HAI Weekly Seminar with Tobias Gerstenberg
Going Beyond the Here and Now: Counterfactual Simulation in Human Cognition
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Going Beyond the Here and Now: Counterfactual Simulation in Human Cognition
AI+Science: Accelerating Discovery is an interdisciplinary conference bringing together researchers across physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology, neuroscience, and more to examine how AI is reshaping scientific discovery. Experts will separate hype from reality, spotlighting where AI is already enabling genuine breakthroughs and where its limits and risks remain.

AI+Science: Accelerating Discovery is an interdisciplinary conference bringing together researchers across physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology, neuroscience, and more to examine how AI is reshaping scientific discovery. Experts will separate hype from reality, spotlighting where AI is already enabling genuine breakthroughs and where its limits and risks remain.
Child labor remains prevalent in Ghana’s cocoa sector and is associated with adverse educational and health outcomes for children.

Child labor remains prevalent in Ghana’s cocoa sector and is associated with adverse educational and health outcomes for children.
What does digital inclusion look like in the age of AI? Over 6,000 of the world’s 7,000-plus living languages remain digitally disadvantaged.

What does digital inclusion look like in the age of AI? Over 6,000 of the world’s 7,000-plus living languages remain digitally disadvantaged.
As humans, we spend much of our time going beyond the here and now. We dwell on the past, long for the future, and ponder how things could have turned out differently. In this talk, I will argue that people's knowledge of the world is organized around causally structured mental models, and that much of human thought can be understood as cognitive operations over these mental models. Specifically, I will highlight the pervasiveness of counterfactual thinking in human cognition. Counterfactuals are critical for how people make causal judgments, how they explain what happened, and how they hold others responsible for their actions.