Announcing our Fall 2026 Wednesdays@NICO seminar series! What can complexity science tell us about AI, networks, and human behavior? Find out starting September 30th, each Wednesday at 12 PM US Central.

More info: bit.ly/WedatNICO

#WedatNICO #ComplexSystems #AI

#WedatNICO returns this week for the fall quarter!

Join us Wednesday as Luis Amaral (@amaral) of @NorthwesternEng asks: "The World is on Fire. Is it Time to Follow the Science Yet?"

🗓️ Wed 9/30 at 12pm US Central
🔗 bit.ly/WedatNICO

What happens between a spark of an idea and a lasting scientific collaboration? A new @SloanFoundation supported project at NICO will study how ideas emerge, evolve, and ultimately become research partnerships.

Read more: bit.ly/4qRAi1D

#ComplexSystems #TeamScience

A novel, team-focused approach from NUCATS and @NICOatNU is bringing together faculty from across Northwestern to spark previously unexplored interdisciplinary collaboration. ⬇ spr.ly/6011B8Xejf

"The critical question is not whether AI can 'do' science but whether science—as a social, evolutionary system that generates trustworthy knowledge—survives the way AI does it," write Julio M. Ottino and Brian Uzzi in a new #ScienceEditorial. scim.ag/3PvziCk

This Wednesday, we are excited to welcome back Daniel Stouffer, a @NorthwesternEng alumnus, to discuss challenges in the study of multi-species coexistence. Co-hosted by @amaral and the @AmaralLab!

🗓️ Wed 5/6 at 12pm US Central
🔗 bit.ly/WedatNICO

How do structural inequities across layers of social context drive HIV? This Wednesday, NICO is thrilled to host @michellebirkett from @NUFeinbergMed, COMPASS, and @Impact_NU.

🗓️ Wed 4/22 at 12pm US Central
🔗 bit.ly/WedatNICO

Does nature have a universal rhythm? In a new study published in PLOS Biology, NICO researchers Guy Amichay and Daniel Abrams find that communication signals across a wide range of species tend to repeat at roughly two beats per second.

Understanding this potentially universal tempo could help scientists better interpret animal signaling and social behavior across species. news.northwestern.edu/stories/2026/4…

Announcing our spring seminar speakers! Starting April 8th, we are excited to host talks by researchers from Pitt, CMU, Northwestern, CVG, Leibniz Institute, and UPenn.

Join us each Wed at 12pm US Central: bit.ly/WedatNICO

#WedatNICO #ComplexSystems #DataScience #AI

AI agents are “Airplanes for the mind”.

Check out my latest piece in @Nature, where I outline an agenda for how to think about AI agents in science and discovery.

Steve Jobs famously called computers “bicycles for the mind”—a metaphor for the personal-computing era, let individuals go farther and faster with less effort. Today, AI agents demand a new metaphor. They are airplanes for the mind: heavier-than-air machines that should not fly but do.

These “airplanes” have the potential to dramatically extend the scale, speed, and coordination of human cognition, while introducing new challenges for science and discovery.

The piece outlines five key principles to help us understand what changes for science when AI systems move from passive tools to active partners.

Throughout history, discoveries have been made by humans. As AI systems increasingly participate in discovery, the central question is how we design human–AI collaboration to make science more accountable, reproducible, and ultimately transformative.

The question is not whether machines replace scientists, but what kind of scientist emerges when we learn to fly.

Check out the piece and let me know what you think!

Link in the first reply

Breaking down barriers between disciplines such as art and science is a key component to #innovation, says Julio M. Ottino. Business leaders play a role in this by fostering a culture of curiosity. insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/recipe…

Social media and large language models are reshaping scholarly communication. This Wednesday, NICO is excited to host Ágnes Horvát to discuss "The Academic Use of Social Media, LLMs and #AI Assisted Decision-Making".

🗓️ Wed 3/4 at 12pm US Central
🔗 bit.ly/WedatNICO

🚨 New in @NatMachIntell 🚨 We collected 9000+ annotations of empathic communication in convos from experts, crowds & LLMs across 4 NLP/comms/psych frameworks

LLM judgment exceeds crowds' reliability & nearly matches experts

Soft skills can now be reliably measured by LLMs 🧵

Great to welcome two brilliant researchers who have dedicated their lives treating acutely ill children @NICOatNU
@toddflorin1
@nelsonSpinto

Very cool talk by @alexolegimas at @NICOatNU on Agentic Interactions -

what happens when humans prompt AI agents to buy cars on their behalf (compared to humans negotiating directly)

"Transforming Research and Innovation for Acutely Ill Children". This Wed, NICO is thrilled to host Dr Todd Florin & Dr Nelson Sanchez-Pinto, to discuss collaboration between clinicians, engineers, computer and data scientists.

🗓️ Wed 2/25 at 12pm CST
🔗 bit.ly/WedatNICO

Yesterday, I came across a quote etched in stone at the Chicago @FieldMuseum: "When a person walks through the woods and listens carefully, he can learn more than what is in books" and I couldn't help but think that GWC was talking about world models and limits of LLMs

Looking forward to this NICO talk happening tomorrow! If you're on campus, come join us and if you're remote, click the link and watch live!

Do human differences persist and scale when decisions are delegated to #AI agents? This Wed, NICO is excited to host @alexolegimas to discuss how the agentic economy can inherit, and may even amplify, human heterogeneity.

🗓️Wed 2/18 at 12pm US Central
🔗bit.ly/WedatNICO