Artificially intelligent agents in the social and behavioral sciences: A history and outlook

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Hauptverfasser: Holme, Petter, Tsvetkova, Milena
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Holme, Petter
Tsvetkova, Milena
author_facet Holme, Petter
Tsvetkova, Milena
contents We review the historical development and current trends of artificially intelligent agents (agentic AI) in the social and behavioral sciences: from the first programmable computers, and social simulations soon thereafter, to today's experiments with large language models. This overview emphasizes the role of AI in the scientific process and the changes brought about, both through technological advancements and the broader evolution of science from around 1950 to the present. Some of the specific points we cover include: the challenges of presenting the first social simulation studies to a world unaware of computers, the rise of social systems science, intelligent game theoretic agents, the age of big data and the epistemic upheaval in its wake, and the current enthusiasm around applications of generative AI, and many other topics. A pervasive theme is how deeply entwined we are with the technologies we use to understand ourselves.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_05743
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Artificially intelligent agents in the social and behavioral sciences: A history and outlook
Holme, Petter
Tsvetkova, Milena
Artificial Intelligence
Computers and Society
We review the historical development and current trends of artificially intelligent agents (agentic AI) in the social and behavioral sciences: from the first programmable computers, and social simulations soon thereafter, to today's experiments with large language models. This overview emphasizes the role of AI in the scientific process and the changes brought about, both through technological advancements and the broader evolution of science from around 1950 to the present. Some of the specific points we cover include: the challenges of presenting the first social simulation studies to a world unaware of computers, the rise of social systems science, intelligent game theoretic agents, the age of big data and the epistemic upheaval in its wake, and the current enthusiasm around applications of generative AI, and many other topics. A pervasive theme is how deeply entwined we are with the technologies we use to understand ourselves.
title Artificially intelligent agents in the social and behavioral sciences: A history and outlook
topic Artificial Intelligence
Computers and Society
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.05743