Agent-based modeling for a complex world. Part 1

The main goal of this paper is to summarize selected developments in the field of artificial societies and agent-based modeling and to suggest, how this fundamentally new toolkit can contribute to solving some of the most complex scientific and practical problems of our time. The entire field of agent-based modeling has expanded dramatically over the last quarter century, with applications across a remarkable array of fields, at scales ranging from molecular to global. The models described in this paper are a small part of worldwide scientific and practical developments in the field of agent-based modelling and related areas. We have attempted to give an impression of the vast range of application areas (epidemiology, economics, demography, environment, urban dynamics, history, conflict, disaster preparedness), scales (from cellular to local to urban to planetary), and goals (simple exploratory models, optimization, generative explanation, forecasting, policy) of agent-based modeling. Agent-based models offer a new and powerful alternative, or complement, to traditional mathematical methods for addressing complex challenges.