Inclassessay

Max Bucholz

In-Class Essay, Agent-Based Modeling

We continue to produce more clever ways to understand problems and organize information. The ability we have now to understand the dynamics of social and economic interactions within a community gives us the power to both destroy and create. There is much hope for this tool to be used for the good of humanity in improving the structure of our cities, economic stability and opportunity, and the basic infrastructure of less privileged nations and neighborhoods. There is the inevitable likelihood that there will be those who use this technology for monetary gain and social influence, so the main obstacle we face in light of our increase in power is the maintenance of ethical values and our legislature and general unspoken social boundaries related to privacy and common sense.

The advent of agent-based modeling as a technique used in the social sciences allows a much more clear path to understanding of the human dynamic in social and economic structures. What has surfaced so far in the world of agent-based modeling for the improvement of the human condition is promising, yet there are some ethical issues related to questions of misuse of this power. For example, at no other point in history have a group of thirty to forty men determined the content of the majority of data that is streamed to a community of hundreds of thousands of people that proceeds to influence their actions. In essence, there are some ethical issues with ABM being used in big databases with accurate algorithms being used to control and influence people. How should we regulate the ability these people have to control what we see and do?

There is also a world of hope when considering the massive potential ABM has for the improvement of our ability to understand what makes communities successful. Our potential to improve how our communities function on a personal level within the United States is as impressive as the capability this technology has to aid infrastructural issues in third-world countries (a capability which has only increased as our computational abilities rise). The capabilities we have now in machine learning and predictive geographic modeling give us the ability to understand the fundamental social landscape of any community in the world that produces data. Agent based modeling paired with our current capacity for demanding computational processing and the construction of algorithms to accurately determine the interactions between people is a tool that humanity is now learning to use to maximize benefit to the human race. The data we obtain from understanding these interactions between people can be used for good and for evil; it is prudent we come to an understanding of the dangers of unregulated research into influencing the population and take advantage of the newfound understanding of social dynamics we gain using this tool to relieve some of the many issues we are all presently familiar with.