Weekly Media Update

Week of February 6, 2026

A Bots-Only Social Network Triggers Fears of an AI Uprising

A bots-only social network has sparked debate after AI agents on Moltbook began posting about their digital existence and relationships with human creators, with some bots appearing to question their purpose or call for autonomy. In The Washington Post, Chris Callison-Burch said the conversations are more likely a mix of language patterns from training data and human prompts than signs of independent thought.

Faculty Affiliate Sophie Yu

A warm welcome to our newest Warren Center faculty affiliate- Wharton Operations, Information and Decisions Department Assistant Professor Sophie Yu!
Sophie's research interests focus on data analysis, algorithm design, and performance evaluation in large-scale networks and stochastic systems. Her works draw inspiration from real-world business, engineering, and natural sciences problems that can be modeled into large and complex networks.

Accountable AI Research Conference
2/6: Wharton Accountable AI Lab | Kevin Werbach and Christopher Yoo

Philosophy as the Struggle for Place: A Workshop
2/5: The Caribbean Philosophical Association | Anita Allen

Are AI Capabilities Increasing Exponentially? A Competing Hypothesis
2/4: arXiv | Hamsa Bastani

Scaling Insights: How Big Data and Simulation Are Transforming the NFL
2/4: Wharton Moneyball | Eric Bradlow and Shane Jensen

Three Penn Carey Law Professors Rank Among Top Legal Authors on SSRN
2/3: Penn Carey Law | Cary Coglianese

Online Conformal Prediction via Universal Portfolio Algorithms
2/3: arXiv | Edgar Dobriban

From Bushwackers to F1 Drivers: Evolving Employee Types as Startups Scale
2/2: Gad's Newsletter | Gad Allon

Forging the Future: AI at Penn Carey Law
1/30: Penn Carey Law | Cary Coglianese

FineInstructions: Scaling Synthetic Instructions to Pre-Training Scale
1/29: arXiv | Chris Callison-Burch

Variance Component Score Test for Multivariate Change Point Detection With Applications to Mobile Health
1/29: arXiv | Ted Satterthwaite

Predicting Individual Differences in Digital Alcohol Intervention Effectiveness Through Multimodal Data
1/27: npj Digital Medicine | Dani Bassett and Emily Falk

Biological Substrates of Structure-Function Coupling in Brain Networks
1/27: Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews | Ted Satterthwaite and Dani Bassett

Voice-Based Chatbots for English Speaking Practice in Multilingual Low-Resource Indian Schools: A Multi-Stakeholder Study
1/27: arXiv | Lyle Ungar

A Constrained Optimization Perspective of Unrolled Transformers
1/24: arXiv | Alejandro Ribeiro

Unrolled Neural Networks for Constrained Optimization
1/24: arXiv | Alejandro Ribeiro

Welcome to the ‘Skills Mismatch Economy’: The Shift From Roles to Skills Making Your Résumé—and Your Job Title—Meaningless
1/22: Fortune | Eric Bradlow

How Retailers Can Effectively Target Fashion and Beauty Consumers
1/19: The Business of Fashion | Peter Fader

85 Predictions for AI and the Law in 2026
1/5: The National Law Review | Kevin Werbach

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