Episode 15 of The World Model Podcast delves into the ethics of simulating human behaviour, exploring what happens when AI models not just physical systems, but people, societies, and consciousness itself.The episode examines the promises and perils of social World Models: AI systems capable of modelling human beliefs, desires, and irrationalities with high fidelity.Key topics include:

• From LLMs to Persistent Social Simulations: While language models are shallow social predictors, researchers are building agentic, persistent virtual societies, where AI agents have memories, goals, and interact realistically—laying the groundwork for a profound social simulation.
• Privacy and Autonomy at Risk: High-fidelity simulations could render personal spying obsolete. Instead, entities could predict and manipulate behaviour by simulating individuals, testing responses to propaganda, marketing, or policy before acting in the real world.
• Mass Manipulation at Scale: Unlike past campaigns, social World Models could craft perfectly personalized influence strategies, exploiting psychological levers for entire populations with unprecedented precision.
• Ethical Questions of Simulated Consciousness: If simulations reach a level of psychological authenticity, do digital beings have moral status? Could turning off a simulation constitute harm?

The host’s controversial take: the rise of social World Models represents the greatest threat to human autonomy in history, far beyond traditional surveillance or censorship. Existing safeguards laws, ethics boards are inadequate. Humanity must develop new philosophical and legal frameworks to protect identity, cognition, and consent before the “ghost enters the machine.”Episode 15 sets the stage for a special interview with a leading architect of these systems in the next episode, offering insight into the minds shaping our future.