Max Davy

Hi, I’m Max! I’m studying a DPhil in Social Data Science at the Oxford Internet Institute in the University of Oxford. I’m supervised by Paul Röttger, Scott Hale and Jakob Foerster. I am supported by the Shirley Scholarship and a studentship from the BOLD lab.

LLM-powered agentic systems are proliferating. However, we largely do not understand what happens when lots of agents interact (e.g. agents competing in marketplaces), or the possible consequences of people delegating knowledge gathering or decision-making to agents. I aim to produce technical research and evaluations which meaningfully improve our collective ability to guide these changes positively.

I am a member of a smorgasbord of academic labs:

• BOLD Lab
• Paul’s new lab in the Hasso Plattner Institute (link to come)
• Reasoning with Machines Lab
• Equitable Access to Quality Information Lab

I enjoy board games, trivia, rowing, watching Only Connect and chasing down dog owners on the street to say hi to their dogs! I also have a large range of intellectual interests (list here) that I am trying to avoid being distracted by.

Please reach out if:

• You would like to collaborate
• You’ve spotted a mistake in my work / have other feedback (anonymous feedback form)
• You want advice on applying to Oxford DPhil or MSc programmes (especially if you’re coming from a non-traditional background and/or did not go to a fancy university for undergraduate)
• You have a friendly dog in the Oxford area in need of a walk or a scratch

Funding

AI research is unfortunately expensive. Additional funding thus meaningfully increases my ability to conduct impactful and high-quality research. I’m grateful to the following organisations for their support:

• 2026: Oxford Internet Institute (~£100k)
• 2026: British Open-Ended Learning & Discovery lab (~£66k)
• 2026: Lyceum (~£700)

All of my funding sources are disclosed above. External funding does not dictate what topics I pursue.¹

Please reach out if you’d like to collaborate on exciting and impactful research, and/or provide support!