Linguistic Anthropologist!
careercenter.americananthro.org/job/707272/a...
careercenter.americananthro.org/job/707272/a...
Reposted by Lisa Messeri
Now that #AAA2025 is a wrap—time for an award 🏆 thread! Congratulations @lmesseri.bsky.social for winning this year's Gregory Bateson Book Prize!! Awarded for In the Land of the Unreal: Virtual and Other Realities in Los Angeles. More info here @dukepress.bsky.social: dukeupress.edu/in-the-land-...
November 24, 2025 at 10:19 PM
Now that #AAA2025 is a wrap—time for an award 🏆 thread! Congratulations @lmesseri.bsky.social for winning this year's Gregory Bateson Book Prize!! Awarded for In the Land of the Unreal: Virtual and Other Realities in Los Angeles. More info here @dukepress.bsky.social: dukeupress.edu/in-the-land-...
🥰🥰🥰
Congratulations to @lmesseri.bsky.social whose book "In the Land of the Unreal" by has been named the winner of the Gregory Bateson Prize, given by @culanth.bsky.social!
buff.ly/PXLvQC9
buff.ly/PXLvQC9
November 24, 2025 at 8:00 PM
🥰🥰🥰
#AAA2025 has been its usual whirlwind of fun and overwhelm. But I can’t underscore how much it has meant for ‘in the land of the unreal’ to be recognized as the winner of the Bateson book prize, and to celebrate the news w my ever growing anthro fam. @dukepress.bsky.social @culanth.bsky.social
November 22, 2025 at 8:53 PM
#AAA2025 has been its usual whirlwind of fun and overwhelm. But I can’t underscore how much it has meant for ‘in the land of the unreal’ to be recognized as the winner of the Bateson book prize, and to celebrate the news w my ever growing anthro fam. @dukepress.bsky.social @culanth.bsky.social
excellently timed for the annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association. Fill your feeds, folks at #AAA2025
Episode 46: Sapiens
It's an ambitious goal to write the entire history of humanity in just 400 pages. It's even more ambitious to do it without reading any research.
It's an ambitious goal to write the entire history of humanity in just 400 pages. It's even more ambitious to do it without reading any research.
Sapiens
Podcast Episode · If Books Could Kill · 11/20/2025 · 1h 38m
podcasts.apple.com
November 20, 2025 at 10:43 PM
excellently timed for the annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association. Fill your feeds, folks at #AAA2025
I would really like tech reporters to actually test of this products and see if they accomplish what they company says they will, instead of just running ad copy.
The service rolling out "Deep Research," a tool that will automate and simplify complex online research.
Google's NotebookLM adds 'Deep Research' tool, support for more file types | TechCrunch
The service rolling out "Deep Research," a tool that will automate and simplify complex online research.
techcrunch.com
November 13, 2025 at 5:13 PM
I would really like tech reporters to actually test of this products and see if they accomplish what they company says they will, instead of just running ad copy.
absolutely. which is why this was the definition for AI that @mjcrockett.bsky.social and I included in our recent TiCS article
November 11, 2025 at 2:00 PM
absolutely. which is why this was the definition for AI that @mjcrockett.bsky.social and I included in our recent TiCS article
Reposted by Lisa Messeri
This NeurIPS workshop claims that LLMs "provide an important foundation for exploring human cognition, emotion, and social interaction"
This is flawed logic, as @lmesseri.bsky.social and I argue here:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
This is flawed logic, as @lmesseri.bsky.social and I argue here:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
November 9, 2025 at 3:23 PM
This NeurIPS workshop claims that LLMs "provide an important foundation for exploring human cognition, emotion, and social interaction"
This is flawed logic, as @lmesseri.bsky.social and I argue here:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
This is flawed logic, as @lmesseri.bsky.social and I argue here:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Reposted by Lisa Messeri
Excited to welcome @lmesseri.bsky.social, @cameronbuckner.bsky.social and @carlbergstrom.com to campus a week from today for the “AI and the Nature of Science: Concepts and Controversies” event. 14.11.25, 1400 - 1800.
AI and the Nature of Science
Bringing together cutting-edge perspectives and helping set an agenda for future research and application
buff.ly
November 7, 2025 at 2:45 PM
Excited to welcome @lmesseri.bsky.social, @cameronbuckner.bsky.social and @carlbergstrom.com to campus a week from today for the “AI and the Nature of Science: Concepts and Controversies” event. 14.11.25, 1400 - 1800.
Reposted by Lisa Messeri
Pop-up AI defacing your article critical of AI captures a lot of what it feels like to work in this space.
@lmesseri.bsky.social
@lmesseri.bsky.social
November 7, 2025 at 3:47 PM
Pop-up AI defacing your article critical of AI captures a lot of what it feels like to work in this space.
@lmesseri.bsky.social
@lmesseri.bsky.social
Reposted by Lisa Messeri
Important work revealing limitations of using LLMs as human surrogates.
Note, however, that even if LLMs' textual outputs were perfectly human-like, they would still be poor models of human cognition, as @lmesseri.bsky.social argue here:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Note, however, that even if LLMs' textual outputs were perfectly human-like, they would still be poor models of human cognition, as @lmesseri.bsky.social argue here:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
November 7, 2025 at 3:39 PM
Important work revealing limitations of using LLMs as human surrogates.
Note, however, that even if LLMs' textual outputs were perfectly human-like, they would still be poor models of human cognition, as @lmesseri.bsky.social argue here:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Note, however, that even if LLMs' textual outputs were perfectly human-like, they would still be poor models of human cognition, as @lmesseri.bsky.social argue here:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Yesterday's NYTimes platforming of the heinous perspective that women have ruined the workforce was bad. But to post a photo of the the winner of the Great British Bake Off first thing Friday morning? Have you no respect for your readers?
November 7, 2025 at 12:55 PM
Yesterday's NYTimes platforming of the heinous perspective that women have ruined the workforce was bad. But to post a photo of the the winner of the Great British Bake Off first thing Friday morning? Have you no respect for your readers?
Yale Anthropology is doing an open rank search for environmental anthropology. Happy to answer questions in DMs (I am not on the search committee). We’re a lovely department (imo) and given the current higher ed atmosphere, Yale has been doing a decent job at getting us thru (knock on wood).
Assistant/Associate/Full Professor, Environmental Anthropology - New Haven, Connecticut job with Yale University, Department of Anthropology | 704970
The Department of Anthropology at Yale University seeks to hire a full-time tenure-track or tenured assistant/associate/full professor in environme...
careercenter.americananthro.org
November 6, 2025 at 3:07 PM
Yale Anthropology is doing an open rank search for environmental anthropology. Happy to answer questions in DMs (I am not on the search committee). We’re a lovely department (imo) and given the current higher ed atmosphere, Yale has been doing a decent job at getting us thru (knock on wood).
I am participating and reviewing submissions for this workshop. so let's get some interesting proposals here, yeah? If you are an STSer/anthropologist working on how AI is changing ideas and practices in the sciences, would love to have you in the conversation.
The Craft of Science with AI: Evidence, Judgment, and Practice
We invite researchers and practitioners to join us in examining how scientific reasoning and imagination are being reconfigured as AI systems become a part of the everyday practice of science. Learn m...
datasociety.net
November 6, 2025 at 2:44 PM
I am participating and reviewing submissions for this workshop. so let's get some interesting proposals here, yeah? If you are an STSer/anthropologist working on how AI is changing ideas and practices in the sciences, would love to have you in the conversation.
I don't write about outer space much these days, but I do have two new essays out on the topic. The first is a short afterward for a recent collection of critical outer space studies. I wonder why our space imagination has become so narrow and draw inspiration from NK Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy
Afterword: Critique and Imagination: Re-Connecting with the Infinit...
On 29 April 2025, the James Web Space Telescope released an image titled “A Visual Feast of Galaxies.” The image is densely packed with pinpricks of light, most of which, upon closer inspection, tr...
journals.openedition.org
November 6, 2025 at 2:25 PM
I don't write about outer space much these days, but I do have two new essays out on the topic. The first is a short afterward for a recent collection of critical outer space studies. I wonder why our space imagination has become so narrow and draw inspiration from NK Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy
Reposted by Lisa Messeri
Yay! Out now!! Thanks to @lmesseri.bsky.social @niiyokamigaabaw.bsky.social, Alexandra Ganser, Stefanie Dunning, Natalie Treviño, Matt Harvey and Frédéric Boone for their wonderful contributions and afterwords!
@jenstemmen.bsky.social and I are happy to announce the publication of our special issue on Critical Outer Space Studies. Warm thanks to the contributors, the Caliban editorial team, and our student assistants for their hard work throughout the process! 🪐🚀🌌
journals.openedition.org/caliban/14586
journals.openedition.org/caliban/14586
Critical Outer Space Studies: Framing an Emerging Field. Introduction
On October 13, 2021, 90-year-old actor William Shatner, globally known for his role of Captain James T. Kirk, gallivanting captain of the starship Enterprise on the TV show Star Trek, emerged from ...
journals.openedition.org
November 5, 2025 at 3:13 PM
Yay! Out now!! Thanks to @lmesseri.bsky.social @niiyokamigaabaw.bsky.social, Alexandra Ganser, Stefanie Dunning, Natalie Treviño, Matt Harvey and Frédéric Boone for their wonderful contributions and afterwords!
For the Minnesotans out there, see post below for upcoming book talk! My host, @justcode.bsky.social, wrote a lovely review of my book right when it came out. Also it's the final days of the @dukepress.bsky.social Fall book sale (thru Nov 9). Use FALL25 code on the press website to get 50% off!
November 4, 2025 at 6:20 PM
For the Minnesotans out there, see post below for upcoming book talk! My host, @justcode.bsky.social, wrote a lovely review of my book right when it came out. Also it's the final days of the @dukepress.bsky.social Fall book sale (thru Nov 9). Use FALL25 code on the press website to get 50% off!
Some Sunday reading, if you are so inclined (open access pre-print linked in the thread comments
👇
👇
Can the human sciences exist w/out the human? Proposals for using AI as human research subjects suggest yes. But @mjcrockett.bsky.social and I respond with, ‘not so fast.’ In fact, silicon subjects say more about the problems of the research paradigm than the promises of AI. 🚨New article, thread 1/
AI Surrogates and illusions of generalizability in cognitive science
Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have generated enthusiasm for using AI simulations of human research participants to generate new know…
www.sciencedirect.com
November 2, 2025 at 6:40 PM
Some Sunday reading, if you are so inclined (open access pre-print linked in the thread comments
👇
👇
Reposted by Lisa Messeri
Love it, seasonally appropriate, no notes
We draw a parallel to WEIRD, proposing that CogSci is DEAD (Decontextualized, Engineered, Anonymized, and Disembodied). This is meant to be provocative, of course, but, like WEIRD, it is in the spirit of illuminating limitations and striving for better science 6/
October 25, 2025 at 12:27 AM
Love it, seasonally appropriate, no notes
stubbled across a short NYT piece by Toni Morrison from 1973. This line stood out: "For this year fantasy itself lost its genuineness. The normal lines of communication between sham and reality had broken down."
On to Disneyland and the Real Unreality (Published 1973)
www.nytimes.com
October 24, 2025 at 12:02 PM
stubbled across a short NYT piece by Toni Morrison from 1973. This line stood out: "For this year fantasy itself lost its genuineness. The normal lines of communication between sham and reality had broken down."
Reposted by Lisa Messeri
Spotted on LinkedIn... a bad AI summary of our new paper on risks of AI in research.
Please make it stop.
Please make it stop.
October 23, 2025 at 9:58 PM
Spotted on LinkedIn... a bad AI summary of our new paper on risks of AI in research.
Please make it stop.
Please make it stop.
Reposted by Lisa Messeri
'New research coordinated by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and led by the BBC has found that AI assistants – already a daily information gateway for millions of people – routinely misrepresent news content no matter which language, territory, or AI platform is tested.' 1/2
Largest study of its kind shows AI assistants misrepresent news content 45% of the time – regardless of language or territory
An intensive international study was coordinated by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and led by the BBC
www.bbc.co.uk
October 23, 2025 at 1:47 PM
'New research coordinated by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and led by the BBC has found that AI assistants – already a daily information gateway for millions of people – routinely misrepresent news content no matter which language, territory, or AI platform is tested.' 1/2
Reposted by Lisa Messeri
I’ll say it straight: It is unbecoming, undignified, cowardly, and shameful for a institution as revered and respected as the University of Virginia to grant an audience in 2025 to those who are committed to destroying science, free thought, human rights, and the rule of law.
October 22, 2025 at 6:20 PM
I’ll say it straight: It is unbecoming, undignified, cowardly, and shameful for a institution as revered and respected as the University of Virginia to grant an audience in 2025 to those who are committed to destroying science, free thought, human rights, and the rule of law.