Human Stigmergic Problem Solving

Chapter 6 in Cultural-historical perspectives on collective intelligence In the era of digital communication, collective problem solving is increasingly important. Large groups can now resolve issues together in completely different ways, which has transformed the arts, sciences, business, education, technology, and medicine. Collective intelligence is something we share with animals and is different from machine learning and artificial intelligence. To design and utilize human collective intelligence, we must understand how its problem-solving mechanisms work. From democracy in ancient Athens, through the invention of the printing press, to COVID-19, this book analyzes how humans developed the ability to find solutions together. This wide-ranging, thought-provoking book is a game-changer for those working strategically with collective problem solving within organizations and using a variety of innovative methods. It sheds light on how humans work effectively alongside machines to confront challenges that are more urgent than what humanity has faced before. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.Chapter 6 presents human stigmergic problem solving as a distinct “solution-centered” subtype of CI with biological antecedents in the trail laying and nest building of ants. Stigmergy describe how many individuals agents are able to coordinate collective action only by leaving information in a shared environment. In this type of collective problem solving, a version of a solution will already exist, either partially or completely. The problem-solving process will, therefore, be a response that changes the existing version of a solution by rating it like with an online video, re-estimating it through a prediction market, adapting it like an open textbook or completing it like a Wikipedia article. In human qualitative stigmergy, a preliminary part of a solution will be stored in the system or medium, and individuals will then respond to the unfinishedness in the solution in different ways. If many versions of a solutions already exist, human quantitative stigmergy can also be used to rate the most optimal solutions. In the online setting, solutions will be continuously compared with each other. These stored solutions also solve many different problems at various points of time.publishedVersio

What Makes Complex Systems Complex?

This paper explores some of the factors that make complex systems complex. We first examine the history of complex systems. It was Aristotle’s insight that how elements are joined together helps determine the properties of the resulting whole. We find (a) that scientific reductionism does not provide a sufficient explanation; (b) that to understand complex systems, one must identify and trace energy flows; and (c) that disproportionate causality, including global tipping points, are all around us. Disproportionate causality results from the wide availability of energy stores. We discuss three categories of emergent phenomena—static, dynamic, and adaptive—and recommend retiring the term emergent, except perhaps as a synonym for creative. Finally, we find that virtually all communication is stigmergic

Methodological individualism : true and false

I apply Hayek’s distinction between ‘true’ and ‘false’ individualism to methodological individualism. Hayek traced ‘false’ individualism to Cartesian rationalism; Hayek’s rejection of Mises’ praxeology was due to its rationalist underpinnings. The first half of this paper identifies praxeology’s foundational philosophical concepts, emphasising their Cartesian nature, and illustrates how together they constitute a case for methodological individualism: intuition and deduction; reductionism; judgement; dualism. In the second half of this paper, I draw upon philosophy and cognitive science to articulate ‘Hayekian’ (N.B. not Hayek’s) alternatives to these Cartesian concepts. The Hayekian alternative allows a ‘gestalt switch’ from the individual- to the system-level perspective. I therefore suggest that methodological individualism is both true and false: true, in that economic phenomena are grounded in the actions of individuals; false, in that certain problems might be reconceived/discovered at the system-level. I finish by suggesting three avenues of research at system-level: optimisation; stigmergy; computational complexity

interActors: A Model for Supporting Complex Communication in Concurrent Systems

In concurrent systems, such as multi-core computers, parallel systems, cloud computing systems, and systems involving mobile devices, processes interact with each other. Protocols for interactions among processes are increasingly complex and diverse, which is in part responsible for making programming of concurrent systems difficult. Particularly, in a concurrent program, the code for communication protocols often intermixes with the code for its functional behaviors, compromising modularity and reusability. There is a growing body of work on separating communication concerns of processes from their functional concerns. Although they achieve some degree of separation, they have some disadvantages. For example, the number of communication participants is fixed in some approaches, or in other approaches, communication mechanisms, such as for establishing the initial rendezvous for communication participants is left to the processes. In other words, existing approaches either offer static protocols that cannot handle dynamically evolving number of participants in interactions, or offer complex initialization steps that are left mixed with functional concerns. I propose interActors, a model for supporting complex communications in concurrent systems. I treat a communication as a first-class object which consists of outlets, through which processes can connect to it, and handlers, which are responsible for handling communication logics. Outlets establish a boundary between communications and processes in an application. New outlets can be created if necessary, to handle dynamically changed communication patterns at run-time. We say communications are self-driven because they have outlets and handlers that are active and therefore they can move interactions forward. More complex communications can be constructed by composing simpler communications. Operational semantics and compositional semantics are developed by extending the Actor model of concurrency with support for complex communication. A prototype implementation is developed using Scala and Akka actor library. With the intention of restricting arbitrarily complex code in communications, I developed Communication Specification Language (CSL), which excludes loops from communications and only allows a small set of statements and expressions. interActors are evaluated using case studies and comparison with Reo, a leading coordination model and language. The evaluation shows that interActors offer advantages in terms of programmability, reusability, and modularity

Embodied Evolution in Collective Robotics: A Review

This paper provides an overview of evolutionary robotics techniques applied to on-line distributed evolution for robot collectives -- namely, embodied evolution. It provides a definition of embodied evolution as well as a thorough description of the underlying concepts and mechanisms. The paper also presents a comprehensive summary of research published in the field since its inception (1999-2017), providing various perspectives to identify the major trends. In particular, we identify a shift from considering embodied evolution as a parallel search method within small robot collectives (fewer than 10 robots) to embodied evolution as an on-line distributed learning method for designing collective behaviours in swarm-like collectives. The paper concludes with a discussion of applications and open questions, providing a milestone for past and an inspiration for future research.Comment: 23 pages, 1 figure, 1 tabl

Self-management for large-scale distributed systems

Autonomic computing aims at making computing systems self-managing by using autonomic managers in order to reduce obstacles caused by management complexity. This thesis presents results of research on self-management for large-scale distributed systems. This research was motivated by the increasing complexity of computing systems and their management. In the first part, we present our platform, called Niche, for programming self-managing component-based distributed applications. In our work on Niche, we have faced and addressed the following four challenges in achieving self-management in a dynamic environment characterized by volatile resources and high churn: resource discovery, robust and efficient sensing and actuation, management bottleneck, and scale. We present results of our research on addressing the above challenges. Niche implements the autonomic computing architecture, proposed by IBM, in a fully decentralized way. Niche supports a network-transparent view of the system architecture simplifying the design of distributed self-management. Niche provides a concise and expressive API for self-management. The implementation of the platform relies on the scalability and robustness of structured overlay networks. We proceed by presenting a methodology for designing the management part of a distributed self-managing application. We define design steps that include partitioning of management functions and orchestration of multiple autonomic managers. In the second part, we discuss robustness of management and data consistency, which are necessary in a distributed system. Dealing with the effect of churn on management increases the complexity of the management logic and thus makes its development time consuming and error prone. We propose the abstraction of Robust Management Elements, which are able to heal themselves under continuous churn. Our approach is based on replicating a management element using finite state machine replication with a reconfigurable replica set. Our algorithm automates the reconfiguration (migration) of the replica set in order to tolerate continuous churn. For data consistency, we propose a majority-based distributed key-value store supporting multiple consistency levels that is based on a peer-to-peer network. The store enables the tradeoff between high availability and data consistency. Using majority allows avoiding potential drawbacks of a master-based consistency control, namely, a single-point of failure and a potential performance bottleneck. In the third part, we investigate self-management for Cloud-based storage systems with the focus on elasticity control using elements of control theory and machine learning. We have conducted research on a number of different designs of an elasticity controller, including a State-Space feedback controller and a controller that combines feedback and feedforward control. We describe our experience in designing an elasticity controller for a Cloud-based key-value store using state-space model that enables to trade-off performance for cost. We describe the steps in designing an elasticity controller. We continue by presenting the design and evaluation of ElastMan, an elasticity controller for Cloud-based elastic key-value stores that combines feedforward and feedback control

Enacting Environments: From Umwelts to Institutions

What we know is enabled and constrained by what we are. Extended and enactive approaches to cognitive science explore the ways in which our embodiment enables us to relate to the world. On these accounts, rather than being merely represented in the brain, the world and our activity in it plays an on-going role in our perceptual and cognitive processes. In this chapter I outline some of the key influences on extended and enactive philosophy and cognitive science in order to generate a sense of the conceptual space in which this research is going on. I focus on the concepts of sense-making, Umwelts, affordances, cultural niches, epistemic actions, environmental scaffolding, and mental institutions. Despite differences in focus and detail these influences share an underlying world-view; that cognition is relational and world-involving. This way of thinking has clear resonances with dominant approaches in non-Western philosophy. The purpose of this chapter is thus to generate in the reader a sense of this shared extended-enactive world-view in order to open up a space for communication between approaches