The use of distributed artificial intelligence techniques to investigate the roles of Cartesians and stochasts in cooperative problem solving

This paper reports ongoing work on the construction of a computer based simulation environment designed to enable the investigation of cooperative problem solving between actors with differing strategies. The model is based on the use of Distributed Artificial Intelligence (DAI) programming techniques and has been developed to examine the application of evolutionary analogies to social, organisational and economic issues. The first part of the paper describes the background to the research and emphasises the model's role as an application of DAI techniques to policy level issues of interest to economists, geographers and sociologists. A technical description of the model's structure and central features is then provided and some preliminary results from the application of the model to a specific issue are reported.