Social Futures Lab
@socialfutureslab.bsky.social
We are the Social Futures Lab at UW CSE! We are reimagining social and collaborative systems to empower people and improve society.
https://social.cs.washington.edu/
https://social.cs.washington.edu/
Reposted by Social Futures Lab
Yesterday, as part of the #CSCW2025 virtual session, Philip Baillargeon, a summer REU intern with us last year, presented his DEI Recognition award paper: Who Puts the "Social" in "Social Computing"?: Using A Neurodiversity Framing to Review Social Computing Research. dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1...
Who Puts the
Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW)
have a longstanding tradition of interrogating the values that underlie systems in
order to create novel and accessibl...
dl.acm.org
October 12, 2025 at 5:38 AM
Yesterday, as part of the #CSCW2025 virtual session, Philip Baillargeon, a summer REU intern with us last year, presented his DEI Recognition award paper: Who Puts the "Social" in "Social Computing"?: Using A Neurodiversity Framing to Review Social Computing Research. dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1...
Reposted by Social Futures Lab
earlier this summer I published my first paper of my phd! ✨ a qualitative study on how creative writers are using AI in their writing and what their strategies were in order to align with their personal writing values
September 9, 2025 at 8:37 PM
earlier this summer I published my first paper of my phd! ✨ a qualitative study on how creative writers are using AI in their writing and what their strategies were in order to align with their personal writing values
Reposted by Social Futures Lab
Wow, really excited to have our paper highlighted by Alondra Nelson! I'll be presenting this paper at @facct.bsky.social next Thursday at 9am (local time) for anyone interested in learning more! A paper thread is soon to come 👀
What are the African values and ethical theories that can inform responsible data science practices in Africa?...We conduct a thematic analysis [and]...derived an ethical framework consisting of six major principles rooted in the realities of data science work in Africa arxiv.org/html/2502.16...
African Data Ethics: A Discursive Framework for Black Decolonial Data Science
arxiv.org
June 19, 2025 at 1:06 AM
Wow, really excited to have our paper highlighted by Alondra Nelson! I'll be presenting this paper at @facct.bsky.social next Thursday at 9am (local time) for anyone interested in learning more! A paper thread is soon to come 👀
Reposted by Social Futures Lab
🤖LLMs are being integrated everywhere, but how do we ensure they're delivering meaningful user experiences?
In our #chi2025 paper, we empower designers to think about this via 🎨designerly adaptation🎨 of LLMs and built a Figma widget to help!
📜 arxiv.org/abs/2401.09051
🧵👇
In our #chi2025 paper, we empower designers to think about this via 🎨designerly adaptation🎨 of LLMs and built a Figma widget to help!
📜 arxiv.org/abs/2401.09051
🧵👇
April 25, 2025 at 3:02 PM
🤖LLMs are being integrated everywhere, but how do we ensure they're delivering meaningful user experiences?
In our #chi2025 paper, we empower designers to think about this via 🎨designerly adaptation🎨 of LLMs and built a Figma widget to help!
📜 arxiv.org/abs/2401.09051
🧵👇
In our #chi2025 paper, we empower designers to think about this via 🎨designerly adaptation🎨 of LLMs and built a Figma widget to help!
📜 arxiv.org/abs/2401.09051
🧵👇
Reposted by Social Futures Lab
AI agents are entering online social spaces, but often their messages feel generic or intrusive. In our #CHI25 paper, we introduce Social-RAG, a workflow that grounds AI generations in the specific group context by retrieving from the group’s interaction history. 🧵(1/9)
April 23, 2025 at 9:14 PM
AI agents are entering online social spaces, but often their messages feel generic or intrusive. In our #CHI25 paper, we introduce Social-RAG, a workflow that grounds AI generations in the specific group context by retrieving from the group’s interaction history. 🧵(1/9)
Reposted by Social Futures Lab
Do you make custom feeds on Bluesky? We'd love to hear about your experiences as part of a research project at @uofwa.bsky.social @socialfutureslab.bsky.social ! Come chat with us for 45 mins and get $20 gift card. Express your interest here: forms.gle/CtoZTwCovTv8....
April 15, 2025 at 6:23 PM
Do you make custom feeds on Bluesky? We'd love to hear about your experiences as part of a research project at @uofwa.bsky.social @socialfutureslab.bsky.social ! Come chat with us for 45 mins and get $20 gift card. Express your interest here: forms.gle/CtoZTwCovTv8....
Reposted by Social Futures Lab
If you are passionate about the AI's potential to help **over-worked** public defenders, please share this! If you happen to have work experience in the public sector, please sign up for our interviews! 🤩
From @peterhenderson.bsky.social's POLARIS Lab: 🚨Public Defenders - We need your insights! We’re conducting a research study to explore how #AI can better serve you & your clients. Your experiences can shape the future of AI legal tools designed specifically for public defenders. Sign-up 🔗🔻
April 15, 2025 at 8:41 PM
If you are passionate about the AI's potential to help **over-worked** public defenders, please share this! If you happen to have work experience in the public sector, please sign up for our interviews! 🤩
Reposted by Social Futures Lab
Can LLM prompting help social media users create and iterate on their content filters more easily?
In our #CHI2025 paper, we compared in an experiment three authoring strategies:
🤖 Prompting LLM
🔎 Labeling examples for ML classifiers
📐 Authoring keyword rules
(🧵1/N)
In our #CHI2025 paper, we compared in an experiment three authoring strategies:
🤖 Prompting LLM
🔎 Labeling examples for ML classifiers
📐 Authoring keyword rules
(🧵1/N)
March 25, 2025 at 1:07 AM
Can LLM prompting help social media users create and iterate on their content filters more easily?
In our #CHI2025 paper, we compared in an experiment three authoring strategies:
🤖 Prompting LLM
🔎 Labeling examples for ML classifiers
📐 Authoring keyword rules
(🧵1/N)
In our #CHI2025 paper, we compared in an experiment three authoring strategies:
🤖 Prompting LLM
🔎 Labeling examples for ML classifiers
📐 Authoring keyword rules
(🧵1/N)
Reposted by Social Futures Lab
In-context learning can be an effective way to conduct value alignment of LLMs through examples, but when there are multiple pluralistic groups, are the best examples for one group also the ones for another?
We explore this in our paper 🌟SPICA🌟
(🧵1/9)
We explore this in our paper 🌟SPICA🌟
(🧵1/9)
March 17, 2025 at 5:52 PM
In-context learning can be an effective way to conduct value alignment of LLMs through examples, but when there are multiple pluralistic groups, are the best examples for one group also the ones for another?
We explore this in our paper 🌟SPICA🌟
(🧵1/9)
We explore this in our paper 🌟SPICA🌟
(🧵1/9)
Reposted by Social Futures Lab
Are any of you content creators on YouTube or can share this with any creators on YouTube? We're looking to test out a system we've built to enable creators to make custom filters for their comments, no technical skills needed! We offer $20 for a 1 hour remote session where you can try out the tool.
Redirecting...
homes.cs.washington.edu
March 4, 2025 at 3:41 AM
Are any of you content creators on YouTube or can share this with any creators on YouTube? We're looking to test out a system we've built to enable creators to make custom filters for their comments, no technical skills needed! We offer $20 for a 1 hour remote session where you can try out the tool.
Reposted by Social Futures Lab
When it comes to social platforms, #UWAllen prof & 2025 #SloanFellow @amyxzhang.bsky.social seeks to empower users and “make our online spaces as rich and varied as our offline ones.” Learn more about her work in the @socialfutureslab.bsky.social: news.cs.washington.edu/2025/02/24/a... #UWdiscovers
Allen School professor Amy X. Zhang receives Sloan Research Fellowship for empowering users to make ‘our online spaces as rich and varied as our offline ones’ - Allen School News
As the head of the Allen School’s Social Futures Lab, professor Amy X. Zhang’s research draws on the design of offline public institutions and communities to then develop new social computing systems ...
news.cs.washington.edu
February 25, 2025 at 8:38 PM
When it comes to social platforms, #UWAllen prof & 2025 #SloanFellow @amyxzhang.bsky.social seeks to empower users and “make our online spaces as rich and varied as our offline ones.” Learn more about her work in the @socialfutureslab.bsky.social: news.cs.washington.edu/2025/02/24/a... #UWdiscovers
Reposted by Social Futures Lab
Congrats to our undergrad Andre Ye for being named a Hertz Fellow finalist (and only finalist from UW)! www.hertzfoundation.org/news/52-fina...
52 Finalists Named for the 2025 Hertz Fellowships | Fannie and John Hertz Foundation
The Fannie and John Hertz Foundation today announced 52 finalists for the 2025 Hertz Fellowships in applied sciences, mathematics and engineering. Selected from more than 1,000 applicants and represen...
www.hertzfoundation.org
February 23, 2025 at 3:20 AM
Congrats to our undergrad Andre Ye for being named a Hertz Fellow finalist (and only finalist from UW)! www.hertzfoundation.org/news/52-fina...
Reposted by Social Futures Lab
Zhang, whose research aims to empower people to take control of their online social experiences, is one of 3 @uofwa.bsky.social faculty to earn Sloan Fellowships this year, joined by @neuroamyo.bsky.social and @uwchemistry.bsky.social ’s Diane Xiao: www.washington.edu/news/2025/02... #UWdiscovers /2
Three UW scientists named Sloan Fellows
Three University of Washington faculty members have been awarded early-career fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The new Sloan Fellows, announced Feb. 18, are Amy L. Orsborn, the Clare.....
www.washington.edu
February 19, 2025 at 1:09 AM
Zhang, whose research aims to empower people to take control of their online social experiences, is one of 3 @uofwa.bsky.social faculty to earn Sloan Fellowships this year, joined by @neuroamyo.bsky.social and @uwchemistry.bsky.social ’s Diane Xiao: www.washington.edu/news/2025/02... #UWdiscovers /2
Reposted by Social Futures Lab
Huge congratulations to #UWAllen professor @axz.bsky.social of @socialfutureslab.bsky.social and Ph.D. alum Lydia Chilton, professor at @columbiauniversity.bsky.social, on their selection as 2025 @sloanfoundation.bsky.social #SloanFellows in computer science! sloan.org/fellowships/... #ThisIsUW 1/2
2025 Fellows | Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
Our mission is to make the world a better place through the advancement of scientific knowledge.
sloan.org
February 19, 2025 at 1:09 AM
Huge congratulations to #UWAllen professor @axz.bsky.social of @socialfutureslab.bsky.social and Ph.D. alum Lydia Chilton, professor at @columbiauniversity.bsky.social, on their selection as 2025 @sloanfoundation.bsky.social #SloanFellows in computer science! sloan.org/fellowships/... #ThisIsUW 1/2
Reposted by Social Futures Lab
🤔Giving complex tasks to AI agents is easy—getting them to do exactly what you want isn’t. How can human-AI collaboration give us more reliable & steerable agents?
🍫Introducing Cocoa, our new interaction paradigm for balancing human & AI agency in complex human-AI workflows. 🧵
🍫Introducing Cocoa, our new interaction paradigm for balancing human & AI agency in complex human-AI workflows. 🧵
January 16, 2025 at 3:19 PM
🤔Giving complex tasks to AI agents is easy—getting them to do exactly what you want isn’t. How can human-AI collaboration give us more reliable & steerable agents?
🍫Introducing Cocoa, our new interaction paradigm for balancing human & AI agency in complex human-AI workflows. 🧵
🍫Introducing Cocoa, our new interaction paradigm for balancing human & AI agency in complex human-AI workflows. 🧵
Reposted by Social Futures Lab
Tomorrow at #GROUP2025, @jina.bsky.social will present a paper on her interviews with people who voluntarily respond to misinformation online and their membership in different communities dedicated to supporting this: the Twitter/X Community Notes Discord, r/QAnonCasualties, and r/vaxxhappened.
January 15, 2025 at 5:21 AM
Tomorrow at #GROUP2025, @jina.bsky.social will present a paper on her interviews with people who voluntarily respond to misinformation online and their membership in different communities dedicated to supporting this: the Twitter/X Community Notes Discord, r/QAnonCasualties, and r/vaxxhappened.
Reposted by Social Futures Lab
Hi everyone, I am excited to share our large-scale survey study with 800+ researchers, which reveals researchers’ usage and perceptions of LLMs as research tools, and how the usage and perceptions differ based on demographics.
See results in comments!
🔗 Arxiv link: arxiv.org/abs/2411.05025
See results in comments!
🔗 Arxiv link: arxiv.org/abs/2411.05025
LLMs as Research Tools: A Large Scale Survey of Researchers' Usage and Perceptions
The rise of large language models (LLMs) has led many researchers to consider their usage for scientific work. Some have found benefits using LLMs to augment or automate aspects of their research pipe...
arxiv.org
December 2, 2024 at 7:45 PM
Hi everyone, I am excited to share our large-scale survey study with 800+ researchers, which reveals researchers’ usage and perceptions of LLMs as research tools, and how the usage and perceptions differ based on demographics.
See results in comments!
🔗 Arxiv link: arxiv.org/abs/2411.05025
See results in comments!
🔗 Arxiv link: arxiv.org/abs/2411.05025
Reposted by Social Futures Lab
Hi Bluesky (+ many friendly familiar faces). I'm a researcher in HCI + ML, assistant prof at Simon Fraser University up in BC, and working on "healthy data flow". Doing a quick thread recapping some recent writing (blogs, pre-prints, etc.) that capture the things I work on and talk about!
November 19, 2024 at 5:59 PM
Hi Bluesky (+ many friendly familiar faces). I'm a researcher in HCI + ML, assistant prof at Simon Fraser University up in BC, and working on "healthy data flow". Doing a quick thread recapping some recent writing (blogs, pre-prints, etc.) that capture the things I work on and talk about!
Reposted by Social Futures Lab
This platform is already bubbling with people who care about reimagining the social internet into something better.
Here's a starter pack. Reply with more folks we should add!
Here's a starter pack. Reply with more folks we should add!
November 13, 2024 at 9:14 PM
This platform is already bubbling with people who care about reimagining the social internet into something better.
Here's a starter pack. Reply with more folks we should add!
Here's a starter pack. Reply with more folks we should add!
Reposted by Social Futures Lab
Are you a researcher in CS or a CS-adjacent field who uses planning docs to organize your research? Want to try out our new AI agent-powered system for working with research planning docs in a paid user study? Details and sign up here! forms.gle/TGzKFaFYs6x7...
Google Forms: Sign-in
Access Google Forms with a personal Google account or Google Workspace account (for business use).
forms.gle
November 15, 2024 at 5:44 PM
Are you a researcher in CS or a CS-adjacent field who uses planning docs to organize your research? Want to try out our new AI agent-powered system for working with research planning docs in a paid user study? Details and sign up here! forms.gle/TGzKFaFYs6x7...
Reposted by Social Futures Lab
With oh so many social apps today, it's time for us social computing builders and designers to take a pause, zoom ALL the way out, and also take a trip down memory lane...
Check out @mbernst.bsky.social's talk on Wed at #CSCW2024 9:00 – 10:30 "Session 1d: Understanding and Shaping Online Behavior"!
Check out @mbernst.bsky.social's talk on Wed at #CSCW2024 9:00 – 10:30 "Session 1d: Understanding and Shaping Online Behavior"!
What unifies, and what distinguishes, social media designs? Are all the Twitter spinoffs actually meaningfully different designs from each other? Form-From is a design space from @axz.bsky.social, myself, @karger.bsky.social, and Mark Ackerman that will appear at #cscw2024: arxiv.org/abs/2402.05388
November 13, 2024 at 4:07 AM
With oh so many social apps today, it's time for us social computing builders and designers to take a pause, zoom ALL the way out, and also take a trip down memory lane...
Check out @mbernst.bsky.social's talk on Wed at #CSCW2024 9:00 – 10:30 "Session 1d: Understanding and Shaping Online Behavior"!
Check out @mbernst.bsky.social's talk on Wed at #CSCW2024 9:00 – 10:30 "Session 1d: Understanding and Shaping Online Behavior"!
Reposted by Social Futures Lab
The first author, Connie Moon Sehat, will be giving a talk on this paper on Tuesday at #cscw2024 in 16:30 – 18:00 Session 4d: "Misinformation and Fact Checking"! Also go talk to her about our new nonprofit building tools for productive public dialogue ➡️ discourselabs.org
November 12, 2024 at 5:05 AM
The first author, Connie Moon Sehat, will be giving a talk on this paper on Tuesday at #cscw2024 in 16:30 – 18:00 Session 4d: "Misinformation and Fact Checking"! Also go talk to her about our new nonprofit building tools for productive public dialogue ➡️ discourselabs.org
Reposted by Social Futures Lab
If you're attending #CSCW2024, check out this work which will be presented at noon on Monday by @ruotongw.bsky.social !
Our paper proposes a design concept 🌉meeting bridges🌉, or information artifacts that facilitate post-meeting understanding and collaboration. Arxiv link: arxiv.org/pdf/2402.03259
Our paper proposes a design concept 🌉meeting bridges🌉, or information artifacts that facilitate post-meeting understanding and collaboration. Arxiv link: arxiv.org/pdf/2402.03259
November 11, 2024 at 7:03 AM
If you're attending #CSCW2024, check out this work which will be presented at noon on Monday by @ruotongw.bsky.social !
Our paper proposes a design concept 🌉meeting bridges🌉, or information artifacts that facilitate post-meeting understanding and collaboration. Arxiv link: arxiv.org/pdf/2402.03259
Our paper proposes a design concept 🌉meeting bridges🌉, or information artifacts that facilitate post-meeting understanding and collaboration. Arxiv link: arxiv.org/pdf/2402.03259
Reposted by Social Futures Lab
Congrats to @ruotongw.bsky.social for winning the Madrona Prize at the Allen School Research Day! She won it for her pair of projects examining team communication and collaboration in remote work 👏👏👏 www.geekwire.com/2024/the-win...
The winning ideas at the UW computer science school annual research showcase
From left: Magdalena Balazinska, professor and director of the Allen School; Jon Turow, partner, Madrona; Vidya Srinivas, Ph.D. student, Allen School;
www.geekwire.com
November 5, 2024 at 7:10 PM
Congrats to @ruotongw.bsky.social for winning the Madrona Prize at the Allen School Research Day! She won it for her pair of projects examining team communication and collaboration in remote work 👏👏👏 www.geekwire.com/2024/the-win...
Reposted by Social Futures Lab
Please see our upcoming COLM paper envisioning LLMs for critical thinking! 💭We report on some interesting interviews with philosophers aka “professional thinkers” - turns out they don’t like LLMs very much for this work! 🤔
August 10, 2024 at 12:17 AM
Please see our upcoming COLM paper envisioning LLMs for critical thinking! 💭We report on some interesting interviews with philosophers aka “professional thinkers” - turns out they don’t like LLMs very much for this work! 🤔