Alexandra Olteanu
@aolteanu.bsky.social
Ethical/Responsible AI. Rigor in AI. Opinions my own. Principal Researcher @ Microsoft Research. Grumpy eastern european in north america. Lovingly nitpicky.
Pinned
Alexandra Olteanu
@aolteanu.bsky.social
· Jun 18
We have to talk about rigor in AI work and what it should entail. The reality is that impoverished notions of rigor do not only lead to some one-off undesirable outcomes but can have a deeply formative impact on the scientific integrity and quality of both AI research and practice 1/
Reposted by Alexandra Olteanu
📣 It's again that time of the year 🤩 - our internship call for the FATE team @ MSR Montreal and our collaborators is now up! 🎉🎉
We are broadly looking for candidates interested in perceptions, evaluation, uses, and impacts of AI!
#FAccT #FAccT2025 #CHI2025 #NeurIPS2025 #ACL2025
We are broadly looking for candidates interested in perceptions, evaluation, uses, and impacts of AI!
#FAccT #FAccT2025 #CHI2025 #NeurIPS2025 #ACL2025
December 5, 2025 at 8:52 PM
📣 It's again that time of the year 🤩 - our internship call for the FATE team @ MSR Montreal and our collaborators is now up! 🎉🎉
We are broadly looking for candidates interested in perceptions, evaluation, uses, and impacts of AI!
#FAccT #FAccT2025 #CHI2025 #NeurIPS2025 #ACL2025
We are broadly looking for candidates interested in perceptions, evaluation, uses, and impacts of AI!
#FAccT #FAccT2025 #CHI2025 #NeurIPS2025 #ACL2025
Interested in any of these areas? Apply here:
apply.careers.microsoft.com/careers/job/...
apply.careers.microsoft.com/careers/job/...
December 5, 2025 at 8:52 PM
Interested in any of these areas? Apply here:
apply.careers.microsoft.com/careers/job/...
apply.careers.microsoft.com/careers/job/...
If you are interested in conceptual clarity, construct validity, benchmarks, and/or anthropomorphic AI behavior, design, or impacts you should consider applying! 🤩 If you are interested in consent and ownership frameworks for AI artifacts, I would really love to talk to you! 😍
December 5, 2025 at 8:52 PM
If you are interested in conceptual clarity, construct validity, benchmarks, and/or anthropomorphic AI behavior, design, or impacts you should consider applying! 🤩 If you are interested in consent and ownership frameworks for AI artifacts, I would really love to talk to you! 😍
📣 It's again that time of the year 🤩 - our internship call for the FATE team @ MSR Montreal and our collaborators is now up! 🎉🎉
We are broadly looking for candidates interested in perceptions, evaluation, uses, and impacts of AI!
#FAccT #FAccT2025 #CHI2025 #NeurIPS2025 #ACL2025
We are broadly looking for candidates interested in perceptions, evaluation, uses, and impacts of AI!
#FAccT #FAccT2025 #CHI2025 #NeurIPS2025 #ACL2025
December 5, 2025 at 8:52 PM
📣 It's again that time of the year 🤩 - our internship call for the FATE team @ MSR Montreal and our collaborators is now up! 🎉🎉
We are broadly looking for candidates interested in perceptions, evaluation, uses, and impacts of AI!
#FAccT #FAccT2025 #CHI2025 #NeurIPS2025 #ACL2025
We are broadly looking for candidates interested in perceptions, evaluation, uses, and impacts of AI!
#FAccT #FAccT2025 #CHI2025 #NeurIPS2025 #ACL2025
@zey.bsky.social's paper and talk at ICWSM'14 (my first ICWSM!) shaped my thinking on issues around data/technology and the type of problems I still spend my time working on/thinking about. Can't think of a better keynote speaker for my first NeurIPS.
December 3, 2025 at 11:02 PM
@zey.bsky.social's paper and talk at ICWSM'14 (my first ICWSM!) shaped my thinking on issues around data/technology and the type of problems I still spend my time working on/thinking about. Can't think of a better keynote speaker for my first NeurIPS.
On my way to
@neuripsconf.bsky.social -- this is my first time at #NeurIPS and looking forward to seeing folks and presenting our paper on Rigor in AI. Do find me if you want to chat about rigor in AI, anthropomorphic AI, or evaluations #NeurIPS2025
@neuripsconf.bsky.social -- this is my first time at #NeurIPS and looking forward to seeing folks and presenting our paper on Rigor in AI. Do find me if you want to chat about rigor in AI, anthropomorphic AI, or evaluations #NeurIPS2025
December 1, 2025 at 11:50 AM
On my way to
@neuripsconf.bsky.social -- this is my first time at #NeurIPS and looking forward to seeing folks and presenting our paper on Rigor in AI. Do find me if you want to chat about rigor in AI, anthropomorphic AI, or evaluations #NeurIPS2025
@neuripsconf.bsky.social -- this is my first time at #NeurIPS and looking forward to seeing folks and presenting our paper on Rigor in AI. Do find me if you want to chat about rigor in AI, anthropomorphic AI, or evaluations #NeurIPS2025
Reposted by Alexandra Olteanu
It's the season for PhD apps!! 🥧 🦃 ☃️ ❄️
Apply to Wisconsin CS to research
- Societal impact of AI
- NLP ←→ CSS and cultural analytics
- Computational sociolinguistics
- Human-AI interaction
- Culturally competent and inclusive NLP
with me!
lucy3.github.io/prospective-...
Apply to Wisconsin CS to research
- Societal impact of AI
- NLP ←→ CSS and cultural analytics
- Computational sociolinguistics
- Human-AI interaction
- Culturally competent and inclusive NLP
with me!
lucy3.github.io/prospective-...
November 11, 2025 at 10:32 PM
It's the season for PhD apps!! 🥧 🦃 ☃️ ❄️
Apply to Wisconsin CS to research
- Societal impact of AI
- NLP ←→ CSS and cultural analytics
- Computational sociolinguistics
- Human-AI interaction
- Culturally competent and inclusive NLP
with me!
lucy3.github.io/prospective-...
Apply to Wisconsin CS to research
- Societal impact of AI
- NLP ←→ CSS and cultural analytics
- Computational sociolinguistics
- Human-AI interaction
- Culturally competent and inclusive NLP
with me!
lucy3.github.io/prospective-...
Unexpected (amount of) snow day
November 11, 2025 at 4:42 AM
Unexpected (amount of) snow day
Reposted by Alexandra Olteanu
Our forthcoming NeurIPS position paper, led by @aolteanu.bsky.social, makes this argument (along with several related ones) in more depth. Rigorous AI/ML work should flow from explicit and rigorous premises, not just have a final evaluation that checks some rigor boxes. arxiv.org/abs/2506.14652
Rigor in AI: Doing Rigorous AI Work Requires a Broader, Responsible AI-Informed Conception of Rigor
In AI research and practice, rigor remains largely understood in terms of methodological rigor -- such as whether mathematical, statistical, or computational methods are correctly applied. We argue th...
arxiv.org
November 7, 2025 at 12:19 PM
Our forthcoming NeurIPS position paper, led by @aolteanu.bsky.social, makes this argument (along with several related ones) in more depth. Rigorous AI/ML work should flow from explicit and rigorous premises, not just have a final evaluation that checks some rigor boxes. arxiv.org/abs/2506.14652
I wish folks would use more precise terminology than "AI sycophancy." Not all validating behaviours/interactions are sycophantic. By definition, for them to be sycophantic there needs to be an underlying intention to e.g., gain advantage or favour. Intention is something AI systems do not have.
October 18, 2025 at 1:44 AM
I wish folks would use more precise terminology than "AI sycophancy." Not all validating behaviours/interactions are sycophantic. By definition, for them to be sycophantic there needs to be an underlying intention to e.g., gain advantage or favour. Intention is something AI systems do not have.
Love this analogy
People who coax chatbots into sensible answers are basically opening and closing the fridge until it contains something you wanna eat, yes, eventually you get hungrier & eat the stuff in there. But what changed was your cognition. The fridge stayed the same. You changed your mind about the contents.
October 1, 2025 at 10:23 PM
Love this analogy
Perhaps not as much about how real is or is not, but this is a paper that substantially shaped my views on this topic (I have also been surprised at times about how different folks' conceptualizations of reproducibility can be) cs.uwaterloo.ca/~brecht/cour...
cs.uwaterloo.ca
September 30, 2025 at 6:21 PM
Perhaps not as much about how real is or is not, but this is a paper that substantially shaped my views on this topic (I have also been surprised at times about how different folks' conceptualizations of reproducibility can be) cs.uwaterloo.ca/~brecht/cour...
As we prepare the camera-ready version of this paper, I am also reflecting on how to make this work handier and more useful: rigor cards to make the different facets of rigor easier to grasp? workshops to provide a forum for discussion and debates? something else that would be helpful to you?
September 29, 2025 at 11:13 PM
As we prepare the camera-ready version of this paper, I am also reflecting on how to make this work handier and more useful: rigor cards to make the different facets of rigor easier to grasp? workshops to provide a forum for discussion and debates? something else that would be helpful to you?
This was accepted to #NeurIPS 🎉🎊
TL;DR Impoverished notions of rigor can have a formative impact on AI work. We argue for a broader conception of what rigorous work should entail & go beyond methodological issues to include epistemic, normative, conceptual, reporting & interpretative considerations
TL;DR Impoverished notions of rigor can have a formative impact on AI work. We argue for a broader conception of what rigorous work should entail & go beyond methodological issues to include epistemic, normative, conceptual, reporting & interpretative considerations
We have to talk about rigor in AI work and what it should entail. The reality is that impoverished notions of rigor do not only lead to some one-off undesirable outcomes but can have a deeply formative impact on the scientific integrity and quality of both AI research and practice 1/
September 29, 2025 at 11:13 PM
This was accepted to #NeurIPS 🎉🎊
TL;DR Impoverished notions of rigor can have a formative impact on AI work. We argue for a broader conception of what rigorous work should entail & go beyond methodological issues to include epistemic, normative, conceptual, reporting & interpretative considerations
TL;DR Impoverished notions of rigor can have a formative impact on AI work. We argue for a broader conception of what rigorous work should entail & go beyond methodological issues to include epistemic, normative, conceptual, reporting & interpretative considerations
Reposted by Alexandra Olteanu
"Epistemic rigor, however, does not necessarily require specific epistemological commitments or choices but rather that those commitments and choices be made explicit."
www.arxiv.org/abs/2506.14652
www.arxiv.org/abs/2506.14652
Rigor in AI: Doing Rigorous AI Work Requires a Broader, Responsible AI-Informed Conception of Rigor
In AI research and practice, rigor remains largely understood in terms of methodological rigor -- such as whether mathematical, statistical, or computational methods are correctly applied. We argue th...
www.arxiv.org
September 12, 2025 at 2:09 PM
"Epistemic rigor, however, does not necessarily require specific epistemological commitments or choices but rather that those commitments and choices be made explicit."
www.arxiv.org/abs/2506.14652
www.arxiv.org/abs/2506.14652
Not sure if it has what you need or if they are still collecting but this might be worth checking out archive.org/details/twit...
July 31, 2025 at 2:41 PM
Not sure if it has what you need or if they are still collecting but this might be worth checking out archive.org/details/twit...
Listening to a workshop panel at #acl2025 I am realizing that we are saying more or less the same things and having more or less the same conversations for so many years
July 31, 2025 at 11:52 AM
Listening to a workshop panel at #acl2025 I am realizing that we are saying more or less the same things and having more or less the same conversations for so many years
#acl2025 I think there is plenty of evidence for the risks of anthropomorphic AI behavior and design (re: keynote) -- find @myra.bsky.social and I if you want to chat more about this or our "Dehumanizing Machines" ACL 2025 paper
Our FATE MTL team has been working on a series of projects on anthropomorphic AI systems for which we recently put out a few pre-prints I’m excited about. While working on these we tried to think carefully not only about key research questions but also how we study and write about these systems
July 29, 2025 at 7:45 AM
#acl2025 I think there is plenty of evidence for the risks of anthropomorphic AI behavior and design (re: keynote) -- find @myra.bsky.social and I if you want to chat more about this or our "Dehumanizing Machines" ACL 2025 paper
Reposted by Alexandra Olteanu
In a stunning moment of self-delusion, the Wall Street Journal headline writers admitted that they don't know how LLM chatbots work.
July 21, 2025 at 1:48 AM
In a stunning moment of self-delusion, the Wall Street Journal headline writers admitted that they don't know how LLM chatbots work.
Who is attending @aclmeeting.bsky.social in Vienna? Reach out or find me there if you want to chat! #acl2025nlp
July 19, 2025 at 4:10 PM
Who is attending @aclmeeting.bsky.social in Vienna? Reach out or find me there if you want to chat! #acl2025nlp
Reposted by Alexandra Olteanu
My university has announced a fund to essentially poach doctoral students from US institutions. DM me if you do work on the history/social impacts of AI and are interested in being poached 😂
July 17, 2025 at 8:17 PM
My university has announced a fund to essentially poach doctoral students from US institutions. DM me if you do work on the history/social impacts of AI and are interested in being poached 😂
Not sure who needs to hear this but what people want AI systems to do, what AI systems do, and what people believe AI systems do are not the same thing. Just because one wants or believes AI systems do or can do certain things, doesn't mean they actually do those things.
July 16, 2025 at 10:14 PM
Not sure who needs to hear this but what people want AI systems to do, what AI systems do, and what people believe AI systems do are not the same thing. Just because one wants or believes AI systems do or can do certain things, doesn't mean they actually do those things.
Reposted by Alexandra Olteanu
If you're at @icmlconf.bsky.social this week, come check out our poster on "Position: Evaluating Generative AI Systems Is a Social Science Measurement Challenge" presented by the amazing @afedercooper.bsky.social from 11:30am--1:30pm PDT on Weds!!! icml.cc/virtual/2025...
ICML Poster Position: Evaluating Generative AI Systems Is a Social Science Measurement ChallengeICML 2025
icml.cc
July 15, 2025 at 6:35 PM
If you're at @icmlconf.bsky.social this week, come check out our poster on "Position: Evaluating Generative AI Systems Is a Social Science Measurement Challenge" presented by the amazing @afedercooper.bsky.social from 11:30am--1:30pm PDT on Weds!!! icml.cc/virtual/2025...
Reposted by Alexandra Olteanu
Do you have strong programming skills but need research experience doing meaningful & exciting CSS projects before heading off to a top graduate school for computational social science PhD? Apply now to predoc with me,
@dggoldst.bsky.social @jakehofman.bsky.social www.microsoft.com/en-us/resear...
@dggoldst.bsky.social @jakehofman.bsky.social www.microsoft.com/en-us/resear...
Predoctoral Research Assistant (Contract) – Computational Social Science - Microsoft Research
Are you a recent college graduate wishing to gain research experience prior to pursuing a Ph.D. in fields related to computational social science (CSS)? Do you have a deep love of “playing with data”—...
www.microsoft.com
July 10, 2025 at 3:48 PM
Do you have strong programming skills but need research experience doing meaningful & exciting CSS projects before heading off to a top graduate school for computational social science PhD? Apply now to predoc with me,
@dggoldst.bsky.social @jakehofman.bsky.social www.microsoft.com/en-us/resear...
@dggoldst.bsky.social @jakehofman.bsky.social www.microsoft.com/en-us/resear...
tiny but perhaps in their defense Cailler is probably the best chocolate in the world 🍫
July 7, 2025 at 11:52 PM
tiny but perhaps in their defense Cailler is probably the best chocolate in the world 🍫