Attention, Platforms, and the AI Era in Computational Social Science

Attention, Platforms, and the AI Era in Computational Social Science

Sandra González-Bailón (Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania) delivers her lecture at the inaugural Tech for Open Minds Annual Conference at Duke University on April 2, 2026. Drawing on platform history and large-scale data — including Reddit — she develops a thesis about the attention economy: attention is valuable, and an engaged minority commands a disproportionate share of it. She situates this within a framework of hybrid human-AI networks and discusses what the AI era genuinely opens up for researchers studying polarization and open-mindedness.