315 – Modeling Socio-Technical Systems
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Guests: Igor Nikolic Host: Markus Voelter Shownoter: Mario Winkler
Socio-technical systems are systems where (groups of) humans interact with (non-trivial) technical systems; an example is the power grid. The people, the technical system and the combination might easily lead to complex behavior that is hard to predict and control over the long term. However, as illustrated by, for example, the need to transition our energy infrastructure to a more sustainable structure, it is necessary for society to “control” such systems. Igor Nikolic is a professor at the TU Delft where he uses agent-based modeling approach to try to understand, and thus help control and evolve such systems. We discuss the systems, the challenges as well as the modeling approaches.
Introduction
00:02:45Igor Nikolic TU Delft | Private website | Twitter | TU Delft, Department Multi-Actor Systems | Sociotechnical system | Complexity | Complexity | Sante Fe Institute Home | Sante Fe Institute Wikipedia | Cell Automata | Joshua M. Epstein | Anasazi model | Agent-based model | Swarm behaviour | Boids | Flocks, Herds, and Schools: A Distributed Behavioral Model by Craig Reynolds | Inverse problem | Emergence | Socio-technical systems | Thomas P. Hughes | Social technology | Path dependency | Path dependency | Nonholonomic system | Foucault pendulum | Evolution | Laryngeal nerve | Richard Dawkins video | Dunbar's number (Steve Jobs - Computers Are Bicycles For The Mind) | Stephen Hawking quote | Wicket problem | Market (economics) | Privatisation of British Rail | 34C3 Talk | Neoclassical economics | Grigore Roșu | K Framework
Sustainable problem
01:00:40Steam engine | Capitalism | Circular economy | Rachel Carson "Silent Spring" | DDT | The Blue Marble | CO2 in Earth's atmosphere | Economic globalization | Attractor | Chaos theory | Wallace and Gromit (Train Chase)
Research area, Models, Simulations
01:12:21System dynamics | SimCity 2000 | Will Wright | John von Neumann | John Conway | Game of Life | State machine | Turing completeness | Object-oriented programming | Netlogo | Swarm | Repast | Nick Jennings | A New Kind of Science | Stephen Wolfram "A new kind of science" | Rule <110 | Turing machine | Mathematica | Model | Simulation | The law of conservation of misery | Neural network | Econometrics | Process philosophy | Panta rhei, "everything flows" | Alfred North Whitehead quote | Niels Bohr quotes | Monte Carlo method | J. Doyne Farmer | Nature article | Antifragile | Randomness | Pseudorandomness | Statistical sampling | Domain specific language | Hypercube sampling | Machine learning
Multi-Modelling
01:57:09Scott Page "The Difference" | Scott Page "The Model" Thinker | Ontology alignment | Propagation of uncertainty | Genetic algorithm | High Level Architecture | Publish–subscribe pattern | Data Distribution Service, DDS | SIM0MQ | MQTT | MATPOWER
TEDx Talk Insights, Simplicity, Complexity
02:05:15(Igor Nikolic - TEDxRotterdam 2010) | Intractability | YOLO | Allen, Tainter, Hoekstra "Supply-Side Sustainability" | omegatau 184 "Societal Complexity and Collapse" | Orthogonality | Post-normal science | MAIA framework | Baby boomers | Lawrence Lessig
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Hi, Igor here,
I’ll be monitoring the comments here for a while, feel free to ask question, share opinions and disagree with me :)
Nice :-)
Wow – Brilliant I hope you are being heard by those that need to listen and exert influence and power on socitaties. This has so much relevence in an Irish context, multi-national corperations influence most things on our island, housing, health care, transport and climate policy.
Very interesting and thought provoking episode, many thanks to Igor for the contribution and Markus for the hosting.
I really enjoy these complexity-themed episodes which tend to earn repeated listens. I would be happy to hear more frequently on this and related topics :-)
(That is not to say that I don’t enjoy the aerospace and other topics, but I tend to listen to those more as oral histories and less as a springboard to further contemplation…)
Thank you :) It is not an easy message to sell to decision makers, as many ideas chalange the status quo and expose the greed and powergrabs. But, we are slowly getting across.
Igor, I loved your idea of accepting failure as part of moving forward. I believe you were trying to emphasize the ability to reduce the risk of failure using agent-based models and simulation. Am I correct? Do you have more context/research papers/ discussion on this topic?
Igor, your idea of incorporating failure as a step towards progress hit home with me. I believe modeling and simulation could be the answer to reducing the risk of testing failed states. We’re you trying to say you have worked on building agent based models to do the same?
Thanks again Omega Tau! I would love to get Igor’s take on Nassim Taleb’s work. Specifically I would like to know if NNT’s ideas are already baked into the type of modeling Igor is talking about, or whether there’s an opportunity here to expand the models in a meaningful way. As a non-math person I find myself taking NNT’s word for what he’s describing (based on his excellent prose) but really crave to know how his ideas stand up in the context of mathematics. Igor mentioned he’s not familiar with NNT. Relevant papers of NNT can be found here: https://arxiv.org/a/taleb_n_1.html
Very enjoyable episode. Intuitively, I’ve always favoured a carbon tax over cap-and-trade, and now I know I’ve been right all along ;-).I suspect that the same argument would support a financial transaction cost….
A most interesting episode. Not easy to understand, especially if you’re driving to work in the morning, but after having listened to it twice, every piece falls into place. Well worth listening. I love when the guest explains how economists should have formulated the neoliberal economic models keeping into account how complex systems work. If only the general public would be more informed on how complex systems behaves and how the present-day economic/banking system is utterly inadequate to manage such systems (which, bottom line is our society in which we live!). Keep coming with these topics. They are actual and in much need.
Thanks for excellent thought-provoking conversation!
I have found one thing for nitpicking. The Foucault pendulum acts indeed as a clock, but as a latitude dependent clock. At the poles the pedulum rotates in 23 h 56 m, and at the equator it does not rotate at all. In Paris one rotation takes 31,8 hours.
Hi Igor,
as a controls system engineer with an economics background I really loved this episode. It really shows how all the different aspects of both technical, human and regulatory nature come together and form behavior that cannot be easily anticipated ex-ante (even though the world thinks it is possible – see any McKinsey/BCG study on topic X)
As a new project I will be starting a research initiative to model complex emergent behavior of partially autonomous vehicle fleets in urban areas – to understand whether and when potential benefits of such a technology will emerge (or in your words: will make the system “tip over”). Any recommendations on potential people researching in this field or specific gaps you are aware of? – Would really appreciate it.
Don’t be anyone else – just be Igor!
Still not finished the ep, but I can see it being my future. Writing software, even in Cobol, is creating models. I did that for 25 years, up to commercial Java. The comments about OOP being significant ware very resonant. I’m going to try to link up with a political policy wonk to see how to apply to politics. In a good way.
Me too: not finished listening yet, but definitely this episode already earned 6 out of 5 points, even half way through!!