[FRIAM] A billion agents

[Marcus G. Daniels]

Raymond Parks wrote:
> Russell Standish suggested that one could specify large quantities of 
> similiar but not exactly the same agents:
>
>   
>> By setting their behaviour parameters from a probability distribution.
>>     
>
>    But isn't this self-fulfilling?  If you collect data about behaviours 
> to populate your probability distribution you will be programming your 
> agents to act the way you collected your data.  If, by chance or design, 
> your data collection is biased, your agents will be biased.
>   
Being distributions, the parameters (the mixing ratios of different 
kinds of agent behaviors) will have random peturbations around typical 
values and in a large or long enough run you'll witness the consequences 
of how this bias might play out at a global level.

The bigger the computers, the wider variances of agent mixes that can be 
measured.