Michael Muthukrishna

🚨 New paper in @NatureComms: (annoyingly) using college students to study cross-cultural effects underestimates the size of cultural differences. More education predicts more Westernization. Income & status don't. w/ Cindel White. 1/

This may be because formal education is a specific cultural download that reflects its Western origins. It's not just content, it teaches patience, delayed gratification (study now for tests later), self-control (sit still & stay quiet), individualism (grades & achievements), & analytic thinking. 5/

🚨 New paper in @NatureComms: (annoyingly) using college students to study cross-cultural effects underestimates the size of cultural differences. More education predicts more Westernization. Income & status don't. w/ Cindel White. 1/

Previous studies showed that socioeconomic status can shape people's values & behaviors. Here, we're able to break down SES into education, income & status. Only education seems to make you WEIRDer. 3/

🚨 New paper in @NatureComms: (annoyingly) using college students to study cross-cultural effects underestimates the size of cultural differences. More education predicts more Westernization. Income & status don't. w/ Cindel White. 1/

🚨 PNAS paper: "Indirect reciprocity undermines indirect reciprocity destabilizing large-scale cooperation" w/ Eric Schnell How do we achieve global cooperation on climate or conflict reduction? The problem isn't selfishness as much as it is cooperation itself - at a smaller scale. 1/

The local group are people you interact with regularly. They affect your life the most. They should care more that you're a good neighbor, friend, or family member than a climate change activist. Key result: Local cooperation should undermine global cooperation when in conflict. 5/

🚨 PNAS paper: "Indirect reciprocity undermines indirect reciprocity destabilizing large-scale cooperation" w/ Eric Schnell How do we achieve global cooperation on climate or conflict reduction? The problem isn't selfishness as much as it is cooperation itself - at a smaller scale. 1/

The problem is that the model assumes we belong to one group, w/ one reputation. We don't. The manager hiring his cousin is a bad manager but a useful family member. The official who lets a friend bypass the visa queue is a bad civil servant, but a good friend. 3/ Paper:

🚨 PNAS paper: "Indirect reciprocity undermines indirect reciprocity destabilizing large-scale cooperation" w/ Eric Schnell How do we achieve global cooperation on climate or conflict reduction? The problem isn't selfishness as much as it is cooperation itself - at a smaller scale. 1/

🚨 New paper in iScience: "Ecological not social factors explain brain size in cephalopods" In 2017, we published the Cultural Brain Hypothesis, a model of human brain evolution. It made an unexpected prediction: non-social animals could evolve big brains too, if their ecology was rich enough. 1/

What next? More data are needed. Higher-resolution measures of calories & complexity: temperature, latitude, oxygen, predators, prey, competition and measures of brains beyond size. Data here: https://cephdata.com 12/

🚨 New paper in iScience: "Ecological not social factors explain brain size in cephalopods" In 2017, we published the Cultural Brain Hypothesis, a model of human brain evolution. It made an unexpected prediction: non-social animals could evolve big brains too, if their ecology was rich enough. 1/

Important caveats: data and phylogenetically controlled models alone don't tell you the causal mechanism. That's why formal theory is useful - you can model assumptions and logic for possible mechanisms. A lot of the paper explains the role of theory in helping us interpret non-causal analyses. 10/

🚨 New paper in iScience: "Ecological not social factors explain brain size in cephalopods" In 2017, we published the Cultural Brain Hypothesis, a model of human brain evolution. It made an unexpected prediction: non-social animals could evolve big brains too, if their ecology was rich enough. 1/

Depth also indicates shallower-living species tended to have larger brains. This fits the idea that shallower habitats are generally more calorie-rich, biodiverse, & more cognitively demanding than open-water habitats. Again, consistent w/ the ABH. 8/

🚨 New paper in iScience: "Ecological not social factors explain brain size in cephalopods" In 2017, we published the Cultural Brain Hypothesis, a model of human brain evolution. It made an unexpected prediction: non-social animals could evolve big brains too, if their ecology was rich enough. 1/

We preregistered the ABH predictions against the Social Brain & compiled the largest comparative brain dataset for cephalopods yet: 5 years 79 species 3,933 papers 115 variables coded a new phylogeny brain size, body size, ecology, sociality, & behavior 6/

🚨 New paper in iScience: "Ecological not social factors explain brain size in cephalopods" In 2017, we published the Cultural Brain Hypothesis, a model of human brain evolution. It made an unexpected prediction: non-social animals could evolve big brains too, if their ecology was rich enough. 1/

Sociality can't explain cephalopod brain size, so what does? First, it's worth knowing that evolution favors the smallest brain that let's you survive and thrive, because brain tissue is expensive (about 20x as expensive as muscles in humans). So it has to be worth paying the energy bill 4/

🚨 New paper in iScience: "Ecological not social factors explain brain size in cephalopods" In 2017, we published the Cultural Brain Hypothesis, a model of human brain evolution. It made an unexpected prediction: non-social animals could evolve big brains too, if their ecology was rich enough. 1/

Here we got around to testing this "Asocial Brain Hypothesis" in cephalopods - octopuses, squids, & cuttlefish - by spending half a decade building the most comprehensive database & test of their brain evolution yet. 2/ Paper: www.sciencedirect.co... Press release: www.lse.ac.uk/news/e...

How do you align AI in a world of plural, conflicting, and evolving human values? A starting point is human society itself. @sydneylevine.bsky.social and I are hiring a postdoc at NYU to combine insights from cultural evolution, computational moral cognition, and AI safety. Please share widely!1/

The role is based in New York, starting this summer. Apply here: apply.interfolio.com/183820 Please share with your networks!

How do you align AI in a world of plural, conflicting, and evolving human values? A starting point is human society itself. @sydneylevine.bsky.social and I are hiring a postdoc at NYU to combine insights from cultural evolution, computational moral cognition, and AI safety. Please share widely!1/

evolutionary game theory & the evolution of cooperation; mechanism design and institutional design; cooperative AI and multi-agent systems; the study and development of large language models; cross-cultural psychology and large-scale behavioral data; philosophy of morality or social contract theory.

How do you align AI in a world of plural, conflicting, and evolving human values? A starting point is human society itself. @sydneylevine.bsky.social and I are hiring a postdoc at NYU to combine insights from cultural evolution, computational moral cognition, and AI safety. Please share widely!1/

We are looking for someone with a PhD (or are close to completion) in computer science, computational cognitive science, or any quantitative science, and a genuine interest in working across disciplinary boundaries.

How do you align AI in a world of plural, conflicting, and evolving human values? A starting point is human society itself. @sydneylevine.bsky.social and I are hiring a postdoc at NYU to combine insights from cultural evolution, computational moral cognition, and AI safety. Please share widely!1/

and designing and testing methods for aligning individual AI agents to user values in ways that reflect how humans transmit those values and align to one another.

How do you align AI in a world of plural, conflicting, and evolving human values? A starting point is human society itself. @sydneylevine.bsky.social and I are hiring a postdoc at NYU to combine insights from cultural evolution, computational moral cognition, and AI safety. Please share widely!1/

To offer a glimpse of the kind of questions and approaches you would be working on, consider the question of how the mechanisms of cooperation operate at scale, how are they made concrete in moral norms, and can analogous mechanisms be engineered into multi-agent AI systems?

How do you align AI in a world of plural, conflicting, and evolving human values? A starting point is human society itself. @sydneylevine.bsky.social and I are hiring a postdoc at NYU to combine insights from cultural evolution, computational moral cognition, and AI safety. Please share widely!1/

Now we are building AI systems that face many of the same problems, only faster, stranger, and with fewer inherited constraints.

How do you align AI in a world of plural, conflicting, and evolving human values? A starting point is human society itself. @sydneylevine.bsky.social and I are hiring a postdoc at NYU to combine insights from cultural evolution, computational moral cognition, and AI safety. Please share widely!1/