carter allen

carterallen [at] berkeley [dot] edu

Hi, I'm Carter! I am a research scientist at Eleos AI interested in understanding how concepts like experience, valence, and introspection apply to AI systems. I previously did research on forecasting and moral psychology at UC Berkeley, the Forecasting Research Institute, NYU, and Harvard University.

I love meeting new people and have an autobiographical friend-me doc here.

In my free time I make bad computer music.

Follow me on twitter and give me anonymous feedback about how to be better.

My research has focused on human judgment and decision-making, especially related to (a) probability estimation and (b) moral concern. For anything without a link, feel free to email me for a draft.

Judgment and decision-making

1. Does dialectical bootstrapping improve the wisdom of the inner crowd? Allen, C., Gaertig, C., & Simmons, J. Working paper.
2. Does one person make a difference? Many–one effects in judgments of prosocial action Lewis, J., Srna, S., Salu, J., Allen, C. … Caviola, L. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2026.
3. It only takes one: The psychology of unilateral decisions Lewis, J., Allen, C., Winter, C., & Caviola, L. Working paper.

Moral status of AI

1. Moral concern for AI Allen, C. & Caviola, L. Working paper.
2. Subjective experience in AI systems: What do AI researchers and the public believe? Dreksler, N., Caviola, L., Allen, C., Lewis, J., … Chalmers, D. Working paper.
3. Inter-AI morality: How AI systems treat one another Caviola, L., Kaiser, C., Allen, C., & Sebo, J. Working paper.

Moral concern and prosociality

1. Becoming speciesist: How children and adults differ in valuing animals by species and cognitive capacity Caviola, L., Wilks, M., Suárez-Yera, C., Allen, C. … Bloom, P. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2025.
2. Increasing the effectiveness of charitable giving using human-AI dialogues White, J.P., Allen, C., Caviola, L., Costello, T., & Rand, D. Working paper.
3. Saving people or pets? Speciesism and family partiality across development Wilks, M., Caviola, L., Rottman, J., Allen, C. … Bloom, P. Working paper.
4. Using human-AI dialogues for moral persuasion White, J.P., Allen, C., Caviola, L., & Rand, D. Working paper.

Other writing

• The Global Priorities Institute psychology and behavioral science research agenda Caviola, L., Lewis, J., Wilks, M., Novick Hoskin, A., Schubert, S., Allen, C., & Salu, J. 2024.
• Increasing concern for digital beings through LLM persuasion Allen, C. & Caviola, L. 2024.
• A research agenda for psychology and AI Allen, C. 2024.