Agent _Zero and Generative Social Science

Agent_Zero is a formal alternative to the rational actor model that has dominated social science since the 1940s. This software individual is the first to be endowed with distinct affective, deliberative, and social modules. Grounded in neuroscience, these internal facets interact to produce far-from-rational individual behavior. And when ensembles of these agents interact spatially they generate a panoply of social dynamics from genocide to financial panic to vaccine refusal. Epstein will discuss the background of Agent_Zero, demonstrate its application to an array of fields, and discuss future research directions including large-scale modeling in the economic, behavioral, and health sciences.