Ben Auer
Researcher and Team Lead
Ben has a background in Neuroscience and Pure Mathematics from the University of Melbourne.
The Science of Agency Research Institute developed out of the AFFINE Superintelligence Alignment Fellowship, shortly after its conclusion, in June 2026. It came to our attention during the program that while there are many hypotheses about agency, none have yet received significant empirical support.
We believe there are key features of the way agency is often studied which are inhibiting our theories from generating useful, falsifiable predictive models - in particular, conflation between normative and naturalistic claims, as well as focusing on the wrong level of abstraction (e.g. internal mechanisms of neural networks). SARI aims to move the field towards filling these gaps.