AI Agents for Social Science & Society

Undergraduate / Graduate

This course takes the position that AI agents represent a fundamental transformation in both society and social science methodology: from cartoons of social life to another dimension of sociality, and from tools that merely process data to autonomous systems that can formulate hypotheses, conduct literature reviews, design studies, analyze complex multimedia data, engage in theoretical reasoning, simulate human behavior and social dynamics, and reveal their own behaviors that are playing an increasingly important role in the human social world. In this course, students will learn to understand and construct AI agents that serve as research assistants (automating data collection and analysis), research subjects (simulating human responses and social processes or revealing their own authentic behavior), research advisors (synthesizing literature and proposing theoretical frameworks), research scientists (generating and testing hypotheses), and workers within organizations, institutions, and societies for study, but also productive work and life.