Agent Based Model is a specific individual based computational model for computer simulation extensively related to the theme in complex systems, emergence, Monte Carlo Method, computational sociology, multi agent systems, and evolutionary programming. The model was developed through a simple conceptual form in the late 1940s, and it took the advent of the microcomputer to really get up to speed.

The idea is to construct the computational devices (known as agents with some properties) and then, simulate them in parallel to model the real phenomena. The process is one of emergence from the lower (micro) level of the social system to the higher level (macro).

The history of the agent based model can be traced back to the Von Neumann machine, a theoretical machine capable of reproduction. The device von Neumann proposed would follow precisely detailed instructions to fashion a copy of itself. The concept was then improved by von Neumann's friend Stanislaw Ulam, also a mathematician; Ulam suggested that the machine be built on paper, as a collection of cells on a grid. The idea intrigued von Neumann, who drew it up—creating the first of the devices later termed cellular automata.

Another improvement was brought by mathematician, John Conway. He constructed the well-known Game of Life. Unlike the von Neumann's machine, Conway's Game of Life operated by tremendously simple rules in a virtual world in the form of a 2-dimensional checkerboard.

The birth of agent based model as a model for social systems was primarily brought by a computer scientist, Craig Reynold. He tried to model the reality of lively biological agents, known as the artificial life, a term coined by Christopher Langton.

See also

• artificial life
• artificial society
• computational sociology
• social complexity
• boids
• evolutionary algorithm
• complex system
• emergence
• software agent

External links

• The Web of Bandung Fe Institute
• The Brookings Institution