Agent-Based Evolving SocietiesFrom Tribes to Chiefdoms to Nations

Loïs Vanhée, Jacques Ferber, Frank DignumUniversité Montpellier 2

Utrecht UniversiteitESSA 2013

Agenda

From Social Science Descriptions……To a method to build models of evolving societies…… To a concrete implementationDisclaimer: our goal is the method**Our implementation is an illustration, real-societies may not proceed like this*A more detailed model/simulation may come in a year

Dear social sciences,

• Societies appear to evolve through ages. Do you know more about that?

(note: this picture may not be representative of the average social scientist. Google result for “wise man”)

Sure, I have clustered them!

From SS: Clustering societies

Tribe Chiefdom Nation

Kinship Power RulesSocial

Individual

Dear social sciences,Plus, they evolve from one stage to the next

• How do they?Well, I cannot really say. It depends on so many things… But I can tell how it

did for pigmies, Romans, Gallices

• Okay… I have to simplify and generalize these transitions by myself…

*If you have super theories about social stage evolution, please manifest yourself during the questions

From SS: evolving societies

Tribe Chiefdom Nation

Kinship Power Rules

From SS: evolving societiesTribe Chiefdom Nation

Kinship Power RulesPower Education

PopulationGrowth

Loss of kin-based relationship

Creation of a militia owned by

a leader

Violentuncontrolled

conflicts

Militia hires militiamen

Militiamen prevent

fights

Problem controlled Population

Growth

Leader cannot control everyone

Individuals disagree with

the leader

Creation of an “education” institution

“Professors” are hired

Individuals are taught rules

(law, obedience)

Problem controlled

Individuals are collectively aware of it

Individuals are collectively aware of it

Dear social sciences,

No problem, it can be expanded for concrete examples.Wait a minute! I can see a more global pattern. Let me build a method to prevent other modelers to suffer my pain.

Damn modeler, you simplified everything. But now, your model

cannot be linked to any real society.

A method to build evolving societies

Normal state

Local problem

Social problem

Resolving institution

Resolving behavior

Problem occurrence

Communication

Social action

Hiringagents

Handling theproblem

Such a text corresponds to implementation-level

information

Local memoryl

Communication, opinion-merging

mechanismm

Collective decision mechanism d

Behavior : b

Institution i

Sketch of Concrete ImplementationTribe Chiefdom

Kinship Power

PopulationGrowth

Loss of kin-based relationship

Creation of a militia owned by

a leader

Violentuncontrolled

conflicts Militia hires militiamen

Militiamen prevent

fights

Problem controlled

Individuals are collectively aware of it

Gather & share foodReproduce

[Sugarscape-like]

External: easier to harvest food

Graph or family size When population grows →

sparse relationships

Individuals randomly meet Fight with out-groups

l = memorize when attacked(social dissatisfaction)

m = voting mechanism(yes if l is high)

d= 50% yes

Majority: an agent becomes the leader

o

A variable stores the ratio of militiamenThese agents stop

harvesting

Militia influences random meetings

(no fight when watched)b

Experimentations

Growth period: food production increases each round

From SS: evolving societiesChiefdom Nation

Power Rules

PopulationGrowth

Leader cannot control everyone

Individuals disagree with

the leader

Creation of an “education” institution

“Professors” are hired

Individuals are taught rules

(law, obedience)

Problem controlled

Individuals are collectively aware of it

From before:Random meetings

External: easier to harvest food

Variable for “culture” (vector)Evolve randomly with time →

cultural variation increases with society size

Mismatch leader/subordinate cultures

l = individual disagreement

m = average mismatchd: m is too high

A variable stores the ratio of professors

i: professor institution

Professors increase cultural match

b

Experimentations

Conclusions• From SS theories of human development– Tribes, chiefdom, nations

• To a method to model of extensible societies– Stability; local problem; social problem; resolving

institution; resolving behavior; stability• Applied in a simulation– Creation of a militia, teaching institution– Two consecutive levels

• Future work:– Use the method for artificial societies (swarm of robots)– Expand the model: a different social reality for each stage

Thank you for you attention

• Any questions?