Virtual humans populate a multitude of agent-based models in many disciplines. These models tend to concentrate on their application domain. The behaviour of the human agent populations in these models often lacks grounding in fundamental social concepts like culture, status, or identity, let alone their complex interaction, which are vital for emulating real human sociality. Instead, the theory base for these agents is scattered between applications, using ad hoc models, or models narrowly focused on utility.
At the same time, social science has over the years come up with generic models of human social behaviour that have proven validity and effectiveness, for instance, in the fields of organizational behaviour and cross-cultural consultancy.
Little social science has been used in virtual humans. The field of Artificial Intelligence, as its name suggests, has stressed cognition above sociality. However, specifically research areas that focus on the analysis of complex social systems, such as socio-ecological systems and policy analysis, require integrated modelling approaches that appreciate the complexity arising from interactions within and across all layers of social organisation. Emotions, relations, culture, norms, social identity and status dynamics are vital aspects for understanding these systems. It follows that there is an opportunity of better aligning social science for usage in virtual societies.
Results to date show that even simple social primitives can, depending on the context, give rise to elaborate self-organized patterns at system level. Which primitives to use for artificial sociality and how to adapt theory for agent-based models is a field with lots of open questions.
This special track aims to provide a forum to present and discuss contributions that advance the state of practice and understanding of artificial sociality. Contributions could be cases, position papers, or theoretical frameworks. Worked examples are preferred over proposals that are merely conceptual.
Submission
We welcome the submission of extended abstracts (3 - 4 pages; short oral presentation) and full papers (max. 12 pages, long oral presentation). All work must be original, i.e. must not have appeared in conference proceedings, books, or journals and may not be under review for other archival conferences, books, or journals.
Important Dates
Submission of extended abstracts (3-4 pages) or full papers (max. 12 pages): 30 April 2019
Notification of Acceptance: 24 June 2019
Final Version Submission: 11 July 2019
Track chairs
- Gert Jan Hofstede, Professor of Artificial Sociality, Wageningen University, Netherlands
- Tobias Schröder, Dipl.-Psych., Professor, Fachhochschule Potsdam, Germany
- Christopher Frantz, Associate Professor, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) Gjøvik, Norway