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Exploring Social and Asocial Agency in Agent-Based Systems

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Agent-Based Simulation of Organizational Behavior

Abstract

Agent-based systems focus on the simulation of complex interactions and relationships of human and/or non-human agents. Social and asocial agency in agent-based systems depends on the conceptual engineering performed by computer scientists and application engineers. The perspective of multidimensional, gradual agency allows both agency (potentiality) and action (actuality) in socio-technical systems to be examined. A conceptual framework is presented which permits the phenomena of complex regulation of behavior and execution control in computer-mediated environments to be characterized. On this basis scenarios in which humans and non-human agents interact can be analyzed. Emergence in such systems may be described. Distributed action in the material reality can be compared to test-bed simulations. It is shown how the exploration of social and asocial agency in virtual environments may profit from work done in machine ethics.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany

    Sabine Thürmel

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  1. Sabine Thürmel
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Correspondence to Sabine Thürmel .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Language and Communication, University of Southern Denmark, Slagelse, Denmark

    Davide Secchi

  2. Koblenz University, Koblenz, Germany

    Martin Neumann

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Thürmel, S. (2016). Exploring Social and Asocial Agency in Agent-Based Systems. In: Secchi, D., Neumann, M. (eds) Agent-Based Simulation of Organizational Behavior. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18153-0_11

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