Aron Vallinder + Edward Hughes | Cultural Evolution and Cooperation in AI Agents
Foresight Institute’s Intelligent Cooperation Group
Cultural Evolution and Cooperation in AI Agents
Abstract: AI agents may soon be deployed at scale, carrying out increasingly complex tasks. Arguably, much of their value will come from interactions with one another: collaborating as colleagues, coordinating on norms, competing in marketplaces, or cooperating in social dilemmas. However, large-scale multi-agent interactions can introduce complex dynamics that alter behaviors in unexpected ways. In particular, when agents learn from one another, their behaviors may undergo cultural evolution—the process by which learned behaviors are transmitted, modified, and selectively retained, producing cumulative change over time. It's therefore crucial to understand whether desirable behaviors remain stable under these evolutionary pressures. In this talk, I present initial findings on the cultural evolution of cooperation among LLM agents and argue for developing more extensive benchmarks and evaluations to help us navigate this critical transition.
Bio: Aron Vallinder is an independent researcher currently focused on cultural evolution and cooperation in LLM agents. He was a PIBBSS fellow in 2024, and has previously worked at the Forethought Foundation, where he did research for William MacAskill’s What We Owe The Future. He is a research affiliate at the Mimir Center for Long Term Futures Research and holds a PhD in philosophy from the London School of Economics, with a thesis on Bayesian epistemology.
Foresight Institute’s Intelligent Cooperation Group
This seminar is part of Foresight's Computation Seminar Series. To join future seminars in this program please apply here.
A group of scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs in computer science, ML, cryptocommerce, and related fields who leverage those technologies to improve voluntary cooperation across humans, and ultimately AIs.
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