Gossip, Sexual Recombination and the El Farol bar:
modelling the emergence of heterogeneity
Journal of Artificial Societies and Social
Simulation, (1999)Abstract
An investigation into the conditions conducive to the
emergence of heterogeneity among agents is presented.
This is done by using a model of creative artificial
agents to investigate some of the possibilities. The
simulation is based on Brian Arthur's 'El Farol Bar'
model but extended so that the agents also learn and
communicate. The learning and communication is
implemented using an evolutionary process acting upon a
population of strategies inside each agent. This
evolutionary learning process is based on a Genetic
Programming algorithm. This is chosen to make the
agents as creative as possible and thus allow the
outside edge of the simulation trajectory to be
explored. A detailed case study from the simulations
show how the agents have differentiated so that by the
end of the run they had taken on qualitatively
different roles. It provides some evidence that the
introduction of a flexible learning process and an
expressive internal representation has facilitated the
emergence of this heterogeneity.
