Aleksandra Urman

@aurman21.bsky.social

1.3K followers 490 following 770 posts

Senior Research Associate, Social Computing Group, U of Zurich. Computational social/communication scientist

Videos

Political science 24%

Communication & Media Studies 24%

Posts Replies Media Videos

Aleksandra Urman @aurman21.bsky.social · 8h

In this moment people have the concept of the thing in their heads somehow, not necessarily visually, but can't remember any word corresponding to it (it helps for this trick to work ofc that I am in the Swiss context and literally every student speaks at least 2 languages).

Aleksandra Urman @aurman21.bsky.social · 8h

Ok it's really dumb. But also in case anyone finds it helpful, the best "trick" I found for the classroom to make sure students snap out of equating language and consciousness or simply thinking is asking them whether they ever had a moment when they forgot some word in all the languages they speak.

Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.bsky.social · 11h

can’t fucking catch a breath

make it stop

Is ChatGPT Conscious? Many users feel they’re talking to a real person. Scientists say it’s time to consider whether they’re onto something.
By Jeff Wise, a science journalist and private pilot.

Reposted by Cas Mudde, Jean Burgess, American Library Association , and 7 more Cas Mudde, Jean Burgess, American Library Association, Kevin Carey, Alan Richardson, Jonathan Evans, Dean Eckles, Zen Faulkes, Patrick Stokes, Aleksandra Urman

Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.bsky.social · 11h

can’t fucking catch a breath

make it stop

Reposted by Shannon Vallor, Richard S.J. Tol, Andrew Scott , and 11 more Shannon Vallor, Richard S.J. Tol, Andrew Scott, Steven French, Karin Wahl‐Jorgensen, Michelle Everson, Sara Wallace Goodman, Michael Jones‐Correa, Catherine J. Frieman, Federica Genovese, Niels Keijzer, Aleksandra Urman, Césari Laurent, Nicolai von Ondarza

Dave Keating @davekeating.substack.com · 21h

BREAKING: This is huge news, the EU's equivalent of the 🇺🇸Supreme Court's 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling.

🇪🇺Court of Justice just ruled all 🇪🇺countries must recognise same-sex marriages granted in other member states.

This effectively legalises gay marriage across 🇪🇺

www.reuters.com

Reposted by Alexander Wuttke, Damian Trilling, Aleksandra Urman

Johannes B. Gruber @jbgruber.bsky.social · 1d

After a long time in development, {traktok} #rstats is now finally on CRAN!

Whether you have access to the Research API or just want to scrape some pages, traktok has you covered

jbgruber.github.io/traktok/

Reposted by Aleksandra Urman

Dare Obasanjo @carnage4life.bsky.social · 4d

X users have found that Grok has now been so tuned to praise Elon Musk that there is no task which it doesn’t say he’s the best at. Grok says Musk is fitter than LeBron and could resurrect from the dead faster than Jesus did in three days.

So childish and funny to see a 50+ year old man do this. 🤣

Reposted by Aleksandra Urman

Sasha Costanza-Chock @schock.cc · 5d

I've been happily running Linux on my laptops since 2004.

You should try it too! Break away from the horror show of mega tech companies and join the free/libre software community. You'll be so glad you did!

Start by installing Ubuntu, here: documentation.ubuntu.com/desktop/en/l...

Install Ubuntu Desktop

In this tutorial, we’ll download and install Ubuntu Desktop 24.04 LTS on your laptop or PC. If you’ve never installed an operating system, don’t worry: Ubuntu makes the process very easy. You’ll en...

documentation.ubuntu.com

Reposted by Michael Veale, Michael D. McDonald, Alice Marwick , and 1 more Michael Veale, Michael D. McDonald, Alice Marwick, Aleksandra Urman

Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 6d

This is one of the worst, most horrifying exposures we have ever seen. It is hard to overstate how bad the things that people are using tools like for are, and it's insane to pretend like these tools are anything other than nonconsensual porn machines

www.404media.co/ai-porn-secr...

Massive Leak Shows Erotic Chatbot Users Turned Women’s Yearbook Pictures Into AI Porn

Chatbot roleplay and image generator platform SecretDesires.ai left cloud storage containers of nearly two million of images and videos exposed, including photos and full names of women from social me...

www.404media.co

Aleksandra Urman @aurman21.bsky.social · 6d

And beyond Desheng Hu who led the paper the other authors are @joachimbaumann.bsky.social Elsa Lichtenegger @rcfberg.bsky.social Aniko Hannak (all @scg-uzh.bsky.social ) and Christo Wilson (Northeastern).

Aleksandra Urman @aurman21.bsky.social · 6d

While we focus on one specific topic and case study, our overall audit framework generalizes to other high-stakes domains.

Aleksandra Urman @aurman21.bsky.social · 6d

The prevance of AI overviews and featured snippets varied significantly across query formulations in terms of question type and sentiment, thus leading to potential inequities in information access.

Aleksandra Urman @aurman21.bsky.social · 6d

AI overviews appeared in 84% of search results for the pregnancy and baby care topic (case study - English, US). Almost half of the top-cited sources in them were medium/low credibility.

Aleksandra Urman @aurman21.bsky.social · 6d

When an AI overview and a Featured Snippet were present on the same page, they provided contradictory advice in 33% of the cases.

Cautionary notes suggesting a user might want to double check the information with a medical professional were rarely present.

Aleksandra Urman @aurman21.bsky.social · 6d

Google AI overviews now reach over 2B users worldwide. But how reliable are they on high stakes topics - for instance, pregnancy and baby care?

We have a new paper - led by Desheng Hu, now accepted at @icwsm.bsky.social - exploring that and finding many issues

Preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2511.12920
🧵👇

Auditing Google's AI Overviews and Featured Snippets: A Case Study on Baby Care and Pregnancy

Google Search increasingly surfaces AI-generated content through features like AI Overviews (AIO) and Featured Snippets (FS), which users frequently rely on despite having no control over their presen...

arxiv.org

Reposted by Aleksandra Urman

Frida Thurm @fridathurm.bsky.social · 6d

NEU: Die deutsche und europäische Rolle für #Russland s Aufrüstung ist deutlich größer als bisher bekannt. Das zeigt unsere Analyse von fast 1 Mio Zolldaten: correctiv.org/aktuelles/ru... @correctiv.org @lilithgrull.bsky.social Dylan Carter #Ukraine

Trotz Sanktionen: Europas Maschinen für Putins Krieg

CORRECTIV-Recherche zeigt: Deutsche und europäische Firmen lieferten zehntausende potentielle Dual-Use-Güter nach Russland.

correctiv.org

Reposted by Luke Moffett, Aleksandra Urman

Kris Shrishak @krisshrishak.bsky.social · 6d

Our investigation into Irish Department of Justice use of chatbots. The department hides behind disclaimers while deploying misleading chatbots.

@iccl.bsky.social @abeba.bsky.social @johnnyryan.bsky.social

www.iccl.ie/news/irish-d...

Department of Justice chatbots mislead people seeking information

Irish Department of Justice internalises the AI hype and takes no responsibility for misleading chatbots.

www.iccl.ie

Reposted by Aleksandra Urman

Ukrainska Pravda 🇺🇦 @pravda.ua · 6d

💔 Apartment block destroyed in Ternopil due to Russian attack: two killed

Apartment block destroyed in Ternopil due to Russian attack: two killed – photos, videos

An apartment block has been destroyed in a Russian attack on the city of Ternopil on the morning of 18-19 November. Two people are reported to have been killed.

www.pravda.com.ua

Aleksandra Urman @aurman21.bsky.social · 7d

I hope so too. But even then, being an academic doesn't mean having high AI literacy (and being a student who uses GScholar doesn't mean this either)

Reposted by Damian Trilling

Aleksandra Urman @aurman21.bsky.social · 7d

Oh "AI-powered" Google scholar search is coming. What could possibly go wrong?! I hate this.

Reposted by Aleksandra Urman

Defacto Expert @defactoexpert.bsky.social · 8d

Integrationsdispensation: warum für Migrant*innen strengere soziale Normen gelten - Stefan Manser-Egli, @lutzphilipp.bsky.social

Eine neue Studie zeigt, dass nur von einigen Menschen Integration erwartet wird, während andere nicht diesen Erwartungen unterliegen.

www.defacto.expert/2025/11/17/i...

Aleksandra Urman @aurman21.bsky.social · 11d

That's a wild guess, very much biased by all the stories from my friends in different industries about senior people (both, age and position wise) using ChatGPT for very dumb reasons. It somehow ultimately boils down either to the above or "ai is cool and hip we all need to use ai".

Aleksandra Urman @aurman21.bsky.social · 11d

I think these are the same people who ask ChatGPT for the "in-depth" analysis of some question they really need to know about. But don't have the time or the will to actually examine it. So you want to feel like you are an expert without actually doing the work for that.

Aleksandra Urman @aurman21.bsky.social · 11d

I think you are not the target audience. My first guess is that the target audience would include (boomer, sorry) execs/senior "decision-makers" who don't want to read the original source but want to at least feel like they are the smartest in the room/really know the topic well.

Aleksandra Urman @aurman21.bsky.social · 11d

Also 45CHF a month?! And then read the analysis like this? Nein, danke. That's like roughly 3 abos of other media...

Aleksandra Urman @aurman21.bsky.social · 11d

I don't have an NZZ Abo, but the "snippet" of text right below the headline was enough for me somehow.

Aleksandra Urman @aurman21.bsky.social · 12d

Is this sponsored by Anthropic? Are they using Claude to generate parts of content? Both? Something else?

Aleksandra Urman @aurman21.bsky.social · 12d

Does anyone know what "Supported by Claude" means here at @economist.com ?!

Reposted by Aleksandra Urman

Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 12d

Google considers ICE agents to be a vulnerable group in need of protecting but does not consider the immigrants they're hunting down to be vulnerable group

www.404media.co/google-has-c...

Google Has Chosen a Side in Trump's Mass Deportation Effort

Google is hosting a CBP app that uses facial recognition to identify immigrants, while simultaneously removing apps that report the location of ICE officials because Google sees ICE as a vulnerable gr...

www.404media.co

Aleksandra Urman @aurman21.bsky.social · 13d

That does sound like a really good idea! But can't say how realistic it is (as in how likely this could actually happen).

And nah, thx, but I still can read in my native language without any machines involved even if I otherwise mainly use it to talk to my mother these days :)

Aleksandra Urman @aurman21.bsky.social · 13d

Is there a thread? I don't use X anymore (and too lazy to download it/log in/etc, then delete again to see one thread, sorry, do you maybe have a screenshot? Otherwise I see just the first post - one you directly linked to)

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