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Tobias Werner

@tfwerner.com

910 followers 280 following 99 posts

Postdoc the Center for Humans and Machines (CHM/MPIB) | PhD in Economics | Affiliated with DICE/HHU & BCCP I am on the economic job market 2024/2025. Currently visiting the EconCS group @ Harvard. Tfwerner.com

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Tobias Werner @tfwerner.com · Nov 8

📢 I am on the economic job market 🚀

My JMP "Algorithmic and Human Collusion" shows pricing algorithms can be more collusive than humans and explores their interaction.

Link: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Other research: tfwerner.com
#EconSky #EconJM #JMP

Tobias Werner @tfwerner.com · 16d

The fact that fries/chips are just normally sold at Chinese restaurants in Ireland should be studied. But still: spice bag is the best fast food invention since ???

Tobias Werner @tfwerner.com · Sep 1

And yes: I thought before leaving Berlin I had to go full Berlin and get a bleached buzzcut

Tobias Werner @tfwerner.com · Sep 1

First day in the office!

Excited to join the University of Southampton as an Assistant Professor/Lecturer

Tobias Werner @tfwerner.com · Aug 10

I like the new robot 'personality' feature of ChatGPT. Although it's probably just a tweak to a system message, it's much more to the point and less wordy.

Just weird that, out of the blue, it sometimes ends with things like, 'I am synthesized and not embodied.'

Reposted by Tobias Werner

Institute for Replication @i4replication.bsky.social · Aug 6

We have our first games ever in Ireland next month. The event will be at the University of Galway as part of CERIS’s Annual Workshop on September 26th. Virtual participation is possible and coauthorship to a meta paper is granted.

Register here: www.surveymonkey.ca/r/Replicatio...

Tobias Werner @tfwerner.com · Aug 6

With the release of Gemini Live / OpenAls Operator, we started working o
perspective piece on how to tackle the growing threat these systems pose to online behavioural research and its validity.

We hope this helps move the conversation forward.

Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2508.01390

Tobias Werner @tfwerner.com · Aug 6

Absolutely! That's part of the solution, but online studies also offer key advantages, like more representative samples + larger N. Hopefully, we'll see more cross-lab collaborations.

Tobias Werner @tfwerner.com · Aug 5

If you run studies online or use platforms like Prolific, MTurk, or CloudResearch, this impacts you!

We hope this paper encourages discussion, collaboration, and improved safeguards.

🔗 arxiv.org/abs/2508.01390

Tobias Werner @tfwerner.com · Aug 5

At the end of the day, this isn't just a researcher's problem.

Platforms that advertise "100% human" samples must be held accountable.

Researchers need tools and transparency to protect their work, and in some cases, it may be time to go back to the physical lab!

Tobias Werner @tfwerner.com · Aug 5

We propose a layered defence strategy, but let's be clear: this is already an arms race.

Some measures:
- reCAPTCHA and Cloudflare
- Multimodal instructions (images, audio)
- Input restrictions (no paste, voice answers)
- Behavioural logging
- Platform enforcement

Tobias Werner @tfwerner.com · Aug 5

LLM Pollution scrambles your data:
🧠 Dampens variance
📈 Inflates effects
📊 Mocks WEIRD norms
🔍 Obscures who your participants really are
… all while staying nearly undetectable!

Tobias Werner @tfwerner.com · Aug 5

In a recent Prolific pilot, 45% of participants copied/pasted open-ended items or showed signs of AI-generated content, with responses starting like "As an artificial entity…"

This is contamination, not noise!

Tobias Werner @tfwerner.com · Aug 5

We map three invasion paths for LLMs:

1. Partial Mediation: LLM assists with rephrasing or answering.
2. Full Delegation: Agents like OpenAI Operator handle everything.
3. Spillover: Humans act differently due to bot expectations.

(See figure below.)

Tobias Werner @tfwerner.com · Aug 5

This isn't sci-fi. Tools like OpenAI's Operator and open-source browser agents can now read surveys, click consent, and answer your questions, all without a human.

LLM Pollution is not hypothetical. It is happening now.

We map three variants in the paper 👇

Tobias Werner @tfwerner.com · Aug 5

🚨New paper alert!

"Recognising, Anticipating & Mitigating LLM Pollution of Online Behavioural Research"

Online experiments are being polluted by LLMs. We map the threat and fixes🧵

w/ Raluca Rilla, @hiromu1996.bsky.social, @iyadrahwan.bsky.social &
Anne-Marie Nussberger

arxiv.org/abs/2508.01390

Recognising, Anticipating, and Mitigating LLM Pollution of Online Behavioural Research

Online behavioural research faces an emerging threat as participants increasingly turn to large language models (LLMs) for advice, translation, or task delegation: LLM Pollution. We identify three int...

Tobias Werner @tfwerner.com · Aug 2

Sitting on the beach, sipping cherry cola (sin azúcar), just won three straight games of Uno against my wife. Life is good.

Tobias Werner @tfwerner.com · Jul 31

Last day of my postdoc with some of the best colleagues I could have hoped for.

Reposted by Tobias Werner

Jean-François Bonnefon @jfbonnefon.bsky.social · Jul 30

Mengchen Dong @iyadrahwan.bsky.social and I report data from 3,000+ people (incl. welfare claimants) showing how much accuracy they're willing to sacrifice to get faster AI decisions for social benefits. it's very hard for non-claimants to understand claimants. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Heterogeneous preferences and asymmetric insights for AI use among welfare claimants and non-claimants - Nature Communications

Governments use AI to speed up welfare decisions, raising concerns about fairness and accuracy. Here, the authors find that welfare claimants are more averse to AI and their preferences less understoo...

Tobias Werner @tfwerner.com · Jul 8

I'll stay affiliated with the Center for Humans and Machines @mpib-berlin.bsky.social b-berlin.bsky.social as an Associate Research Scientist. It’s a great place to work on human-AI interaction in markets and beyond. Rumor has it they might be looking for new economists soonish 👀

Tobias Werner @tfwerner.com · Jul 8

I actually accepted the job some time ago, but could only sign now because of delays with the UK visa process (thanks, Brexit 🇬🇧🫠)

Tobias Werner @tfwerner.com · Jul 8

Thrilled to share that this September I’ll be joining @sotonecon.bsky.social at @unisouthampton.bsky.social pton.bsky.social as a Lecturer 🎉

I look forward to continuing my research in IO, experimental economics, and human-AI interactions, and to engaging more with the UK econ community.

Tobias Werner @tfwerner.com · Jul 8

I'll stay affiliated with the Center for Humans and Machines @mpib-berlin.bsky.social as an Associate Research Scientist. It’s a great place to work on human-AI interaction in markets and beyond. Rumor has it they might be looking for new economists soonish 👀

Tobias Werner @tfwerner.com · Jul 8

I actually accepted the job some time ago, but could only sign now because of delays with the UK visa process (thanks, Brexit 🇬🇧🫠)

Tobias Werner @tfwerner.com · Jul 3

You gotta love German academia. Receiving a letter (yes, an actual letter, not an email) many, many months after applying just to tell you that you won't be considered for the professorship is always quite the experience.

Tobias Werner @tfwerner.com · Jul 1

We find that remote workers' willingness to volunteer for team tasks does not decline in the team size. This is a surprising result, given classic free-riding concerns. Many decide to volunteer when they believe others will too, even though this can lead to too much volunteering