David Rand
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dgrand.bsky.social
David Rand
@dgrand.bsky.social
Prof at Cornell studying how human-AI dialogues can correct inaccurate beliefs, why people share falsehoods, and ways to reduce political polarization and promote cooperation. Computational social science + cognitive psychology.
https://www.DaveRand.org/
Ya 100%! Pre-registration is not a straightjacket that prevents you from doing other analyses. It is just a tool for increasing transparency so that we can know what you planned ahead of time vs what you found afterward
November 26, 2025 at 6:34 PM
It's also basically impossible from a practical perspective bc there's no way to have a human expert available on the fly to answer any possible conspiracy theory a participant describes. I'm sure somebody will do something like this at some point, but it's not the direction I'm pursuing
November 23, 2025 at 3:38 PM
We looked at what happens if you label the AI as an expert vs an AI (doesn't make it any less persuasive to call it an expert). But havent tried actual humans - almost certainly humans will do much worse bc they dont have easy access to all the relevant facts etc academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...
Dialogues with large language models reduce conspiracy beliefs even when the AI is perceived as human
Abstract. Although conspiracy beliefs are often viewed as resistant to correction, recent evidence shows that personalized, fact-based dialogues with a lar
academic.oup.com
November 23, 2025 at 12:28 AM
For a deeper dive, check out this 20 minute talk youtu.be/qVjjcw4w6-Q and try the bot yourself at www.DebunkBot.com

Hats off to lead author Nat Rabb, joint senior @tomcostello.bsky.social and collabs @gordpennycook.bsky.social @adamberinsky.bsky.social Alexander Levontin
Debunking Antisemitic Conspiracy Theories using AI - David Rand
YouTube video by David Rand
youtu.be
November 22, 2025 at 3:23 PM
In Jan 2024, yes X was certainly more ideologically diverse than BlueSky
November 14, 2025 at 8:59 PM
Well, this data is from Jan 2024. Unclear what it would look like today...
November 14, 2025 at 7:44 PM
Interestingly, it's more about some notable high-quality outlets underperforming on engagement, rather than low-quality outlets overperforming:
November 14, 2025 at 6:44 PM
It's actually more about some notable high-quality outlets underperforming, rather than low-quality outlets overperforming:
November 14, 2025 at 6:43 PM
The paper, in figures:
F1=Cross-platforms Corr b/w partisan lean and quality
F2=Corr between lean and engagement varies cross-platform, s/t dominant-lean news gets more engagement
F3=Neg corr between quality and engagement across all platforms!
Led by @mmosleh.bsky.social w @jennyallen.bsky.social
November 14, 2025 at 2:35 PM
I'm trying to understand what this means and I haven't succeeded yet. Any chance you'd want to break to down more for us bskyers?
November 10, 2025 at 3:00 PM
For me, the point of Multiverse analysis is when there are multiple ways of analyzing the data that all seem reasonable. So it's not that you just throw in any possible model and drown out the reasonable models in the specified ones, but rather that you show robustness among reasonable models
October 21, 2025 at 7:20 PM