Michael Harré, PhD
Researcher
- Artificial Intelligence
- Psychology
- Economics
How do agents—artificial and biological—interact, and how can we design these interactions for our collective benefit?
My work sits at the intersection of decision psychology, artificial intelligence, and economics. I study how competitive dynamics and institutional path dependencies shape economic transitions—from market power concentration and systemic risk through to the governance challenges of transformative AI. This research informs policy through collaborations with organisations including OECD.AI and briefings to central banks on systemic risk detection.
Currently I'm exploring how psycho-social phenomena like theory of mind and cooperative knowledge creation translate to AI systems. More broadly: what can the mesoscopic scale of human cognition teach us about emergent machine intelligence, beyond the micro-scale of neurons and their interactions?
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I built a multi-agent AI risk taxonomy for my fellowship with Arcadia in 2026, click here to see it:
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Selected Publications
Click on images to go to pdfs of PowerPoints
Book: An Introduction to Transfer Entropy: Information Flow in Complex Systems (2016), T. Bossomaier, L. Barnett, MS Harré, J. Lizier, Springer
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Critical Risks and Opportunities of AI, Economics, andSocial Network Theory, MS Harré, “Complexity, Criticality and Computation” Symposium C3 January 2023
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Inverse Reinforcement Learning as the Algorithmic Basis for Theory of Mind: Current Methods and Open Problems, (2023) J Ruiz-Serra, MS Harré Algorithms 16 (2), 68
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Detecting criticality in complex univariate time-series: A case study of the US housing market crisis and other markets, (2023) MS Harré, A Zaitouny, Expert Systems with Applications 211, 118437
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What Can Game Theory Tell Us about an AI ‘Theory of Mind’? (2022) MS Harré, Games 13 (3), 46
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Entropy, Economics, and Criticality, MS Harré, (2022) Entropy 24 (2), 210
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Information theory for agents in artificial intelligence, psychology, and economics, M.S. Harré (2021), Entropy 23 (3)
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Methods for forecasting the effect of exogenous risk on stock markets, (2021) K. Arias-Calluari, F. Alonso-Marroquin, M. Nattagh-Najafi, M.S. Harré, Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications vol. 568.
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Complexity Economics in a Time of Crisis: Heterogeneous Agents, Interconnections, and Contagion, (2021) MS Harré, A Eremenko, K Glavatskiy, M Hopmere, L Pinheiro, S Watson, ... Systems 9 (4), 73
Singularities and Catastrophes in Economics: Historical Perspectives and Future Directions, (2019) Harré, M., Harris, A., McCallum, S. Romanian Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics vol. 64 (4).
Self-referential basis of undecidable dynamics: from The Liar Paradox and The Halting Problem to The Edge of Chaos, Prokopenko, M., Harré, M., Lizier, J., Boschetti, F., Peppas, P., Kauffman, S. Physics of Life Reviews, vol 31
The social brain: scale-invariant layering of Eröds–Rényi networks in small-scale human societies, Harré, M. and Prokopenko, M. (2016), Journal of the Royal Society Interface. DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2016.0044.
The association between social network factors and mental health at different life stages, Levula, A., Wilson, A., Harré, M. (2016). Quality of Life Research. pp.1-9
Designing a “better” brain: Insights from experts and savants, Gobet, F., Snyder, A., Bossomaier, T., Harré, M. (2014), Frontiers in Psychology DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00470
The Neural Circuitry of Expertise: Social Cognition and Perceptual Learning. Harré, M. (2013) Frontiers in Neurosciences: Neural Implementations of Expertise, 7:852.
The Perceptual Cues that Reshape Expert Reasoning, Harré, M., Bossomaier, T. & Snyder, A. (2012) Nature: Scientific Reports, issue 2, article no. 502
Intuitive Expertise and Perceptual Templates. Harré, M. & Snyder, A. (2012) Minds and Machines, p. 1-16
Social Network Size Linked to Brain Size, Harré, M. (2012). Scientific American, August 7th 2012.
Phase-transition-like behaviour of information measures in financial markets. Harré, M. & Bossomaier, T. (2009). Europhysics Letters, vol. 87, issue 1.