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Robust convention emergence in social networks through self-reinforcing structures dissolution

Published: 19 April 2013 Publication History

Abstract

Convention emergence solves the problem of choosing, in a decentralized way and among all equally beneficial conventions, the same convention for the entire population in the system for their own benefit. Our previous work has shown that reaching 100% agreement is not as straighforward as assumed by previous researchers, that, in order to save computational resources fixed the convergence rate to 90% (measuring the time it takes for 90% of the population to coordinate on the same action). In this article we present the notion of social instruments as a set of mechanisms that facilitate and accelerate the emergence of norms from repeated interactions between members of a society, only accessing local and public information and thus ensuring agents' privacy and anonymity. Specifically, we focus on two social instruments: rewiring and observation. Our main goal is to provide agents with tools that allow them to leverage their social network of interactions while effectively addressing coordination and learning problems, paying special attention to dissolving metastable subconventions.
The first experimental results show that even with the usage of the proposed instruments, convergence is not accelerated or even obtained in irregular networks. This result leads us to perform an exhaustive analysis of irregular networks discovering what we have defined as Self-Reinforcing Structures (SRS). The SRS are topological configurations of nodes that promote the establishment and persistence of subconventions by producing a continuous reinforcing effect on the frontier agents. Finally, we propose a more sophisticated composed social instrument (observation + rewiring) for robust resolution of subconventions, which works by the dissolution of the stable frontiers caused by the Self-Reinforcing Substructures (SRS) within the social network.

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    cover image ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems
    ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems  Volume 8, Issue 1
    April 2013
    126 pages
    ISSN:1556-4665
    EISSN:1556-4703
    DOI:10.1145/2451248
    Issue’s Table of Contents
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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    Publication History

    Published: 19 April 2013
    Accepted: 01 July 2012
    Revised: 01 March 2012
    Received: 01 March 2011
    Published in TAAS Volume 8, Issue 1

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    Author Tags

    1. MAS
    2. Norms
    3. adaptation
    4. conventions
    5. emergence

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