Chris Arnold
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chrisguarnold.bsky.social
Chris Arnold
@chrisguarnold.bsky.social
260 followers 130 following 42 posts
Associate Professor in Government and Artificial Intelligence at the University of Birmingham. Data addict. Visualisation enthusiast. I ♥ institutions.
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chrisguarnold.bsky.social
Chris Arnold @chrisguarnold.bsky.social · Dec 20
What started as a political science project with Slava Jankin and Hannah Béchara spiraled into its own paper, exploring how language shapes how we perceive distances & construe events. Excited to share the journey! #sciencerocks
Reposted by Chris Arnold
comptext.bsky.social
SAVE THE DATE! We are pleased to announce that the 8th COMPTEXT Conference will take place at the Institute of Data and AI (lnkd.in/ebN7za_Q) of the University of Birmingham, 23-25 April 2026, with @chrisguarnold.bsky.social serving as the lead local organiser. Call for Papers coming soon!
University of Birmingham photo
November 14, 2025 at 2:19 PM
chrisguarnold.bsky.social
I am over the moon to announce that #COMPTEXT2026 will take place at the "Institute for Data and AI" at the University of Birmingham. Look out for the imminent CfP on all channels. And go and tell your friends. Looking forward to hosting y'all in April 2026 #sciencerocks ‪@comptext.bsky.social
November 14, 2025 at 12:17 PM
chrisguarnold.bsky.social
On my way to the LSE workshop "#ComputationalSocialScience meets Qualitative Research." Presenting @floriangkern.bsky.social and my framework on how #multimodalML & #LLMs help re-analyse & recycle qual data. Let's leave qual–quant clone wars behind us. #ScienceRocks
www.lse.ac.uk/methodology/...
Call for papers
Call for papers, Computational Social Science meets Qualitative Research. Two-day workshop for 10 November 2025 at LSE.
www.lse.ac.uk
November 13, 2025 at 7:15 AM
chrisguarnold.bsky.social
Today, we welcomed the second cohort of students to the MSc in AI & Government and MSc in AI & Sustainable Development today. Excited to support them in developing their AI & ML skills over the coming year!
#AI #MachineLearning #HigherEducation #SustainableDevelopment #AIandGovernment #ScienceRocks
September 24, 2025 at 5:26 PM
Reposted by Chris Arnold
ankuepfer.bsky.social
👏Applause offers a revealing lens on party competition! In a recent article @wepsocial.bsky.social (w/@[email protected]), we study how applause reflects party and coalition unity, ideological agreement, political exclusion, issue ownership, and the electoral cycle! (1/6)
Cover page of the article: "The sound of party competition: how applausereflects unity, disagreement, and the electoralcycle in parliamentsAndreas Küpfera , Jochen Müllerb and Christian Steckeraatechnical university of Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany; buniversität Greifswald, Greifswald,GermanyABSTRACTThis article studies how applause reflects the dynamics of party competitionduring parliamentary debates. While legislative scholars often emphasise theselection of speakers and content of debates, spontaneous reactions from fel-low MPs remain understudied. Analysing 750,000 instances of applause in thedebates of the German Bundestag (1976–2020), it was found that applausepatterns, although largely spontaneous and immediate by nature, systemati-cally reflect incentives from party competition such as signalling party andcoalition unity, ideological (dis)agreement, and ostracising specific parties.Applause also indicates issue emphasis, especially near elections. The findingssuggest that applause can serve as a nuanced and abundant indicator in thestudy of party competition, complementing more static measures derived frommanifestos and expert judgements. By analysing applause patterns over fourdecades, this study opens new avenues to explore nonverbal reactions asmarkers of party competition in other parliaments."
September 13, 2025 at 2:17 PM
chrisguarnold.bsky.social
Today @10 in Pacific Rim 2: our framework for assessing LLM output. a) separates general vs. domain-specific similarity b) handles existing classifiers c) accounts for probabilistic DGP d) model-independent & efficient
#APSA2025 @jamespcross.bsky.social Tim Henrichsen @christinesheldon.bsky.social
September 13, 2025 at 2:17 PM
Reposted by Chris Arnold
ankuepfer.bsky.social
I'm at #APSA25! On Saturday at 2 pm (Panel "Seeing is Believing: Innovations and Applications in Image Data Analysis"), I'll present a new project with @chrisguarnold.bsky.social, Oliver Rittmann, and @smtorres.bsky.social in which we quantitatively measure media slant based on news article images.
Front slide of the presentation: "Measuring Media Slant through Image Analysis APSA Annual Meeting 2025, September 11-14, 2025, Vancouver, Canada Christian Arnold (University of Birmingham) Andreas Küpfer (Technical University of Darmstadt) Oliver Rittmann (University of Mannheim, MZES) Michelle Torres (University of California, Los Angeles) September 13, 2025"
September 12, 2025 at 9:47 PM
chrisguarnold.bsky.social
The Centre for AI in Government is at #APSA25 for the first time. Really impressive line-up and testament of a strong group of curious, committed and kind scholars. Come and find us! #sciencerocks #CAIG #computationalsocialscience #aiingovernment

@christinesheldon.bsky.social
September 10, 2025 at 10:24 AM
chrisguarnold.bsky.social
Excited to speak at the 4th #cardiffnlpworkshop tomorrow at Cardiff NLP group. I’ll give a talk on the #Triggerpoint Project & join the panel on Interdisciplinarity and NLP. Great lineup incl. CohereForAI, BSC, DCU. www.cardiffnlpworkshop.org
#sciencerocks #NLP #AIandPolitics #LLMs
Cardiff NLP
The Cardiff NLP Group is organising an in-person workshop on Natural Language Processing (NLP). It will take place on 14-15 July 2025 in Abacws, the brand-new building for the School of Computer Scien...
www.cardiffnlpworkshop.org
July 14, 2025 at 11:14 AM
chrisguarnold.bsky.social
On my way to Geneva for the #AIforGood conference. Looking forward to the Crisis Computing Workshop and discussing how AI can help solve and prevent wars and crises. crisiscomputing.org #AI #CrisisComputing #sciencerocks
Crisis Computing
The Crisis Computing Research Initiative brings together scientists, practitioners, and policymakers to explore how modern computing can enhance crisis response
crisiscomputing.org
July 10, 2025 at 7:53 AM
Reposted by Chris Arnold
heikekluever.bsky.social
📣 Call for Applications 📣

3-year Postdoc position in Berlin 🚀

Join our Comparative Political Behavior Group at @humboldtuni.bsky.social & the @humboldt-govlab.bsky.social

Great people, great projects, great city – come work with us!

🗓️ Deadline: 31 July 2025
July 9, 2025 at 4:41 PM
Reposted by Chris Arnold
theresmatthiess.bsky.social
@uni-goettingen.de
July 10, 2025 at 7:27 AM
chrisguarnold.bsky.social
Next week I’ll be in Geneva for the UN’s #AIforGoodSummit2025. I’m especially excited for the Crisis Computing workshop on how AI can help us anticipate, manage & recover from crises. If you’re there too, feel free to reach out!
#CrisisComputing #AI4Peace #sciencerocks
July 3, 2025 at 5:51 AM
chrisguarnold.bsky.social
Heading home from #EPSA2025 I really enjoyed seeing so much dedication and passion to produce good science. A pure joy to be part of the community. Meetings like this are crucial for giving me sense and purpose during those endless hours in front of the computer. #sciencerocks
June 29, 2025 at 7:01 AM
chrisguarnold.bsky.social
On my way to #EPSA2025. Passenger next to me is sporting snowwhite #NVIDIA socks. #nextlevelhipster
June 23, 2025 at 12:12 PM
chrisguarnold.bsky.social
Heading to #EPSA2025 in Madrid next week! I will be part of a paper asking:

"How Useful is Your LLM Output?"

It is the first from a project on simulating political negotiations w/ LLMs.
DM if you are around---tea, coffee, or confusion matrices?
#sciencerocks #LLMs #SyntheticData #AIandPolitics
June 19, 2025 at 2:30 PM
chrisguarnold.bsky.social
Our MSc students in #AIGovernment & #AISustainableDevelopment swapped lecture halls for a day in #Cardiff — visiting the #WelshGovernment ’s Data Science Unit and the brilliant team at @cardiffnlp.bsky.social.
Great to see how #MachineLearning meets real-world #PublicPolicy. Also: dragon spotted. 🐉🔥
June 6, 2025 at 8:50 AM
chrisguarnold.bsky.social
Really cool event. Consider going! #sciencerocks
cardiffnlp.bsky.social Cardiff NLP @cardiffnlp.bsky.social · Apr 10
The deadline for the EoI is tomorrow (April 11th)!
We have:
✨6 confirmed speakers.
✨A session on interdisciplinary research.
✨A tutorial.
✨A panel discussion.
✨Poster and networking sessions.
April 10, 2025 at 6:06 PM
chrisguarnold.bsky.social
40110 #AI and #GlobalChallenges & 40111 #AI for #Government and #Policy is a wrap! From designing research to deploying ML solutions on ‘people data’—we covered it. Rewarding but challenging, given the cohort’s diversity & the material’s breadth. Want to join next round? Apply! Questions on how? PM!
April 2, 2025 at 5:47 PM
chrisguarnold.bsky.social
On Friday, I’m presenting at TCD (w/ @ankuepfer.bsky.social . We explore how to measure object prominence in news photography & curated images.
Applications:
📌 US newspaper ideal points (Visual BoW);
📌 Gender bias in US campaign videos.
More info & enrolment: 🔗 www.tcd.ie/Political_Sc...
March 10, 2025 at 9:53 AM
chrisguarnold.bsky.social
Making sure y'all saw this CfP for the Special Issue on Digital Communication in Social Movements.

Timeline: 8.3.25 abstract; 7.8.25 full paper; end of year publication.

#AI #TextasData #ImageAsData #SocialMovement #ScienceRocks

journal.computationalcommunication.org/announcement...
Call for Papers: CCR Special Issue on Digital Communication in Social Movement | Computational Communication Research
journal.computationalcommunication.org
February 21, 2025 at 10:45 AM
chrisguarnold.bsky.social
Read our Op-Ed on the UK Government's "AI Opportunities Action Plan" here: www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/2025/th... #AI #Government #PublicPolicy
The UK’s AI Action Plan: Bold vision, bigger challenges - University of Birmingham
The AI Opportunities Action Plan promises to position the UK as a global leader in artificial intelligence, but can it deliver the goods?
www.birmingham.ac.uk
January 20, 2025 at 9:22 PM
chrisguarnold.bsky.social
What started as a political science project with Slava Jankin and Hannah Béchara spiraled into its own paper, exploring how language shapes how we perceive distances & construe events. Excited to share the journey! #sciencerocks
December 20, 2024 at 7:35 AM
chrisguarnold.bsky.social
Kick-off for our DFG project! With multimodal ML, we study 15,000h of German parliamentary speeches. Stay tuned for how MPs handle populism, how facial expressions send coalition signals and dynamics of salience. #DreamTeam #ScienceRocks #DankeDFG @pluggedchris.bsky.social @ankuepfer.bsky.social
December 18, 2024 at 5:19 PM
chrisguarnold.bsky.social
My Book of the Year: AI Snake Oil by Narayanan & Kapoor. Dismantles AI myths, from overblown promises to doomsday fears. Practical, empowering, & helps you think critically about AI. Perfect for this time of the year. #ResponsibleAI #AIEthics #MustRead #JustSayin #ScienceRocks
December 13, 2024 at 5:09 PM