BEAMS: Benchmarking and Evaluating AI for Modeling and Simulation

Computer Science > Artificial Intelligence [Submitted on 27 May 2026] BEAMS: Benchmarking and Evaluating AI for Modeling and Simulation Sara Metcalf, William Schoenberg AI tools to support real world decision making must be able to build simulation models that inform their recommendations and render them interpretable. Tools that can automate aspects of modeling practice must complement human expertise, not replace it. The BEAMS Initiative aims to guide the development of AI tools for modeling and simulation toward forms that are responsible and ethical by establishing benchmarks for human centered modeling and simulation practices. The initiative uses open digital and organizational infrastructure to collaboratively evaluate AI tools for modeling and simulation. The open source sd ai project hosted by the initiative establishes transparency and enables contributions to be shared broadly. A steering group focuses on prioritizing potential benchmarks, while a technical group focuses on implementing the benchmarks in the form of automated tests. Tests for several distinct categories of evaluation have been implemented and applied to AI tools that support qualitative model building, quantitative model building, and model discussion. These include tests for causal translation, model iteration, causal reasoning, conformance, model behavior explanation, suggested model building steps, and suggested model fixes. When engines from the sd ai project are coupled with different LLMs, their performance on these evaluations reveals variability across different AI tools. The evaluations implemented by the initiative demonstrate that AI enabled modeling tools perform better at discussion and basic qualitative tasks than with causal reasoning and quantitative error fixing. No single LLM dominates across engine types, highlighting the importance of specific tasks and tradeoffs between speed and accuracy. Ongoing efforts of the initiative aim to incorporate benchmarks that address concerns about bias by considering alternative perspectives and human centered use cases. Subjects: Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI) Cite as: arXiv:2605.28994 [cs.AI]   (or arXiv:2605.28994v1 [cs.AI] for this version)   https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2605.28994 Focus to learn more Submission history From: Sara Metcalf [view email] [v1] Wed, 27 May 2026 18:51:00 UTC (429 KB) Access Paper: view license Current browse context: cs.AI < prev   |   next > new | recent | 2026-05 Change to browse by: cs References & Citations NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar Export BibTeX Citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Demos Related Papers About arXivLabs Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)