Artificial Intelligence and evolutionary theory: Herbert Simon's unifying framework (original) (raw)
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PSL Quarterly Review, 2017
The concept of “bounded rationality” has been influential, controversial and groundbreaking, as is usually happens the case with the most important economic ideas. Over seven decades, an incredible network of new ideas, research methods and perspectives flourished, expanding the original concept to decision-making, psychology, artificial intelligence, organizational sciences, and finance. Behind the developments in these fields lies Simon’s fundamental goal: to progress improve the understanding of human thought processes. In what the following present papers, I will do not attempt an overview of the literature accumulated thus far. Instead, after a brief glance at the years during which the most important pillars of the bounded rationality concept were born, I will reconstruct the historical paths of certain relevant debates. Each of these paths cuts across many different disciplines and includes important intellectual controversies and suggestions fors future perspectives. By following these paths, we will encounter interesting conceptual affinities among between Simon, Keynes, and Schumpeter, originating in the crucial role that all of them attribute to human creativity.
Bounded and Adaptive Rationality, Decision Processes and Problem Solving in H. A. Simon
2010
The purpose of this paper, which belongs to a series of papers we developed relative to Simon’s theories of rationality, decision, company and organization, is to rationally reconstruct his seminal work on adaptive rationality and decision. The field of study of rationality and decision theories can be divided into two research programs: (i) the normative program, which interprets rationality as a set of axioms that supplies a logical structure for preferences and an optimization principle for the selection of alternatives; (ii) the descriptive program, according to which rationality is empirically reconstructed by means of the assumption that the decision-making individual incorporates a portfolio of adaptive heuristic strategies which operate satisfactorily, but not optimally, in the delineation of the opportunity set and in the selection of alternatives. In this paper we defend the thesis that Simon aims to confer greater empirical content to rationality, reinterpreting it as bou...
Artificial Intelligence Rationality and intelligence
The long-term goal of our field is the creation and understanding of intelligence. Productive research in AI, both practical and theoretical, benefits from a notion of intelligence that is precise enough to allow the cumulative development of robust systems and general results. The concept of rational agency has long been considered a leading candidate to fulfill this role. This paper outlines a gradual evolution in the formal conception of rationality that brings it closer to our informal conception of intelligence and simultaneously reduces the gap between theory and practice. Some directions for future research are indicated. @ 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.
Bounded and Adaptative Rationality, Decision Processes and Problem Solving in H.A. Simon
Cognitio-Estudos, 2010
The purpose of this paper, which belongs to a series of papers we developed relative to Simon’s theories of rationality, decision, company and organization, is to rationally reconstruct his seminal work on adaptive rationality and decision. The field of study of rationality and decision theories can be divided into two research programs: (i) the normative program, which interprets rationality as a set of axioms that supplies a logical structure for preferences and an optimization principle for the selection of alternatives; (ii) the descriptive program, according to which rationality is empirically reconstructed by means of the assumption that the decision-making individual incorporates a portfolio of adaptive heuristic strategies which operate satisfactorily, but not optimally, in the delineation of the opportunity set and in the selection of alternatives. In this paper we defend the thesis that Simon aims to confer greater empirical content to rationality, reinterpreting it as bounded and adaptive without, however, giving up rationality as a regulating idea.
Bounded rationality in agent-based models: experiments with evolutionary programs
International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 2006
This paper examines the use of evolutionary programming in agent-based modelling to implement the theory of bounded rationality. Evolutionary programming, which draws on Darwinian analogues of computing to create software programs, is a readily accepted means for solving complex computational problems. Evolutionary programming is also increasingly used to develop problem-solving strategies in accordance with bounded rationality, which addresses features of human decision-making such as cognitive limits, learning, and innovation. There remain many unanswered methodological and conceptual questions about the linkages between bounded rationality and evolutionary programming. This paper reports on how changing parameters in one variant of evolutionary programming, genetic programming, affects the representation of bounded rationality in software agents. Of particular interest are: the ability of agents to solve problems; limits to the complexity of agent strategies; the computational resources with which agents create, maintain, or expand strategies; and the extent to which agents balance exploration of new strategies and exploitation of old strategies.
Herbert Simon. Artificial intelligence
2013
Herbert Simon made overlapping substantive contributions to the fields of economics, psychology, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, decision theory, and organization theory. Si-monÕs work was motivated by the belief that neither the human mind, human thinking and decision making, nor human creativity need be mysterious. It was after he helped create ''thinking'' machines that Simon came to understand human intuition as subconscious pattern recognition. In doing so he showed that intuition need not be associated with magic and mysticism, and that it is complementary with analytical thinking. This paper will show how the overlaps in his work and especially his work on AI affected his view towards intuition.
The Evolution of Expectations in Boundedly Rational Agents: Chapter 4
DPhil Thesis, 2003
In this chapter, the arguments of the last two chapters are synthesised to motivate the simulation that follows. The first chapter portrayed the power and coherence of the biological theory of evolution as an adaptation mechanism. In the second chapter, a number of economic models making use of evolutionary ideas were examined in the light of the biological theory. In general, models to date involve limitations of two kinds. Firstly, evolution is an endogenous and open-ended process. As a result, models that do not reflect this often involve inconsistencies and unrealistic assumptions or produce implausible results. Secondly, the economic preference for mathematical modelling has had a tendency to "shape" evolutionary ideas in a way that renders them compatible with existing modelling techniques. This sometimes impairs the logic of the evolutionary process and again introduces problems. In particular, the assumption that there are "market fundamentals" often requires "gifting" of information and decision rules to firms that they would not be able to acquire endogenously. In this chapter, it is argued that computational techniques developed in Artificial Intelligence can address both of these difficulties. Specifically, Chapter 4 111 the use of a technique called Genetic Programming provides a suitable framework for a fully coherent EEM. More generally, it will be shown that computer simulation is suitable for modelling endogenous open-ended systems and does not need to impose the same limitations as the current mathematical techniques used in economics.
2010
The purpose of this paper, which belongs to a series of papers we developed relative to Simon's theories of rationality, decision, company and organization, is to rationally reconstruct his seminal work on adaptive rationality and decision. The field of study of rationality and decision theories can be divided into two research programs: (i) the normative program, which interprets rationality as a set of axioms that supplies a logical structure for preferences and an optimization principle for the selection of alternatives; (ii) the descriptive program, according to which rationality is empirically reconstructed by means of the assumption that the decision-making individual incorporates a portfolio of adaptive heuristic strategies which operate satisfactorily, but not optimally, in the delineation of the opportunity set and in the selection of alternatives. In this paper we defend the thesis that Simon aims to confer greater empirical content to rationality, reinterpreting it as bounded and adaptive without, however, giving up rationality as a regulating idea.