Milena had the honor the work with Petter Holme on a paper about the origins and development of artificially intelligent agents in the social and behavioral sciences. The paper emphasizes the role of AI in the scientific process and the changes brought about, both through technological advancements and the broader evolution of science from around 1950 to the present. We cover the challenges of presenting the first social simulation studies to a world unaware of computers, the rise of social systems science, intelligent game theoretic agents, the age of big data and the epistemic upheaval in its wake, and the current enthusiasm around applications of generative AI. For more, please read the preprint on arXiv.