Exploring self-organized emergence in an agent-based synthetic warfare lab

doi:10.1108/03684920310452337

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Kybernetes

ISSN: 0368-492X

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Exploring self-organized emergence in an agent-based synthetic warfare lab

Document Information:
Title:	Exploring self-organized emergence in an agent-based synthetic warfare lab
Author(s):	Andrew Ilachinski, (Center for Naval Analyses, Alexandria, VA, USA)
Citation:	Andrew Ilachinski, (2003) "Exploring self-organized emergence in an agent-based synthetic warfare lab", Kybernetes, Vol. 32 Iss: 1/2, pp.38 - 76
Keywords:	Adaptive techniques, Cellular automata, Cybernetics, Systems
Article type:	Research paper
DOI:	10.1108/03684920310452337 (Permanent URL)
Publisher:	MCB UP Ltd
Abstract:	Artificial-life techniques – specifically, agent-based models and evolutionary learning algorithms – provide a potentially powerful new approach to understanding some of the fundamental processes of war. This paper introduces a simple artificial-like “toy model” of combat called Enhanced ISAAC Neural Simulation Tool (EINSTein). EINSTein is designed to illustrate how certain aspects of land combat can be viewed as self-organized, emergent phenomena resulting from the dynamical web of interactions among notional combatants. EINSTein's bottom-up, synthesist approach to the modeling of combat stands in stark contrast to the more traditional top-down, or reductionist approach taken by conventional military models, and represents a step toward developing a complex systems theoretic toolbox for identifying, exploring, and possibly exploiting self-organized emergent collective patterns of behavior on the real battlefield. A description of the model is provided, along with examples of emergent agent patterns and behaviors.