I am an assistant professor at Leiden University’s Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS) and Principle Investigator of the Social Intelligence Modelling [SIM] lab. I am a lecturer in the Data Science & Artificial Intelligence (DSAI) and Creative Science & Technology (CrIT) programmes. In 2023 I became a member of De Jonge Akademie, where I co-head the Science & Society track. I am the associate editor for Machine Behaviour & Cognition of Behaviour.

More information about Max van Duijn

Research in my SIM lab combines methods from cognitive science, linguistics, and AI to study social intelligence, in particular empathy, perspective-taking, and Theory of Mind. Our work includes modelling these capacities in humans as well as in AI systems such as Large Language Models.

 I am part of the NWO Zwaartekracht 'Hybrid Intelligence' and the 'AI4Oversight' ICAI Lab. My NWO Veni project 'A Telling Story' (completed 2024) collected a large number of stories told by children aged 4-12 and extract features relevant to ‘fictional minds’ using computational techniques. The resulting database ChiSCor was released for public use and the introduction paper won the international Conference of Natural Language Learning best-paper award.

My work is published in English and Dutch, in scholarly as well as popular venues, and has regularly attracted media attention. Previously, I was a blogger for Faces of Science: facesofscience.

Publications