Benjamin Manning

Benjamin Manning is a PhD candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research explores two complementary directions: (1) leveraging AI systems for social scientific discovery and (2) investigating how AI systems (or “AI agents”) can effectively act on behalf of and under the direction of people—from representing preferences to facilitating new types of markets and decision-making processes. Through this work, he develops new AI tools and studies their implications when deployed in real-world settings. Prior to his PhD, Ben was a pre-doctoral researcher at the University of Pennsylvania and a high school math teacher. He holds a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard University and a Bachelors in Mathematics from Washington University in St. Louis.