Towards Semiotic Agent-based Models of Socio-technical Organizations

We present an approach to agent modeling of socio-technical organizations based on the principles of semiotics. After reviewing complex systems theory and traditional Artificial Life (ALife) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) approaches to agent-based modeling, we introduce the fundamental principles of semiotic agents as decision-making entities embedded in artificial environments and exchanging and interpreting semiotic tokens. We proceed to discuss the design requirements for semiotic agents, including those for artificial environments with a rich enough “virtual physics” to support selected selforganization; semiotic agents as implementing a generalized control relation; and situated communication and shared knowledge within a community of such agents. We conclude with a discussion of the resulting properties of such systems for dynamical incoherence, and finally describe an application to the simulation of the decision structures of Command and Control Organizations.