Interdisciplinary builders
We build interaction prototypes, data science pipelines, and experimental technology inspired by theories from HCI, psychology, political science, and science & technology studies.
How we work
Quantitative-empirical
To produce reliable empirical insights, we use methods such as controlled experiments, data analysis, audits, and user studies, involving more than 20,000 participants to date.
People- and impact-focused
We like to work with policymakers, journalists, and industry to translate research into practice. Our work has been cited in international press and in testimony before the U.S. Senate.
News & Press
The project ClaimGuard, a collaboration between our lab, HU Berlin, CAIS, Uni Bremen, and codetekt, evaluates how dialogues with AI can support lay people’s fact-checks
Reports on research — including ours — showing how AI writing tools can make people’s language and expression more similar to one another.
Covers our study showing that AI autocomplete suggestions can subtly shift people’s opinions on social issues.
Our people
Publications
Highlights
AI writing assistants powered by large language models are increasingly used to make autocomplete suggestions to people as they write text. Can these AI writing assistants affect people’s attitudes in this process? In two large-scale preregistered experiments (N = 2582), we exposed participants writing about important societal issues to an AI writing assistant that provided biased autocomplete suggestions. When using the AI assistant, the attitudes participants expressed in a posttask...
Human communication is increasingly intermixed with language generated by AI. Across chat, email, and social media, AI systems suggest words, complete sentences, or produce entire conversations. AI-generated language is often not identified as such but presented as language written by humans, raising concerns about novel forms of deception and manipulation. Here, we study how humans discern whether verbal self-presentations, one of the most personal and consequential forms of language, were...
Recent work
Teaching
Computational Social Science
How can we use data to answer questions about people and society? This course teaches how to turn a social question into concepts and measures, then collect and...
Responsible AI
What does it mean to build AI systems that are fair, transparent, and accountable? In this project students learn about the principles and frameworks guiding responsible AI development....
Social Simulacra
How might we simulate human social behavior using AI? In this project, students build simulations with LLM-powered agents that recreate classic social science studies, from bystander effects to...
Digital Ventures Lab
How does a product idea become a venture? In this interdisciplinary project with Media Management, student teams develop a digital product from the first idea to a working...
Thesis Research
We supervise bachelor’s and master’s theses on topics at the intersection of computational methods and social science. Our linked thesis guide offers an overview of how we approach...