Two-Sides of Emergence in Participatory Simulations

By: Paul Guyot, and Alexis Drogoul
Date: 15th November 2004
CPM Report No.: CPM-04-146

Presented at the "Engineering with Social Metaphors" day of the AISB Symposium on Socially Inspired Computing,  University of Hertfordship, April 2005.


Abstract

Starting from an agent-based model of the coffee market in the state of Veracruz, we conducted participatory simulation experiments where human players were given the roles of reactive agents. The simulations were tuned to favor the apparition of coalitions among coffee producers. In addition to the expected coalitions, we witnessed another kind of emergence: roles were specialized with the apparition of traders among the coffee producers. Drawing from this first-hand experience, we came to consider participatory simulations as a way to create multi-agent systems where humans improve problem solving capabilities of the system.


Paper accessible as:

Presentation: