An Introduction to Drawing SEMs with drawSEM (and other stories about AI making things “easy”)

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The idea behind Structural Equation Modeling (now eXtended into xSEM) is that I can draw a box-and-arrow diagram describing my theories and measurements the way I’m thinking about them, and the computer can do the rest. The idea behind “vibe coding” is similar: tell the AI what you want in natural language, and have the computer do the work. But neither of these ever seems actually easy. In this talk, I will introduce the beta-test version of a new agentic-coded graphical SEM tool, drawSEM, designed to make things a little easier. I’ll provide a brief tutorial across its expected use cases and discuss the design goals and experimental features that drive its continued development. Along the way, I’ll start a discussion about why things like this are still hard to do, and what we might be able to do to make them actually easier.

Zoom recording: https://psu.mediaspace.kaltura.com/media/t/1_ebl1nqsk