Benjamin Manning and John Horton: “Useful social science theories predict behavior across settings. However, applying a theory to make predictions in new settings is challenging: rarely can it be done without ad hoc modifications to account for setting-specific factors. We argue that AI agents put in simulations of those novel settings offer an alternative for applying theory, requiring minimal or no modifications. We present an approach for building such “general” agents that use theory-grounded natural language instructions, existing empirical data, and knowledge acquired by the underlying AI during training. To demonstrate the approach in settings where no data from that data-generating process exists—as is often the case in applied prediction problems—we design a highly heterogeneous population of 883,320 novel games. AI agents are constructed using human data from a small set of conceptually related, but structurally distinct “seed” games. In preregistered experiments, on average, agents predict human play better than (i) game-theoretic equilibria and (ii) out-of-the-box agents in a random sample of 1,500 games from the population. For a small set of separate novel games, these simulations predict responses from a new sample of human subjects better even than the most plausibly relevant published human data.” [Via Tyler Cowen]
WSJ: “The pursuit of scientific knowledge is beautiful, assert Alan Lightman, an astrophysicist teaching at MIT, and Martin Rees, who is Britain’s former Astronomer Royal. Science is important, they explain, it is fun, and, if you’re a scientist, it might just hand you the keys to the deepest mysteries of the universe. But scientific inquiry is also, insist Messrs. Lightman and Rees, entirely value-free. It has no sense of good or bad, right or wrong: “It is we humans who impose those values.” Written at a time when skepticism about science is surging, “The Shape of Wonder” sets out to remind us of the hardworking human beings who devote their lives to it. The authors re-create simple experiments, such as dropping a weight from different heights and measuring the time it takes to reach the ground, to illustrate how researchers make predictions about the world and shape them into laws, which are themselves always subject to further review. Science thus moves forward, allowing human beings to flourish—so the authors believe—even in a world gripped by environmental challenges and proliferating pathogens.”
Macy CEO Tony Spring: “I read every customer note that I receive. Listening to feedback is one of the most important ways we can improve and grow our business.”
Marc Benioff: “We are at the beginning of the Agentic Era, the most significant transformation of work in history. For the first time, machines can perform not only repetitive tasks, but cognitive work once reserved for humans. These AI agents–which can reason, adapt, and act on their own–are already reshaping thousands of companies and will ultimately touch every job and every person.”
