Christopher Barrie

@cbarrie.bsky.social

4.5K followers 1.6K following 590 posts

Assistant Professor of Sociology, NYU. Core Faculty, CSMaP. Research Fellow Oxford Sociology. Computational social science, Methods, Conflict, Communication. Webpage: cjbarrie.com

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Computer science 22%

Political science 20%

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Christopher Barrie @cbarrie.bsky.social · Dec 17

Pleased to share the latest version of my paper with Arthur Spirling and @lexipalmer.bsky.social on replication using LMs

We show:

1. current applications of LMs in political science research *don't* meet basic standards of reproducibility...

Christopher Barrie @cbarrie.bsky.social · 4d

Hi I'm really sorry to tell you but I used to be even more swag than I am now

Christopher Barrie @cbarrie.bsky.social · 4d

Christmas comes earlier every year AMIRITE

Christopher Barrie @cbarrie.bsky.social · 5d

PSA: This is a trap

Christopher Barrie @cbarrie.bsky.social · 5d

Playing Waterfall on repeat

Christopher Barrie @cbarrie.bsky.social · 14d

Yeah but... (Peep show voice of Mark saying "Jeff?!") WES?

Christopher Barrie @cbarrie.bsky.social · 14d

Imagine being Wes Streeting and also thinking you should be Prime Minister of the literal United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 14d

The important story behind this story is that someone in Downing Street is having a breakdown:

Starmer allies issue warning to PM’s rivals as fears grow over leadership challenge

No 10 said to be in ‘full bunker mode’ over fears of attempt to oust him after budget or May local elections

www.theguardian.com

Reposted by Christopher Barrie

Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 14d

The important story behind this story is that someone in Downing Street is having a breakdown:

Starmer allies issue warning to PM’s rivals as fears grow over leadership challenge

No 10 said to be in ‘full bunker mode’ over fears of attempt to oust him after budget or May local elections

www.theguardian.com

Christopher Barrie @cbarrie.bsky.social · 15d

A student asks: "how does one decide which to model to use for a given social science task?"

I'm not sure if I have good advice... What would you say?

Christopher Barrie @cbarrie.bsky.social · 16d

I'm actually something of an artist myself

Reposted by Brady T. West, Brendan Nyhan, Jacob Montgomery , and 6 more Brady T. West, Brendan Nyhan, Jacob Montgomery, Erika Franklin Fowler, Christopher Barrie, Aaron Shaw, Aurélien Mondon, Dan MacLean, Nicolai von Ondarza

Petter Törnberg @pettertornberg.com · 18d

LLMs are now widely used in social science as stand-ins for humans—assuming they can produce realistic, human-like text

But... can they? We don’t actually know.

In our new study, we develop a Computational Turing Test.

And our findings are striking:
LLMs may be far less human-like than we think.🧵

Computational Turing Test Reveals Systematic Differences Between Human and AI Language

Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly used in the social sciences to simulate human behavior, based on the assumption that they can generate realistic, human-like text. Yet this assumption rem...

arxiv.org

Christopher Barrie @cbarrie.bsky.social · 20d

This is literally a headline from that SNL sketch youtube.com/shorts/MpClx...

The New York Times Coming Up With Emails To Send You

YouTube video by please don't destroy

youtube.com

Christopher Barrie @cbarrie.bsky.social · 20d

Also p sure this critic reviewed my last paper

Christopher Barrie @cbarrie.bsky.social · 20d

Don't think I've been more excited to watch something in years. ZERO stars

Christopher Barrie @cbarrie.bsky.social · 21d

Thank you, Bob! I also wanna do more with this data. If you have ideas lmk

Christopher Barrie @cbarrie.bsky.social · 21d

I'm very proud of this paper and hope others can build on it to better measure changes in the media ecosystem.

Very relevant to our current times IMHO!

Political Analysis @polanalysis.bsky.social · 21d

Currently in FirstView: In “Measuring Media Criticism with ALC Word Embeddings,” @cbarrie.bsky.social, Neil Ketchley, @aasiegel.bsky.social, and Mossaab Bagdouri introduce a method for estimating media criticism using à la carte word embeddings which requires only minimal computational resources.

Reposted by Christopher Barrie, Federica Genovese

Political Analysis @polanalysis.bsky.social · 21d

Christopher Barrie @cbarrie.bsky.social · 25d

Just FYI I'm super hyped about disliking all your posts

Christopher Barrie @cbarrie.bsky.social · 26d

Guys I was wondering what the most urgent issue of our time was and

Christopher Barrie @cbarrie.bsky.social · 26d

Fun things to do in Manhattan with a 15-month-old while it's pissing down with rain? Asking for a friend. I am the friend.

Christopher Barrie @cbarrie.bsky.social · 27d

I really like that in the new Mac OS the Spotlight Search can now search just as badly through both files and apps with one keyboard shortcut

Reposted by Mel Bartley, Dave O’Brien, Christopher Barrie , and 1 more Mel Bartley, Dave O’Brien, Christopher Barrie, Patrick Präg

Chris Bail @chrisbail.bsky.social · Oct 24

The ENSAE-CREST is hiring a computational sociologist -- Assistant or Associate Professor.

Date of appointment: September 2026.
Details here : www.css.cnrs.fr/assistant-or...

www.css.cnrs.fr

Christopher Barrie @cbarrie.bsky.social · Oct 24

Emil Kirkegaard!

Reposted by Alexander Wuttke, Christopher Barrie

Verena Kunz @verenakunz.bsky.social · Oct 24

Next Wednesday, we're excited to welcome @lexipalmer.bsky.social, who will present co-authored work with @cbarrie.bsky.social and Arthur Spirling on "Replication for Language Models: Problems, Principles, and Best Practices for Political Science". Paper and information on how to join ⬇️