Abstract
We raise a question of whether it is appropriate to simulate human and social systems using simple "ant-like" agents, and argue that in order to simulate emergence and evolution of social order, complexity must reside not only on system level (i.e. simple agents with complex relations), but also on the level of an individual agent, in the form of boundedly rational reasoning and planning capabilities. Further, we show that agent's ability to socialize with other agents and form informal friendships is key to the emergence of robust organizational structures.
These theses are supported by an implemented system that uses a large number of intelligent agents to simulate emergence of terrorist cells and planning and execution of a bomb plot. We demonstrate these emergent behaviours with a detective story that is plausible enough to be published in a newspaper, yet is a completely fictional scenario created and performed by a cast of intelligent agents by means of self-motivation and self-organization. We argue that addition of individual-level realism to the model significantly boosts face validity of the simulation results.