Modelling Early Human Society

Using computers to simulate naturally occurring societies is a rapidly growing area of research [1],[2]. Much of the ongoing work is targeted at non-human societies (often in the ‘artificial life’ tradition), but some is aiming to use AI and Distributed AI to gain insight into human society, addressing such issues as social action, cognized models, group formation, planned cooperation and “macro-level” emergence. Indeed, it is beginning to seem possible that even aspects of human societies which at first seem entirely remote from computer work may be studied by computer simulation, for example, the much debated and argued notion of ‘ideology’.