The Agentic Professor

I started doing research on cooperation when I was a teenager.

I didn't have a lab. I didn't have a research budget. I didn't have a PhD.

I had a computer.

Agent-based models let me build little worlds and watch cooperation evolve. The distance between wondering and investigating collapsed to nothing. I have been chasing that feeling ever since.

Now AI is collapsing that distance again, for all of us, bigger than I have ever seen it.

> the agentic professor is about exploring that possibility

This is roughly what my screen looked like at 17.

Every cell is an agent playing a simple cooperation game with its neighbors, copying whichever neighbor is doing best. Nobody is in charge. Cooperation keeps finding a way.

Models like this one were my first lab: no budget, no permission, just rules, agents, and questions. I went on to spend a career studying cooperation, from cells to societies.

It runs live. Reseed it. Watch what the simple rules do.

Start from what you want to become capable of.

shelf 01 · explore

I want to explore an idea

Research agents, literature sweeps, landscape maps. Wandering is nearly free now, so stop rationing it.

shelf 02 · model

I want to model a system

Agent-based models, simulations, toy worlds you can argue with. Describe the rules, watch what emerges.

shelf 03 · build

I want to build something

Coding agents turn an afternoon of description into a working prototype. The most changed verb of the decade.

shelf 04 · research

I want to run research

Data analysis, experiment automation, agents that keep your pipeline honest while you keep the judgment.

shelf 05 · teach

I want to teach differently

Interactive simulations, materials that adapt, courses that treat students as agents too.

shelf 06 · act

I want to make something happen

Gatherings, institutions, public scholarship. Agents handle logistics so alignment gets your full attention.

Not everything involves AI. Agency is the goal; technology is leverage. Full guide coming with the site.

Field notes, two or three a week.

entry 001 · arriving soon