Agent Specialization in Complex Social Swarms

The hypothesis that social influence leads to an increase in the division of labor, or specialization, in complex agent systems is introduced. Specialization, in turn, leads to increased productivity in such social systems. In this study, we examine the effect of social influence on the level of agent specialization in complex systems connected via social networks. Several methods attempt to explain the overall makeup of social influence and the emergence of specialization in general, with the most prominent being the genetic threshold model. This model posits that agents possess an inherent threshold for task stimulus, and when that threshold is exceeded, the agent will perform that task. The implication of social influence is that an agent’s choice of which task to specialize in when multiple ones are available is influenced by the choices of its neighbours. Using the threshold model and an established metric that quantifies the level of agent specialization, we find that social influence indeed leads to an increase in the division of labour.

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