Socionics: Sociological Concepts for Social Systems of Artificial (and Human) Agents

Socionics is an interdisciplinary approach with the objective to use sociological knowledge about the structures, mechanisms and processes of social interaction and social communication as a source of inspiration for the development of multi-agent systems, both for the purposes of engineering applications and of social theory construction and social simulation. The approach has been spelled out from 1998 on within the Socionics priority program funded by the German National research foundation. This special issue of the JASSS presents research results from five interdisciplinary projects of the Socionics program. The introduction gives an overview over the basic ideas of the Socionics approach and summarizes the work of these projects.Socionics, Sociology, Multi-Agent Systems, Artificial Social Systems, Hybrid Systems, Social Simulation

Three Forms of Interpretative Flexibility

Interpretative flexibility is a central concept of social constructivism in science and technology studies. We think this concept, as it exists, can and should be elaborated. In this paper, we argue that interpretative flexibility can be traced back to three different forms of infinite regress: the regress of truth, the regress of usefulness, and the regress of relevance. Resulting from this analysis, we observe three different forms of interpretative flexibility. We will show that in controversies or debates concerning the meaning of certain scientific facts, technological artefacts or research approaches, concurrently or consecutively more than one of these different forms of interpretative flexibility may play a part. With this reconceptualisation of interpretative flexibility, we hope to contribute to a more elaborate understanding of the dynamics of the social construction of scientific facts and technological artefacts

Introduction

Constructivism has become the overarching scientific paradigm in the social study of science and technology (STS). The notion that scientific facts and technological artefacts result from processes of social construction is the major scientific innovation of the preceding decades in the sociology of science and technology. With constructivism being the established paradigm in this field of research: what comes next? What comes after constructivism in science and technology studies? The contributions of this special issue of Science, Technology & Innovation Studies suggest different answers to these questions which can roughly be subsumed under the three headings 'Spelling out Constructivism', 'Adding Disregarded Aspects', and 'Going beyond Constructivism'

From conditional commitments to generalized media: on means of coordination between self-governed entities

"In the absence of pre-established coordination structures, what can a self-governed entity – i.e. an entity that chooses on its own between its possible actions and cannot be controlled externally – do to evoke another self-governed entity’s cooperation? In this paper, the motivating conditional self-commitment is conceived to be the basic mechanism to solve coordination problems of this kind. It will be argued that such commitments have an inherent tendency to become more and more generalized and institutionalised. The sociological concept of generalized symbolic media is reinterpreted as a concept that focuses on this point. The conceptual framework resulting from the considerations is applicable to coordination problems between human actors as well as to coordination problems between artificial agents in open multi-agent systems. Thus, it may help to transfer solutions from one realm to the other." (author's abstract)Der Verfasser analysiert die soziale Koordination selbstbestimmter Einheiten unter Bedingungen, unter denen es keine vorher etablierten Koordinationsstrukturen gibt. Er zeigt, dass Engagement der wichtigste Mechanismus zur Lösung von Koordinationsproblemen ist und dass Engagement eine inhärente Tendenz zur Generalisierung und Institutionalisierung aufweist. Der Verfasser stellt einen theoretischen Rahmen vor, der auf einer Neuinterpretation des soziologischen Konzepts verallgemeinerter symbolischer Medien basiert. Dieser Rahmen lässt sich auf Koordinationsprobleme zwischen menschlichen Akteuren ebenso anwenden wie auf Koordinationsprobleme zwischen künstlichen Akteuren in offenen Multiakteursystemen, wie der Verfasser am Beispiel "Reputation" zeigt. (ICE

Enrolling software agents in human organizations: the exploration of hybrid organizations within the socionics research program

Komplexe Organisationen sind zu einem beträchtlichen Grad durch interne Inkohärenzen, durch Differenzen zwischen den einzelnen Abteilungsinteressen und durch Inkonsistenzen des Zielsystems der Organisation gekennzeichnet. Demgegenüber zielt die Informationstechnologie prinzipiell auf einen kohärenten Operationsmodus, und sie ist deshalb, als Informationssystem, an organisatorischer Kohärenz interessiert. Das vorliegende Arbeitspapier beschreibt einen "sozionomisch" orientierten Ansatz im Rahmen des INKA-Projekts (Integration kooperationsfähiger Agenten in komplexen Organisationen), das die theoretischen und technologischen Grundlagen für einen Umgang mit den Inkohärenzen und der Heterogenität in komplexen Organisationen erforscht. Die Funktionsweise dieser "multiagent architecture" wird am Beispiel der Therapieplanung in einem Krankenhaus und der damit verbundenen Informationstechnologie verdeutlicht. (ICA)To a considerable degree, complex organizations are characterized by internal incoherence, by differences between the individual departments' preferences and patterns of actions and by inconsistencies of the organization's goals. On the contrary, information technology is intended to operate in a coherent way, and, therefore, information systems, designed to support organizational processes, usually proceed from the assumption of organizational coherence. The more traditional approaches to implement information systems in organizations often lead either to dysfunctional restrictions imposed on the organization by the information system¿s need to establish firm cause/ effect relationships. Or, reversely, they lead to incoherence imposed on the information system by the organization¿s structure. With agent technology, however, we have a chance to arrive at organizational information infrastructures that allow for both sides. The paper describes the theoretical background of the INKA research project (which is part of the socionics research program funded by the DFG) that aims at developing a solution to the problem sketched above by modeling and exploring hybrid forms of interaction between humans and artificial agents within organizational settings