Thread by @GuangyuRobert

What will a world look like with 100 billion digital human beings?

Today we share our tech report on Project Sid – a glimpse at the first AI agent civilization (powered by our new PIANO architecture).



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Project Sid shows civilizational progress, specialization, governance, and the invention and spread of memes and religion.

These were made possible by our new cognitive architecture: PIANO.

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How can AI agents think & act concurrently, over multiple time-scales, consciously and subconsciously?

Imagine the keys of a piano as different brain modules. Played together, they can produce beautiful chords—or, in our case, emergent human-like qualities in agents.

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Can AI agents form meaningful social relationships at scale?

We show agents accurately inferring others' sentiments, forming lasting friendships & rivalries, and having introverts naturally form fewer connections than extroverts in societies of many agents

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How do specialized roles emerge in AI societies?

When we put initially identical agents in a village, they self-developed distinct professions like farmers & engineers. Removing social awareness led to agents choosing more homogenous roles that didn’t persist across time.
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Can AI agents develop & modify their own laws?

We tested this by implementing a tax system. They not only followed tax laws but also democratically voted to change rates based on public sentiment!

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Can AI agents develop their own culture?

We observed organic spread of memes & tracked how agents primed with a fictional religion (Pastafarianism!) spread through agent societies. Rural areas showed different cultural patterns vs towns:

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This work is of course the outcome of many wonderful people here at @Altera_AL : @A_J_Ahn @PeterYWang1 @bearablylight @caenopy @ardademirci_14 @shuying_luo @nicochristie @saiphanie_ @franklikesfilms @MatWillows @investigationo3 and more!

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