Sociology: Modeling Social Interaction With Autonomous Agents

Abstract

Intelligent agents offer a promising new means for modeling social interaction. This article reviews the literature on intelligent agents, focusing on the development of agents to model various forms of social interaction. It provides a framework for understanding the variety of work on agents and how that work applies to social interaction. This framework includes a breakdown of the ways in which agents can be applied to social interaction, the various aspects of social interaction that can be modeled, and some of the broader sociological implications of using agents to model social interaction. The article concludes with a brief assessment of the promise and potential of this approach for modeling social interaction.