Edmond (Eddy) Awad

Machine+Behavior Conference Welcome to the forefront of behavioral science in the digital age.

Machine+Behavior is back! Pls spread the word.

18-19 May
Submission 8 Feb

Speakers include: Tom Griffiths, Allan Dafoe, Thore Graepel, Laura Weidinger, Kinga Makovi, @baronca.bsky.social, @drkatedevlin.bsky.social, Emilio Calvano, Brian D. Earp, Christopher Summerfield

machinebehavior.science

The rise of machine culture Podcast Episode · Many Minds · 31/10/2024 · 1h 20m

Working my way slowly through the @manymindspod.bsky.social back catalogue. This one with @iyadrahwan.bsky.social is really good on a cultural evolution analysis of machine / digital culture

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/m...

Lupin spent five episodes mastering disguise and plotting impossible heists at the Louvre. Meanwhile, someone just walked in during daylight and did it.

Delegation to artificial intelligence can increase dishonest behaviour - Nature People cheat more when they delegate tasks to artificial intelligence, and large language models are more likely than humans to comply with unethical instructions—a risk that can be minimized by ...

Would you let AI (LLMs) cheat for you? New work out in @nature.com shows that people are indeed willing to instruct AI in ways that will benefit themselves, despite not being totally honest. Great work by @nckobis.bsky.social and @iyadrahwan.bsky.social et al 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Can we turn a science fiction thought experiment into an actual experiment?

Check out our new @nature.com paper on the "Science Fiction Science" method (summarized by @jfbonnefon.bsky.social below)

The science fiction science method - Nature The ‘science fiction science’ method simulates future technologies and collects quantitative data on the attitudes and behaviours of participants in various future scenarios, with the aim of predictin...

We need data, not guesses, on how future tech may reshape behavior & society. Our new paper with @azimshariff.bsky.social and @iyadrahwan.bsky.social out in @nature.com spells out a framework we call the ❝science fiction science method❞ (sci-fi-sci) +

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This is the kind of outcome we foretold six years ago in a paper aptly titled Drivers Are Blamed More Than Their Automated Cars When Both Make Mistakes, with @awad.bsky.social @sohandsouza.info @sydneylevine.bsky.social @maxkw.bsky.social @azimshariff.bsky.social @iyadrahwan.bsky.social

Digital pathways beyond Western-centric participants - Behavior Research Methods In 2010, Henrich and colleagues published a seminal article in which they noted that (1) studies in social and behavioural sciences oversample from Western, educated, industrialised, rich, and democra...

For the full text see:
👉 link.springer.com/article/10.3...

5/5

Thanks to @jfbonnefon.bsky.social @mjcrockett.bsky.social Katarzyna Doniec Joe Henrich Julian Jamison @iyadrahwan.bsky.social Zoe Rahwan, and @azimshariff.bsky.social for their insightful comments on an earlier draft of the article.

@exeter.ac.uk @uehiro.ox.ac.uk @mpib-berlin.bsky.social
4/5

I also provide helpful tips and starting points to consider for each.

Each method comes with trade-offs—whether in cost, scalability, or cultural nuance—but together they offer practical routes to make behavioural science more globally representative. 3/5

I present a range of strategies, from targeted site selection, to public-facing serious games (e.g. Moral Machine) and team-driven collaborations, as well as more scalable or accessible methods such as social media recruitment, third-party panels, and leveraging historical data. 2/5

🧠 Is your research still relying on Western participants?

15 years after “The WEIRDest People in the World” by Henrich et al., most studies still overuse WEIRD samples.

In this paper, published in in Behavior Research Methods, I offer digital pathways to move beyond that. 1/5

Edmond Awad introducing a presentation titled "Online Serious Games as a Tool to Study Value Disagreement"

An example of two vignettes form a conventional behavioral experiment (about the identifiable victim effect)

Examples of the scale that online games can enable.

Examples of how process dissociation can improve dilemma-based measurement.

How can we improve the #CogSci of values and decision-making?

Closing the #BioXPhi Summit, a keynote from Edmond @awad.bsky.social proposed more factors, scale, etc.

How?

#games + #processDissociation

Examples:
last-haven.net
tinker-tots.net

Follow Dr. Awad! www.researchgate.net/profile/Edmo...

Humans need both housing and wild places | Letters Letters: A new citizen science project helps us reach ethical decisions around planning and nature, writes Dr Edmond Awad, while Sue Hopkinson wants to redefine nimbyism. Plus a letter from Steve…

The team hope that by understanding how people make complex decisions about competing human and non-human priorities, they will be able to inform more ethically grounded decisions.

Read the letter here: buff.ly/sDtpBEv
@awad.bsky.social‬

'As the UK considers the future of its planning frameworks, we hope that those making these important decisions, and indeed all of us, will reflect on the values at stake.'

Dr Edmond Awad, from the NeuroSec Group led by Professor Ilina Singh at the Department of Psychiatry, writes to the Guardian.

That’s exactly what we explore in Last Haven: 🌍 last-haven.net

#LastHaven #conservation #planning #housing #biodiversity #publicopinion

@oxfordpsychiatry.bsky.social @ox.ac.uk @exeter.ac.uk
@ethoxcentre.bsky.social @oxpop.bsky.social
@uehiro.ox.ac.uk
@mgreinecke.bsky.social

These trade-offs are not just about land use—they reflect real choices about what we protect, what we sacrifice, and whose interests we prioritise.

Revealed: 5,000 English nature sites at risk under Labour’s planning proposals Exclusive: Planning bill includes mechanism for developers to ‘pay to pollute’ valuable ecosystems, experts warn

It responds to their recent article revealing that over 5,000 English nature sites are at risk under new planning proposals:
🌱 www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Humans need both housing and wild places | Letters Letters: A new citizen science project helps us reach ethical decisions around planning and nature, writes Dr Edmond Awad, while Sue Hopkinson wants to redefine nimbyism. Plus a letter from Steve Lupt...

Glad to see that @theguardian.com published my letter on one of the most urgent dilemmas we face today: how to balance housing needs with protecting nature.
📄 www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

New Citizen Science project explores ethical dilemmas in embryo selection Researchers at the University of Oxford, University of Exeter, and the National University of Singapore present a new, interactive study: Tinker Tots: A Citizen Science Project to Explore Ethical Dile...

Genetic selection of pre-implantation embryos is happening now and will, increasingly, be possible for more traits. An Oxford University research project is seeking volunteers who will make some hypothetical choices online.

Explore our new research platform, Last Haven — a gamified experience where you make tough choices between protecting endangered species' habitats and advancing human needs.
👉 last-haven.net

Tigers, snakes, plants - what if their last habitat stood in the way of a hospital?
#LastHaven asks: how do we choose between protecting nature and meeting human needs?
Take part in this citizen science project today.
Learn more:https://last-haven.net
#PhilosophyMatters

Always a pleasant surprise to see the #MoralMachine make an appearance in the wild now and then.

(Last week's Cambridge Disinformation Summit talk by Fabio Motoki)

@iyadrahwan.bsky.social @awad.bsky.social @jfbonnefon.bsky.social @azimshariff.bsky.social

👉 tinker-tots.net

@ethoxcentre.bsky.social @briandavidearp.bsky.social
@joannad-c.bsky.social @oxpop.bsky.social @uehiro.ox.ac.uk

#TinkerTots #Genetics #Bioethics #IVF #PolygenicScores #PublicEngagement #ReproEthics

7/7

That’s why we created Tinker Tots tinker-tots.net — a short, anonymous experience (in the spirit of Moral Machine) that invites you to explore these choices.

Reflect on what matters to you, and help us understand how society navigates this evolving terrain.

6/7

The decisions made in clinics and ethics commissions reflect how societies think about fairness, risk, and responsibility.

And yet, we still know surprisingly little about how people approach these questions.

5/7

... In the United States, where such screening is not subject to any regulatory oversight, it is already in commercial use.”

That’s why public perception matters.

4/7

In many countries, legal boundaries are not clearly defined or enforced.

As the NYT reports: “In the past few years, ethics commissions in some German states have heard petitions from parents to screen for later-onset conditions, deciding them case by case...

3/7

🧬 Embryo selection began with the avoidance of serious early-onset conditions.

Then came screening for later-onset illnesses.

Now, it includes non-medical traits—like eye colour, height or even possibly cognitive ability, as the NYT article notes.

2/7

Recently, we launched Tinker Tots (tinker-tots.net) — a platform where people can reflect on how they make decisions based on embryo attributes.
Coincidentally, the @nytimes.com published a 3-part series on polygenic embryo screening the same day
🔗
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
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