Cohort 3’s, Joshua Tenn, has had a busy summer attending 2 summer schools. He writes about his experience:
“This summer, I was privileged to attend two summer schools, the 7th Summer School on Computational Modelling of Cognition in Hinterstoder, Austria, and the 2024 EADM Summer School on LLMs in Behavioural Science at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. You can read more about my experiences at both summer schools below.
7th Summer School on Computational Modelling of Cognition
This summer school was based in the Alps in Upper Austria which provided a serene, mountainous backdrop for the summer school.
Computational modelling of cognition refers to the use of mathematical and statistical models to describe and explain human behaviour. For example, the model I am developing with my supervisors aims to describe and explain how users take advice from artificial intelligence sources.
On the first day, we presented posters on our work (see mine below); this helped the staff organising the school to assign relevant supervisors for the two-week summer school.
I worked with Professor Stephan Lewandowsky from the University of Bristol (and who co-authored the textbook on computational modelling!) on my model, with the aim of addressing some issues with said model, and integrating a measure of an AI’s reputation. Just like human reputation, reputation refers to what we think about the AI’s ability and performance.
The project time was interspersed with a series of workshops and lectures on different elements of computational modelling, including Bayesian statistics, drift diffusion models, and social network analysis (which it turns out is nothing to do with Twitter…). I also got to do some exploring around the local area on our day off!
Pictured above: The lovely views by a stream in Hinterstoder
I’m pleased to say by the end of the summer school, I was able to get the model working properly and to start adding to it! I made more progress on it in two weeks than I had in the previous couple of months before the summer school, which was amazing. A big thank you to Dr Lewandowsky and the rest of the CMMC team for making the summer school so memorable!
2024 EADM Summer School on LLMs in Behavioural Science
It was fantastic to return to the Max Planck Institute for Human Development having attended a summer school there back in 2023. The surroundings were very different to Austria, going from a quiet village to a bustling city!
As I work largely with AI models that output numerical data, working with LLMs was a very different experience – and a very rewarding one! The first couple of days were focused on a series of workshops on using LLMs in behavioural science and the ‘pipeline’ from accessing models to using these in experiments. There was also a poster session, where I presented some thoughts on using LLMs in my field, which is largely still focused on numerical data (see below).
I also took part in a group challenge to come up with a new research project – with my group focusing on the effects LLMs may have on our moral viewpoints. We finished a very narrow second of the 6 groups in the evaluation, which I was very happy with!
The keynote speakers, including both academics and those from AI companies such as DeepMind, were very valuable and has given me plenty of literature to read and to use in my thesis – timely as I only have 12 months left of my PhD…
Most excitingly, I got speaking to one of the academics giving a keynote talk, and we are planning a collaborative study – watch this space!
Overall, this second summer school was also a valuable experience – many thanks particularly to Dr Dirk Wulff and Dr Anne-Marie Nussberger for organising! During both summer schools I have met many other PhD students working in similar areas to my own, who I’m sure I’ll bump into during the rest of the PhD and beyond.
Here’s to the next experience!”
