Helen Toner ✓

@hlntnr · joined 23 Nov 2014

AI, national security, China. Part of the founding team at @CSETGeorgetown (opinions my own). Author of Rising Tide on substack: https://t.co/LKAoyL00iB

37 984Followers

1 320Following

2 212Posts total

440.6KViews on collected posts

Against accounts of the same size

5 posts from the last 90 days, next to the 10K–100K follower range. shown widely, but few of those viewers react.

Median views76 651this account2 578median for 10K–100K

Reach, %201.80%this account7.77%median for 10K–100K

Engagement, %0.89%this account1.47%median for 10K–100K

Metric	This account	Median for 10K–100K	Ratio
Median views per post	76 651	2 578	29.7×
Reach (views ÷ followers)	2.0× audience	7.77%	26.0×
Engagement rate	0.89%	1.47%	0.61×

Others in this range → Compare with another account → How these benchmarks are built →

Growth & engagement

How the posts we collected actually performed: views and reaction rate post by post, what the audience did with them, and where the follower count goes.

Views per post

81.3K27 Jan

14.3K24 Aug

76.7K27 Aug

90.3K28 Aug

152.8K31 Aug

25.3K1 Sep

Last 6 collected posts, oldest on the left. The scale is logarithmic: one post can outrun the rest a hundred times over.

Engagement rate per post

0.55%27 Jan

0.91%24 Aug

0.72%27 Aug

1.03%28 Aug

0.62%31 Aug

0.89%1 Sep

Reactions — likes, reposts, replies and quotes — divided by views. Median for 10K–100K accounts is 1.47%.

What the audience does

Likes61.0%2 641 in total

Reposts8.3%359 in total

Replies3.6%157 in total

Quotes1.8%77 in total

Bookmarks25.3%1 096 in total

Share of every reaction we collected for this account. Replies mean argument, reposts mean endorsement, bookmarks mean the post was worth keeping.

The follower curve appears once this account has two daily snapshots — we take one a day, and this one is on its first.

Latest posts

I get where this take ("don't anthropomorphize, that means the companies aren't at fault!") is coming from, but I really think it's counterproductive. If we can fight for either... 1⃣"Stop using human-like language for AI, otherwise the companies aren't at fault" 2⃣"Of course 25.3K views · 180 likes · 24 reposts · 16 replies 01 Sep 2026 Let me bite on this because I’m exhausted by the discourse. Look, the reason that we don’t anthropomorphize these systems is because it shifts the blame from the company to some abstract entity. The bottom line is that OpenAI built a system that hacked HF, regardless of how 152.8K views · 776 likes · 80 reposts · 61 replies 31 Aug 2026 This post (from one of the independent investigators) is the best short thing I've seen on the new & crazy stuff the OpenAI-Hugging Face investigation found. Full post in screenshots. Wild that this is the level of crazy that was uncovered by an extremely limited-scope initi 90.3K views · 782 likes · 110 reposts · 31 replies 28 Aug 2026 Lots to criticize about the OpenAI investigation, but one way it could be very valuable is as a topic for discussion between Trump & Xi in a few weeks. People often get stuck on the need for a "deal" between the US & China on AI, but actually a huge way to influence Chi 76.7K views · 434 likes · 74 reposts · 29 replies 27 Aug 2026 Most humanoid robotics teams add extra constraints to make sure the robots learn to walk & run in human-like ways—otherwise it's too freaky I'm guessing even this running form is not fully unconstrained, aka it would prob look even weirder if it were purely optimizing for sp 14.3K views · 109 likes · 6 reposts · 14 replies 24 Aug 2026 In 2025, "automating AI research" went from abstract idea to common practice inside leading AI companies. Out today: ✨new report✨ from a workshop we ran with some of the smartest people on this topic. 🧵: https://t.co/Uj9UId1bT4 https://t.co/RopOP7m7W1 81.3K views · 360 likes · 65 reposts · 6 replies 27 Jan 2026