The issues explored include problems in computational law, psychology,[1] organizational behavior,[2] sociology, political science, economics, anthropology, geography, engineering,[2] archaeology and linguistics (Takahashi, Sallach & Rouchier 2007).
This field explores the simulation of societies as complex non-linear systems, which are difficult to study with classical mathematical equation-based models.
The device John von Neumann proposed woud follow precisely detailed instructions to fashion a copy of itself.
Unlike the von Neumann's machine, Conway's Game of Life operated by simple rules in a virtual world in the form of a 2-dimensional checkerboard.
He tried to model the reality of lively biological agents, known as the artificial life, a term coined by Christopher Langton.
Joshua M. Epstein and Robert Axtell developed the first large scale agent model, the Sugarscape, to simulate and explore the role of social phenomena such as seasonal migrations, pollution, sexual reproduction, combat, transmission of disease, and even culture.
This theoretical outlook on social situations uses a wide range of information to determine what should happen to society and its members if certain variables are present.
This allows the researcher to steer through the virtual possibilities of the given simulation and develop safety procedures, and to produce proven facts about how a certain situation will play out.
These models, much like simulations, are used to help us better understand specific roles and actions of different things so as to predict behavior and the like.
ABM focuses on human social interactions and how people work together and communicate with one another without having one, single "group mind".
There are several current research projects that relate directly to modeling and agent-based simulation the following are listed below with a brief overview.
Agent-based models are most appropriate for studying processes that lack central coordination, including the emergence of institutions that, once established, impose order from the top down.
The models focus on how simple and predictable local interactions generate familiar but highly detailed global patterns, such as emergence of norms and participation of collective action.
Below is a brief description of each problem Macy and Willer believe there to be; These examples simply show the complexity of our environment and that agent-based models are designed to explore the minimal conditions, the simplest set of assumptions about human behavior, required for a given social phenomenon to emerge at a higher level of organization.