Socionics – Blueprinting MAS from Sociological Theory Marco Schmitt

2 Marco Schmitt Budapest, September 16 th, 2005 CONTENT 1.SOCIONICS I – The Basic Idea 2.SOCIONICS II – The Projects 3.COMMUNICATION-ORIENTED MODELLING – A Closer Look at one Socionic Project

3 Marco Schmitt Budapest, September 16 th, 2005 Socionics – The Basic Idea „Socionics, an artificial word - like bionic - combining Sociology and Informatics, aims to form a new research discipline with the aim of developing intelligent computer technologies by picking up paradigms of our social world. And vice versa, Socionics uses computer technology in order to verify and to develop sociological models of societies and organizations.“ (Müller/Malsch/Schulz-Schaeffer 1998)

4 Marco Schmitt Budapest, September 16 th, 2005 Socionics – Starting Points Social metaphors in DAI and MAS-Research Autonomy and Control/Co-ordination/Co-operation Social Simulation and Social Theory Sociological Theory or Common Sense

5 Marco Schmitt Budapest, September 16 th, 2005 Socionics – Key Issues Sociological Reference: More precise sociological theories and concepts Sociological simulation experiments Computational Reference: New modelling and design approaches Flexibility, robustness, and scalability Practical Reference: Implementation of social mechanisms Tools and Applications

6 Marco Schmitt Budapest, September 16 th, 2005 Socionics - Institutional Setting A Focus Research Program sponsored by the German Research Association Tandem-like Structure of the Projects

7 Marco Schmitt Budapest, September 16 th, 2005 CONTENT 1. SOCIONICS I – The Basic Idea 2. SOCIONICS II – The Projects 3. COMMUNICATION-ORIENTED MODELLING – A Closer Look at one Socionic Project

8 Marco Schmitt Budapest, September 16 th, 2005 Socionics – The Projects Integration of Co-operative Agents in Complex Organizations (INKA) Emergence in Dynamic Processes (DISPO) Modelling Organizational Forms in DAI and Sociology Conflict Resolution and Structural Change (ConStruct) Simulating Dynamic Social Systems with Complex, Adaptive Agents Communication-Oriented Modelling (COM)

9 Marco Schmitt Budapest, September 16 th, 2005 Socionics – The INKA-Project Application Field (Practical Reference): Negotiating Working Shifts in a Hospital Environment Introducing a Multi-Agent Negotiation System Research (Sociological and Computational Reference): Practical Roles Hybridization Interactivity experiments

10 Marco Schmitt Budapest, September 16 th, 2005 Socionics – The DISPO-Project Application Field: Governance Structures in Universities Research: Petri-Nets Emergence of Social Structures Socially Embedded Decision- Making

11 Marco Schmitt Budapest, September 16 th, 2005 Socionics – Modelling Organizational Forms Application Field: Cooperation between Firms in the Transportation Business Research: Habitus-Field-Theory (Pierre Bourdieu) Robustness of Different Organizational Forms Markets/Networks/Organizations

12 Marco Schmitt Budapest, September 16 th, 2005 Socionics – The ConStruct-Project Application Field: Coordinating Open Multi-Agent Systems (Internet) Research: Symbolic Interactionism and Theory of Social Systems Agent-Based vs. System-Based Views Frames Social Mirror Autonomy and Social Control

13 Marco Schmitt Budapest, September 16 th, 2005 Socionics – Dynamic Social Systems and Complex Adaptive Agents Application Field: Tool for Simulation Experiments Research: Situations of Double Contingency Conditions of Stability and Robustness Actor Types Network Effects

14 Marco Schmitt Budapest, September 16 th, 2005 CONTENT 1. SOCIONICS I – The Basic Idea 2. SOCIONICS II – The Projects 3. COMMUNICATION-ORIENTED MODELLING – A Closer Look at one Socionic Project

15 Marco Schmitt Budapest, September 16 th, 2005 COM – Research Focus and Starting Points Research Focus new sociological theory of communication simulation experiments social visibility and selection strategies Starting Points large-scale communication processes communication paradigm: “To Whom It May Concern” analysis of message reference networks

16 Marco Schmitt Budapest, September 16 th, 2005 Communication Processes as Message Reference Networks Temporality of Communication Typed Messages – fixed attributes

17 Marco Schmitt Budapest, September 16 th, 2005 COM/TE – A Tool For Social Simulation Computing „social visibility“ of messages in dynamic communication processes using global - visibility functions and - distribution functions Visualization and analysis of process structures

18 Marco Schmitt Budapest, September 16 th, 2005 COM/TE-Screenshot

19 Marco Schmitt Budapest, September 16 th, 2005 Communication Styles and Media Forms – A Simulation Experiment Research Interest: Investigating the impact of two different aspects of media forms on communication styles/patterns Simulation Design: 1.Generating three different styles/patterns of communication using one visibility function 2.Simulation of media aspects Reference-reception ratio Message persistence

20 Marco Schmitt Budapest, September 16 th, 2005 Communication Styles I ModernistClassicistHistoricist Prototypical styles based on scientific citation practices (see Lesk 1997)

21 Marco Schmitt Budapest, September 16 th, 2005 Communication Styles II

22 Marco Schmitt Budapest, September 16 th, 2005 Media Forms – Settings reference-reception ratio reception duration 3 high Rec low Rec message persistence high DeletionAge 500 DeletionVis 0.01 archiv-based communication on the Internet science communication low DeletionAge 50 DeletionVis 0.39 mass media interaction

23 Marco Schmitt Budapest, September 16 th, 2005 Modernist Style and Media Forms

24 Marco Schmitt Budapest, September 16 th, 2005 Classicist Style and Media Forms

25 Marco Schmitt Budapest, September 16 th, 2005 Historicist Style and Media Forms

26 Marco Schmitt Budapest, September 16 th, 2005 Future Work: COM and COM/TE Level of detail: Fine-grained modelling of the two communicative operations of inception and reception of message signs Generalization: Analysing more general graph structures Visualization: Discovering further styles/patterns of communication

27 Marco Schmitt Budapest, September 16 th, 2005 Play COM/TE! Play around, change parameters and try different visibility functions!

28 Marco Schmitt Budapest, September 16 th, 2005 The Project Chair for Computing in the Cultural Sciences, Bamberg University Prof. Dr. Christoph Schlieder Dr. Klaus Stein Department of Technology Assessment, Hamburg University of Technology Prof. Dr. Thomas Malsch, Steffen Albrecht, Maren Lübcke, Rasco Perschke

29 Marco Schmitt Budapest, September 16 th, 2005 Thank You For Your Attention!