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From AI Villages to AI Corporations: How AI Agents Are Reshaping Our Understanding of Society and Work
In my previous article , we’ve discussed the nature of AI agents and their expertise. Today, let’s explore some groundbreaking research on AI agents that holds promise not just for HR, but for social sciences at large.
Particularly intriguing is how simulations of AI agents performing various roles within organizations could contribute to HR practices. This approach applies the concept of Digital Twins to HR, allowing us to virtually recreate real-world organizations and experiment with various scenarios. The following cases demonstrate how these simulations could innovatively be applied in the HR field.
*Digital Twin: a technology that creates a virtual replica of a real-world object and predicts outcomes by simulating potential real-world situations on a computer.)
Case 1: Smallville — A Village Where AI Agents Live
Imagine a scene from the game “The Sims,” but populated entirely by AI agents interacting autonomously. This is precisely what a project called ‘Smallville’ has achieved. The researchers created 25 AI agents, each with a unique identity defined by detailed prompts.
For instance:
“John works as a pharmacy clerk and enjoys helping people. He lives with his wife Lin, a university professor, and their son Eddy, a college student studying music theory. Their neighbors, an elderly couple named Sam and Jennifer, have known John’s family for about three years.”
After generating each agent, the researchers let time pass as in real life and observed their interactions. They could track not only the agents’ ‘states’ but also their ‘conversations’. For example, they might observe John waking up in the morning, feeling tired and grumpy, and telling his wife Lin, “I want some coffee.”
One fascinating experiment involved instructing one agent to host a Valentine’s Day party. The…
