Category: Data and Society
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Counting Chaos: Problems of Early Covid-19 Pandemic Data Reporting
This post examines the early state of administrative data that the public and authorities used to understand the beginning stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. It highlights challenges in data collection and reporting across different organizations and countries. Let’s remember, unfortunately, the chaotic and fearful early months of the Covid-19 pandemic.…
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ChatGPT Deep Research Output Misleads Us about Data Collection and Analysis
tl;dr ChatGPT Deep Research cannot access any datasets that it was not trained on. It spits out reports that strongly imply that it can, but it cannot. Some researchers and tech outlets have been critical about ChatGPT Deep Research: Raffaele Ciriello: “It’s no surprise that unreliable data can slip in, since…
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Quantitative Research in the Social Sciences and ChatGPT
We covered a basic approach in How to use ChatGPT in Social Science Research; in this post, we focus on specific issues of using ChatGPT for quantitative research. Caveat: This post reflects what I’ve learned until March 2024. Remember that the AI tools develop quickly. Some of the problems or…
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Predicting the Future: Wired Magazine, 2022
The Wired World in 2022 predicted the technological advances and technology-driven changes that will make headlines next year. I read them and made notes so you don’t have to. Here they are. Technology By safe, they mean more welcoming to marginalised groups. How? She doesn’t say. 2. “Tech will get…
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How to use ChatGPT in Social Science Research
In this post, I discuss how to use ChatGPT and other AI assistants in social science research. The take-away message is: The AI is the assistant and you are the director. See also Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Social Scientist Quantitative Research in the Social Sciences and ChatGPT Many AI…
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Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Social Scientist
As AI increases in use and popularity, the profession of the social sciences will change. AI will eventually change the daily job of the social scientist in terms of research, teaching, and administration. There are ethical issues of plagiarism, defined as “pretending to write something that is not yours –…
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Local Data and Upstream Reporting as Sources of Error in the Covid 19 Undercount
The growth, stability, and decline in cases and mortality due to Covid 19 are generally based on administrative data that various people and organizations collect, harmonize, and aggregate. Many data providers have made their data available in machine-readable form for public scrutiny with an intention to guide policy-makers and educate…
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Quantitative Approaches to Intersectionality: The Small n Problem
A challenge for intersectional survey research is the “Small n Problem”: when there are too few observations in the sample to permit the desired analysis. To perform the multivariate quantitative techniques popular in analyses of survey data, we need an adequate number of cases in each category. For instance, if…
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Sociology and AI Text-to-Image: A Practical Guide
AI text-to-image — where users input textual descriptions into an Artificial Intelligence website or app to generate a unique picture — is a new way for sociologists to understand society and teach sociology. This post provides a practical guide for sociologists to use AI text-to-image for research and classroom instruction.…
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Visual Sociology and Artificial Intelligence: AI Images of Society
Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to transform society in terms of work, economy, politics, and culture. As these changes seem inevitable, people become increasingly concerned over the ethics of AI, and more and more sociologists are studying the potential impacts of AI on society. In this post, we examine how…
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The Rise of Big Data and Computational Social Science in Sociology
In this post, we examine the rise of big data and computational social science in sociology. Many sociologists complain about quantification Academics (on Twitter and elsewhere) often loudly complain about metrics — the quantification of their production, including impact factor, citations, and “points” that universities and other academic institutions, as…
The Sociology Place 