Andrea Baronchelli — Social Conventions in Human and LLM Populations: Emergence, Robustness, and Bias
The Center for Urban Science + Progress (CUSP) and the department of Technology Management and Innovation (TMI) at NYU Tandon welcome you to attend the lecture “Social Conventions in Human and LLM Populations: Emergence, Robustness, and Bias” by Andrea Baronchelli, professor of complexity science at City St George's, University of London. This event, hosted as part of the Fall 2025 Research Seminar Series, will be held in Room 1201 at 370 Jay Street.
About the Lecture
Social Conventions in Human and LLM Populations: Emergence, Robustness, and Bias
Social conventions are the foundation of social coordination, shaping how individuals come together to form a society. In this talk, I will present theoretical and experimental findings that demonstrate the spontaneous emergence of social norms in human groups, as well as the existence of tipping points in social convention. I will then focus on the case of populations of large language models (LLMs). As AI agents increasingly communicate using natural language, understanding how they develop conventions is crucial for interpreting and managing their collective behaviour. I will show that LLM populations can establish social conventions and highlight how collective biases can emerge even when individual agents appear unbiased. I will conclude by stressing how the ability of AI agents to develop norms without explicit programming has significant implications for designing AI systems that align with human values and societal goals.
About the Speaker
Andrea Baronchelli is Professor of Complexity Science at City St George’s, University London. His research focuses on human dynamics in decentralised socio-technical systems, covering topics such as social norms, (mis)information spreading, polarisation in social networks, blockchain ecosystems, and dark markets. Andrea’s work has been published in journals including Nature, Science, PNAS, and Nature Human Behaviour, and has been widely covered in the press, informing public debate and helping shape policy. In 2019, he received the Young Scientist Award for Socio- and Econophysics from the German Physical Society (DPG). From 2019 to 2021, he led the Economic Data Science theme at The Alan Turing Institute in London, where he launched the Token Economy theme in 2021 and led it until 2025.
Visitor Information
This event will be held in Room 1201 at 370 Jay St. Please visit the NYU Tandon website for directions and a campus map. Advance registration through Luma is required for campus access at NYU for external guests.
About the Urban Science Research Seminar Series
The Center for Urban Science + Progress’s annual Research Seminar series features leading voices in the growing field of urban informatics examining real-world challenges facing cities and urban environments around the world. The Fall 2025 series is organized by Assistant Professors Graham Dove, Yuki Miura, Qi Sun, and Takahiro Yabe.