Haklay et al 2001

I imagine that agent-based modeling is much more complex than most models in natural sciences, such as climate models or forest growth models. While for now agent-based modeling is applicable for more simple aspects of human behavior such as commuting, further application in economics or sociology would probably require significant advances in fields such as artificial intelligence, which would improve our ability to simulate human decision-making. Since the writing of this article, however, I imagine vast advances have been made. Such advances would allow computer models to complement or perhaps replace some survey-based research. Choice experiments, for example, represent a survey-based approach that is used to understand how subsistence farmers and herders use ecosystem services based on environmental and socio-economic factors. I would be intrigued to see computer models simulate such scenarios.

I wish that the “planner” module were functional and applicable at the time that this article were written. Perhaps it would be representative of people having multiple, completely different modes of behavior. For example, would a student or worker have a “weekday” plan and a “weekend” plan that the planner module would alternate between? Also, I was very intrigued by the term “cognitive map”, but the paper did not expand on it. Furthermore, the discussion of emergence was difficult to grasp. I believe it was talking about whether we should try to look for clear behavior patterns  and systems at aggregate scales or just accept ambiguity or lack of patterns as they are.

 
-yojo

One Response to “Haklay et al 2001”

  1. sieber says:

    Please place your pseudonym at the bottom of the post–thanks!