Socionics – Blueprinting MAS from Sociological Theory Marco Schmitt.

Socionics – Blueprinting MAS from Sociological Theory

Marco Schmitt

2Marco 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


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)


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


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


Socionics - Institutional Setting

• A Focus Research Program sponsored by the German Research Association

• 1999-2005

• Tandem-like Structure of the Projects


CONTENT





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)


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


Socionics – The DISPO-Project

Application Field:

• Governance Structures in Universities

Research:

• Petri-Nets

• Emergence of Social Structures

• Socially Embedded Decision-Making


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


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


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


CONTENT





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


Communication Processes as Message Reference Networks

• Temporality of Communication

• Typed Messages – fixed attributes


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


COM/TE-Screenshot


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


Communication Styles I

Modernist Classicist Historicist

Prototypical styles based on scientific citation practices (see Lesk 1997)


Communication Styles II


Media Forms – Settings

reference-reception ratioreception duration 3

highRec 268 - 281

lowRec 27 - 28

message persistence

highDeletionAge 500DeletionVis 0.01

archiv-based communication on the Internet

science communication

lowDeletionAge 50DeletionVis 0.39

mass media interaction


Modernist Style and Media Forms


Classicist Style and Media Forms


Historicist Style and Media Forms


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


Play COM/TE!

http://www.kinf.wiai.uni-bamberg.de/COM/

Play around, change parameters and try different visibility functions!


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


Thank You For Your Attention!

Socionics – Blueprinting MAS from Sociological Theory Marco Schmitt.

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