Large Language Models as Simulated Economic Agents: What Can We Learn from Homo Silicus? / John J. Horton.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Horton, John J.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w31122.

NBER working paper series no. w31122

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2023.

Summary:

Newly-developed large language models (LLM)--because of how they are trained and designed--are implicit computational models of humans--a homo silicus. LLMs can be used like economists use homo economicus: they can be given endowments, information, preferences, and so on, and then their behavior can be explored in scenarios via simulation. Experiments using this approach, derived from Charness and Rabin (2002), Kahneman, Knetsch and Thaler (1986), and Samuelson and Zeckhauser (1988) show qualitatively similar results to the original, but it is also easy to try variations for fresh insights. LLMs could allow researchers to pilot studies via simulation first, searching for novel social science insights to test in the real world.

Notes:

Print version record

April 2023.