In work out in December 2024 in @SciReports, Matt Jones and I conduct experiments to study the role of leadership within factions of larger groups struggling to reach consensus on a contentious topic. 1/ For groups to reach consensus, which is a common and crucial social task, constituent individuals must share information across network ties and make concessions to others people, trading off personal versus collective interests. 2/

The bacteria in your gut depend on where you are in the social network.

And the microbes within us treat our social networks as the extended environment in which they thrive. They can spread from person to person.

New #HNL work out today in @Nature. 1/ "Gut microbiome strain-sharing within isolated village social networks" with @chocophlan, @JacksonPullman1, @mqdicer, @ShivkumarVs, @DrewPrinster, @adarshsingh110, RM Juárez, @eairoldi, @ilanabrito123 #HNL 2/ nature.com/articles/s4158…

In new work from #HNL in @NatureComms, we explore the ability of simple AI to affect the capacity of creativity of human groups. This work continues a stream of work we inaugurated in 2017, studying “hybrid systems” of humans and machines. 1/ nature.com/articles/s4146… The primary obstacle to finding good ideas is normally not that innovations are hard to evaluate, but rather that coming up with an original idea that pushes the boundary of available ideas is hard. This is a challenge that groups can both mitigate and amplify. Distinctly, since AI can alter group behavior, AI might also affect creativity. 2/

Human beings have both friends and enemies, and they can track such connections. Why? It’s not hard to see why we evolved the capacity for friendship, but why do we have a capacity for animosity, and how might it shape our social networks, potentially for the better? 1/ In new work in @PNASNews, @Amir_Ghasemian and I explore “The Structure and Function of Antagonistic Ties in Village Social Networks.”

At the population level, the existence of antagonism has important implications for the overall structure and function of human groups. #HNL 2/

pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn…

Social contagion is a powerful force.

People copy the thoughts, feelings, & actions of those to whom they are connected. Understanding social network structure & function makes it possible to use social contagion to intervene in the world to improve health, wealth, & learning. In a large randomized controlled field trial in 24,702 people in 176 isolated villages in Honduras, published in @ScienceMagazine on May 3, 2024, we showed how social contagion can be used to improve human welfare. #HNL @eairoldi science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…

I have some thoughts on this fine statement by @Yale President Peter Salovey regarding desire by some students to impose "ideological litmus test" for access to a shared Yale space.

Salovey said: “Those protestors asked individuals who wished to pass through or enter their area, which is a shared campus space, to agree with their political viewpoints. This action is unacceptable and antithetical to the very purpose of a university.”

It’s is quite right to reject this impulse, but where might students have got this sort of idea?

https://x.com/sfmcguire79/status/1785059023688974360

The background for this statement is pro-Palestinian protests and certain recent actions by some protestors.

For the removal of doubt, I wholly support the right to protest and am sympathetic both to Israel and the civilians suffering horribly in Gaza. I have no problem with the tents or public art.

But protest that stops others from using the campus crosses line into civil disobedience and is distinct from free expression.

and

https://x.com/NAChristakis/status/1784704919687106788

https://x.com/NAChristakis/status/1784750205344129063

How will AI affect the way we treat each other?

In "hybrid systems" of humans and machines, how will AI (whether simple or complex) affect not just human-machine interactions, but human-human interactions in the presence of machines?

Will AI change human ethical behavior? 1/ In new work in @PNASNews, we showcase a novel cyber-physical system of people driving cars via the internet in an experimental diorama. This system allows us to explore how forms of AI affect existing human norms of cooperation and coordination. 2/ pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn…

If you hide people's wealth, you can make the economic gradient in happiness go away, in part by making poor people relatively happier.

New (somewhat dispiriting) experiments spearheaded by @Nishi_Akihiro in @NatMentHealth #HNL 1/ nature.com/articles/s4422…
A lot of the economic gradient in subjective well being (SWB) with respect to wealth has to do with the invidious comparisons people can make with those around them. 2/

Laundering of claims: This @CNN link () says that 2,00 children have died in Gaza recently, and attributes info to an 'aid agency,' namely @SavetheChildren, and provides an embedded link you can click to for possible independent data. But....cnn.com/2023/10/24/mid… When you click on link, you go to an article which reports that 'at least 2,000 children killed in Gaza' (which might be true and would be awful – the situation in Gaza is horrific, for sure!): But the article provides an embedded link for its source....savethechildren.net/news/least-200…

Fantastic letter from Dean Jenny Martinez of @Stanford @StanfordLaw defending fundamental principles of a university and addressing the wrong-headed means of protest employed by lawyers-in training at her school a few weeks ago. Bravo. law.stanford.edu/wp-content/upl… I wish Presidents and Deans at universities had been able to forthrightly do such a thing for the past ten years.

Super-cool @PNASNews study examines historical changes in decision-making by professional Go players from 1950 to 2021, focusing on changes in game play after the advent of superhuman AI (i.e., AlphaGo). pnas.org/doi/epdf/10.10… 1/ Human players in human-human matches began to make significantly better decisions in Go following the advent of superhuman AI. Players’ strategies across time changed to reflect more novelty (in the first 60 moves of a game). 2/

It's been exactly 3 years since I pinned this thread of threads re #COVID19. The early threads prompted me to write #ApollosArrow which has stood the test of time, I think (amazon.com/Apollos-Arrow-…).

And, as forecast, the pandemic is ending. I'm unpinning the thread—on schedule.

https://twitter.com/NAChristakis/status/1239204599959093250

*subject to the low-likelihood emergence of a novel strain of the virus that fully evades our vaccines or that is much deadlier. ;-)

A Black Professor Trapped in Anti-Racist Hell compactmag.com/article/a-blac… via @compactmag_ Students said: "I had used racist language. I had misgendered Brittney Griner. I had repeatedly confused the names of two black students. My body language harmed them. I hadn’t corrected facts that were harmful to hear when the (now-purged) students introduced them in class...."

This is an absolutely fantastic teaching tool, on multiple levels, regarding philosopher John Searle's "Chinese Room" thought experiment. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_r… via @social_brains Just watch it, below! 1/

https://twitter.com/social_brains/status/1616914964480163840

The Chinese room argument holds that a digital computer executing a program cannot have a "mind", "understanding," or "consciousness", regardless of how intelligently or human-like the program may make the computer behave. 2/

Bravo to Dean Elmendorf! This is admirable: “It is important for institutions to be able to recognize where they have made an error that encroaches on free speech and academic freedom and to correct it.” chronicle.com/article/after-… Exactly what a university should do: “That’s fine and appropriate for that kind of institution,” because representing numerous viewpoints is part of the purpose of a “premier public policy program.” nytimes.com/2023/01/19/art…

Ever since COVID vaccines were first developed, there's been some debate about whether & by how much they prevent not just illness, hospitalization, & death, but also transmission. The mRNA vaccines were not, alas, truly sterilizing and did not reduce infectiousness by much. 1/ This technical point has intersected with politics, as people have argued that the state and employers have no right to mandate vaccination if being unvaccinated does not place anyone else at (direct) risk. 2/

"One of the most egregious violations of academic freedom.” Ms Aram Wedatalla &, more to the point, the ostensible educators here (Marcela Kostihova, @FayneeseMiller, & @Jaylanihussein) seem unable to understand a plural society or teaching of art history. nytimes.com/2023/01/08/us/… The overwrought emotionality of so many of these absurd campus outbursts seeking to have a (typically female) teacher fired for the good faith performance of pedagogic duties, as described in this article (nytimes.com/2023/01/08/us/…) about the new @HamlineU case, evokes The Bacchae

What really is amazing about this situation at Stanford is that they willingly convened and *funded* a committee to do this and then promptly lacked courage to defend it by quickly withdrawing list from public availability. If you’re making a list of prohibited words, defend it.

https://twitter.com/venturetwins/status/1604335401325379584

Or, better yet, do not waste university resources preparing reports that cannot withstand even the slightest scrutiny.

A short thread of photos with other network scientists over the past decade or so. With Tom Snijders and @twvalente and another person whose name I cannot place (help me?). About 15 years ago in DC.

Fine essay on absurd & dishonest attack on @hoovlet

'While activists insist biological reality of sex binary is wrong-headed & pernicious, the true threat to science and human dignity is idea that in order to support anyone’s rights we must deny reality.' link.springer.com/content/pdf/10… "While some who are fighting for the rights of gender minorities may sincerely believe that subverting science is necessary to protect an oppressed population, department chairs and university presidents are tasked with ensuring that the campus environment....

Since the late 1990s and into the 2000s, many scientists have been engaged in what I call the "assembly project” of modern science. For the past few centuries, swept by a reductionistic fervor and by considerable success, scientists have been purposefully examining ever-smaller parts of nature in order to understand the whole.