Hi, I'm Tim. I'm a complex systems scientist, and I'm interested in how the internet
and social media are mediating the evolution of our culture. I measure it because I
want to change it. The lever is the recommender: it decides what gets amplified. The
aim is a platform that works as a substrate for democratic sense-making. Right now that
means the quality of political discourse on Reddit, how news outlets frame the victims
of conflict, and a simulated platform for testing recommender interventions before
anyone runs one on people.
- Research.
- Cultural evolution, online and in populations of language models.
- Freelance.
- I take on contract work: measurement design, LLM labelling at scale, recommender and ranking audits, and data engineering on large or messy sources.
- Media.
- I'm happy to hear from journalists. That might be a hand with something computational, or a comment on a story about platforms, recommendation and online discourse.
- Students.
- I take on masters students, and BSc students who are motivated. You do not need a project worked out first. Write to me and tell me what interests you.
- Elsewhere.
- Bluesky. GitHub.
- Write to me.
- tim.booker@uni-graz.at. Anyone can write to me, about anything.