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Posts
Prediction Markets for Science: Beyond the Quick Bucks
Published:
Throughout the 2024 US election season, as opinion polls predicted roughly even chances of either party winning, news media paid special attention to the odds on prediction markets such as Polymarket.
AI Girlfriend or AI Boyfriend? Social Determinants of Human-AI Relationships
Published:
In the West and across the English-language internet, the idea of using AI for intimate companionship often conjures images of female personas. From Sam Altman’s cryptic one-word X post—“her,” a clear nod to the 2013 film—to Grok’s launch of its AI companion Ani, the dominant narrative seems tailored to a heterosexual male audience. The archetype of the AI girlfriend, designed to be emotionally available, submissive, and aesthetically pleasing, has become a cultural fixture.
How to prepare for a successful parallel talk at IC2S2
Published:
Not too long ago, I played a wise man to someone stressed about an interview. Instead of wishing her luck, I conveyed my faith in her through my usual contrarianism: “No luck required—only preparation.” The words came naturally as it had been my mantra this year.
media
Interviewed by Euronews about AI for voting advice
Published:
For a Euronews article on Dutch Data Protection Authority’s warning against using AI for voting advice, I shared my opinion on how AI should be used as an educational tool for voters—based on insights from the paper “Learn, Explore and Reflect by Chatting: Understanding the Value of an LLM-Based Voting Advice Application”.
portfolio
publications
Learn, Explore and Reflect by Chatting: Understanding the Value of an LLM-Based Voting Advice Application Chatbot
Published in ACM Conference on Conversational User Interfaces 2025 (CUI ’25), 2025
Voting advice applications (VAAs), which have become increasingly prominent in European elections, are seen as a successful tool for boosting electorates’ political knowledge and engagement. However, VAAs’ complex language and rigid presentation constrain their utility to less-sophisticated voters. While previous work enhanced VAAs’ click-based interaction with scripted explanations, a conversational chatbot’s potential for tailored discussion and deliberate political decision-making remains untapped. Our exploratory mixed-method study investigates how LLM-based chatbots can support voting preparation. We deployed a VAA chatbot to 331 users before Germany’s 2024 European Parliament election, gathering insights from surveys, conversation logs, and 10 follow-up interviews. Participants found the VAA chatbot intuitive and informative, citing its simple language and flexible interaction. We further uncovered VAA chatbots’ role as a catalyst for reflection and rationalization. Expanding on participants’ desire for transparency, we provide design recommendations for building interactive and trustworthy VAA chatbots.
Recommended citation: Jianlong Zhu, Manon Kempermann, Vikram Kamath Cannanure, Alexander Hartland, Rosa M. Navarrete, Giuseppe Carteny, Daniela Braun, and Ingmar Weber. 2025. Learn, Explore and Reflect by Chatting: Understanding the Value of an LLM-Based Voting Advice Application Chatbot. In Proceedings of the 7th ACM Conference on Conversational User Interfaces (CUI ’25), July 8–10, 2025, Waterloo, ON, Canada. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 22 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3719160.3736611
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Dialogue Design Shapes the Intergroup Attitudinal Effects of AI-Assisted Political Argumentation
Published in Under review, 2026
Structured argumentative dialogues where interlocutors deliberate on opposing political ideas are known to promote perspective-taking and reduce political polarization, but finding willing partners is difficult as Americans increasingly shun political discussions. AI dialogue partners offer a scalable framework for such open-mindedness exercises, but how the format of human-AI dialogues shapes their benefits remains unclear. To address this gap, we conducted a preregistered two-session online experiment with 527 US participants. As the primary experimental manipulation, participants were assigned to argue either for or against their pre-existing attitude on a contested political issue, engaging either with an AI chatbot or a solitary essay task. We found that attitude-congruent dialogues more strongly reduced polarization than attitude-incongruent dialogues post-intervention. By contrast, an exploratory analysis suggested a delayed increase in cognitive empathy following attitude-incongruent dialogues, a pattern consistent with the account of sleeper effects. Given the heterogeneity, the AI conditions were not universally more effective forming favorable intergroup attitudes in pooled comparisons between AI and non-AI conditions. Our findings caution against a simplistic view of AI dialogues as a silver bullet for depolarization and highlight dialogue design as a key determinant of effective AI-mediated attitudinal interventions.
talks
Talking about VAAs at IC2S2 ‘25
Published:
I will give an oral presentation about the paper “Learn, Explore and Reflect by Chatting: Understanding the Value of an LLM-Based Voting Advice Application” at IC2S2 ‘25 in Norrköping, Sweden.
teaching
Elements of Data Science and AI
Undergraduate course, Saarland University, Department of Computer Science, 2024
As a teaching assistant, I designed course materials and oversaw the exam administration for the undergraduate lecture “Elements of Data Science and AI”.