Cat Hicks

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View every signal from Cat Hicks →
Author of The Psychology of Software Teams (launching July 2026!): https://www.routledge.com/The-Psychology-of-Software-Teams/Hicks/p/book/9781032963389 she/her 🏳️‍🌈 Catharsis: https://catharsisinsight.com/ Host at: https://www.changetechnically.fyi/

Articles & links

Ok, so if you've been following along my weekend I've seen this study/preprint shared around a bunch and I decided the people needed a replication opportunity it is here: persist-study.pages.dev Based on this: news.berkeley.edu/2026/10/09/u...

Using AI for just 10 minutes erodes your ability to persist at hard things - Berkeley News news.berkeley.edu
AI Weekly's analysis →
  • A UC Berkeley-led study of 1,222 online participants found that short exposure to ChatGPT weakened persistence once the AI was withdrawn mid-task.
  • Across three randomized experiments on fraction problems and SAT reading, accuracy dropped sharply for the AI-assisted group after help was removed at problem 12.
  • The paper, 'AI Assistance Reduces Persistence and Hurts Independent Performance,' was presented at the 2026 Conference on Language Modeling.
Read full analysis →
View on Bluesky · ♥ 74 ↻ 20 ↩ 7 · 13 from the directory shared this · 6d ago

yeah, obviously the e.g. neuro world of "AI" is far bigger than LLMs, but everyone I know is using agents every day for analysis, custom searching, vetting candidate approaches rapidly You can read about the claude for science partnerships directly, with examples www.anthropic…

Claude Science, an AI workbench for scientists anthropic.com
View on Bluesky · ♥ 2 ↻ 0 ↩ 1 · 6 from the directory shared this · 82d ago

You could take a look at this as a replacement mitpress.mit.edu/978026205248...

mitpress.mit.edu
View on Bluesky · ♥ 1 ↻ 0 ↩ 1 · 4 from the directory shared this · 104d ago

There is really interesting stuff on this emerging on both sides (& same authors!) in persuasion psych academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar... arxiv.org/abs/2601.05050

Large language models can effectively convince people to believe conspiracies arxiv.org
AI Weekly's analysis →
  • Across four experiments with 3,996 American participants, LLMs instructed to argue for a conspiracy raised belief about as much as debunking LLMs lowered it.
  • Participants in the bunking condition rated the LLM as more informative and collaborative, and reported greater trust in AI, than those in the debunking condition.
  • A simple accuracy-only prompt sharply reduced bunking effectiveness, and one frontier model, GPT 5.2, almost entirely refused to promote conspiracies.
Read full analysis →
View on Bluesky · ♥ 7 ↻ 0 ↩ 0 · 2 from the directory shared this · 15d ago

There are many many many studies on this at this point. I've enjoyed Costello & Pennycook etc which have found persuasion both towards beliefs we'd consider positive but ALSO persuasion toward conspiracy osf.io/preprints/ps... osf.io/preprints/ps... arxiv.org/pdf/2601.05050

arxiv.org
View on Bluesky · ♥ 9 ↻ 0 ↩ 1 · 9d ago

Recent commentary

I suspect once we figure it out agentic work in software will actually be a huge aid to codebase comprehension This is such a wildly unpopular thought right now but you know what I'm going to pre-register my belief in this possibility

View on Bluesky · ♥ 353 ↻ 21 ↩ 46 · 85d ago

This might just be a trap for my blocklist but I'm really curious what people who are heavily using AI in software jobs and consider themselves comfy with it think AI literacy looks like. How do you encourage it for juniors? What patterns or habits of work are you trying to encourage and use?

View on Bluesky · ♥ 133 ↻ 20 ↩ 44 · 3d ago

The conversation about AI in health stuff is always about the risks of patients using AI. I'm more worried about possibilities like every appointment gets inspected by an insurance company in detail so that if a patient uses the slightly wrong words about something their care is denied.

View on Bluesky · ♥ 152 ↻ 30 ↩ 10 · 75d ago

Some troll today said I was using "people's medical issues to push genAI." Let's get it right ffs. I'm using MY medical issues to push AI.

View on Bluesky · ♥ 131 ↻ 3 ↩ 4 · 11d ago

"Scientists who use AI are morons who aren't reading" I'm a computational social scientist and I feel like LLMs are a lot of things, but one thing they can be is a computational tool for text-based information in science. Here is what I am doing this morning

View on Bluesky · ♥ 107 ↻ 11 ↩ 5 · 87d ago

Can I just say it's disorienting to see people who like, roundly and vociferously mocked the idea that AI could have utility now immediately float into AI leadership and thought leadership positions. When I open accessed my AI Skill Threat study I had to field a thousand skeptical biting comments

View on Bluesky · ♥ 104 ↻ 8 ↩ 1 · 88d ago

A punitive view of education will never have the answer to what to do when students can use AI. A view of education that cares about motivating students will. In a world where student motivation needs to be earned not just enforced it's pretty clear that's the only way to elicit effort.

View on Bluesky · ♥ 69 ↻ 16 ↩ 3 · 98d ago

How dare you be interested in how patients use AI in healthcare! We must respect the sanctity of a system in which *checks notes* my parking app just tried to send me a discount coupon to try a glp-1

View on Bluesky · ♥ 76 ↻ 7 ↩ 4 · 3d ago

I've been thinking about my previous life in data science/applied computational social science and how many people have always been cut off from that. I hear a lot of examples of "I can't believe I can do this" from friends about LLMs that are along the lines of finally being able to look at data

View on Bluesky · ♥ 60 ↻ 6 ↩ 3 · 108d ago

so much convo about ai psychosis so little about ai scrupulosity

View on Bluesky · ♥ 43 ↻ 5 ↩ 4 · 3d ago

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