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MPSA 2026: Politics of AI Workshop
Our team will be, presenting the paper titled: “Productive Disagreement as a Skill: AI-Supported Training for Political Conversations” by Ethan Busby, Lisa Argyle, Parker Davis, Joshua Gubler, Alex Lyman, and David Wingate. This will be during the panel discussion titled "The Impact of Large Language Models on Political Communication and Research".
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SPSA 2026: Generative Language Models in Political Science Research
A roundtable of scholars aims to establish validation standards and best practices for using generative AI in political science, addressing the growing need for transparency, replicability, and clear evaluation criteria in this rapidly expanding field.
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APSA 2025: Validation and Generative AI in Political Science Working Group
This working group brings together political scientists from BYU’s AI and Social Science Lab to begin developing shared validation standards for the growing use of generative AI in political science research. It aims to establish best practices for transparency, disclosure, replicability, model evaluation, and task‑specific performance, while building a community committed to improving the quality and credibility of AI‑enabled scholarship.
The Social Science and AI Lab (SAIL) is a leading research group investigating the constructive roles of artificial intelligence in promoting civic engagement and democratic participation. SAIL’s founding team has produced several highly cited studies on the use of AI as a moderator in political discourse. Ongoing research focuses on the application of large language models (LLMs) in everyday contexts to examine how these technologies can foster the development of democratic skills and deliberative capacities. Reach out to us at byu_sail@byu.edu.
Published Works
Works in Progress
Experimental and Observational Inferences from LLMs *
Explores how large language models can simulate human behavior and produce reliable causal insights, offering new tools and challenges for social science and AI research.
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Prompting Practices for (Social) Scientists
Successful use of large language models depends on thoughtful prompting, since interacting with these systems is more like communicating with people than programming computers, and offers guidelines to help scientists apply them effectively.
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The Sound of Persuasion: Exploring the Embedded Nature of Gender in Political Persuasion with AI
Using AI-generated voices in large-scale experiments, researchers find that while overall persuasiveness does not differ by gender, female-coded voices face penalties when expressing views that conflict with gender stereotypes.
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Artificial Intelligence and Improving Democratic Skills
AI tools that coach and train people to handle divisive political discussions more productively, showing that guided practice can build confidence and reduce conflict in challenging conversations.
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LLM Voice Pilot
Study explores how differences in voice across gender, race, and accent shape perceptions of credibility, warmth, and group identity.
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Meet the Research Team
Joshua Gubler
Joshua Gubler is a political psychologist who is also head of the Middle Eastern Studies Program at BYU. His research focuses on depolarization through prejudice reduction, although he writes on a variety of topics, including the role of affect and emotion in shaping human attitudes and behavior.
Ethan Busby
Dr. Ethan C. Busby is a political psychologist and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Brigham Young University. His research focuses on how democratic societies should respond to extremism, using approaches from political psychology and generative AI tools. These are deeply integrated in his work—political psychology informs his use of AI, and he uses AI tools test theories from political psychology.
Lisa Argyle
Dr. Lisa P. Argyle is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Purdue University. She earned a Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara, after which she was a postdoc at Princeton University and faculty at Brigham Young University. Dr. Argyle blends political psychology with computational social science to study political attitudes and participation in the United States.
David Wingate
Dr. Wingate received his BS and MS in computer science from BYU in 2002 and 2004, and a PhD in computer science from the University of Michigan in 2008. He was a postdoctoral fellow at MIT from 2008-2010 with a joint appointment in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and the Computational Cognitive Science group in the Brain and Cognitive Science Department.
Alex Lyman
Alex Lyman is a PhD student studying Computer Science at BYU. He holds a Master's in Computer and Information Technology from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor's in Linguistics from BYU. Alex's research lies at the intersection of AI and social science, with a focus on the real-world downstream consequences of language model training.
Parker Davis
Parker Davis is a senior political science student and research fellow for the Social Science and AI Lab. His research focuses on American political behavior, particularly the use of LLMs in political persuasion. He is also a fellow at the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy and studies group identities and political behavior.
Rachel Stark
Rachel Stark is a research assistant for the Social Science and AI Lab. She is a senior studying International Relations and German. Her research focuses on the role of emerging technologies in political violence, as well as the foreign policies of states under revolutionary pressure.
Isaac Rallison
Isaac Rallison is a student at Brigham Young University studying Computer Science with an emphasis in Machine Learning. As a research assistant, he is passionate about using data to help make the world a better place.
Caleb Leach
Caleb Leach is a Sophomore studying Political Science at Brigham Young University. He is particularly interested in political psychology. His research focuses on affect and persuasive effects.
Grant Lyon
Grant Lyon is an undergraduate research fellow at SAIL. As a senior Political Science major at Brigham Young University, his research interests include regime change, democratic institutions, and peacemaking.
Lyndsey Facer
Lyndsey Facer is an undergraduate student at Brigham Young University. She is studying political science with an emphasis in International Strategy and Diplomacy. Her research focuses on how AI can improve diplomatic skills.
Boston Sharp
Boston Sharp is a student at Brigham Young University studying Machine Learning, with a minor in Mathematics. As a research assistant, he's looking to leverage AI to help people better understand one another.
Richard del Plain
Richard del Plain is an undergraduate student at Brigham Young University studying Machine Learning. As a research assistant he is seeking to utilize AI to help people grow in their diplomatic skill.
Sage Williams
Sage Williams is an undergraduate student studying International Relations and Spanish. As a research assistant, she hopes to explore how technology can facilitate meaningful conversations and reduce prejudice.
Emeline DeGiulio
Emeline DeGiulio is a sophomore studying Mathematics and Computer Science at Brigham Young University. She aims to use Machine Learning to create positive change in the world through applications of mathematical principles and emerging technologies.
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