Collectives and the Design of Complex Systems

by Kagan Tumer (Editor), David Wolpert (Editor)

Many complex systems found in nature can be viewed as function optimizers. In particular, they can be viewed as such optimizers of functions in extremely high­ dimensional spaces. Given the difficulty of performing such high-dimensional op­ timization with modern computers, there has been a lot of exploration of computa­ tional algorithms that try to emulate those naturally-occurring function optimizers. Examples include simulated annealing (SA [15,18]), genetic algorithms (GAs) and evolutionary computation [2,3,9,11,20-22,24,28]. The ultimate goal of this work is an algorithm that can, for any provided high-dimensional function, come close to extremizing that function. Particularly desirable would be such an algorithm that works in an adaptive and robust manner, without any explicit knowledge of the form of the function being optimized. In particular, such an algorithm could be used for distributed adaptive control---one of the most important tasks engineers will face in the future, when the systems they design will be massively distributed and horribly messy congeries ofcomputational systems.

334 pages, Paperback

First published May 17, 2003

About the author

Kagan Tumer is a science fiction author and professor of AI and Robotics. He attended seven schools in five cities in four countries, all before reaching high school. The constant upheaval taught him two things: observe the world and the people in it because you need to understand them, and don't get too attached to any place or anyone because neither will be there next year.

Turns out, that’s pretty good training for a writer.

Along the way, Kagan worked as a cafeteria food server, registrar's office clerk, print shop copier, soccer referee, math tutor, and well logging engineer. He also worked for NASA, designing autonomous robot coordination algorithms for future missions. When it finally dawned on him that NASA wasn't going to build and send hundreds of robots to Mars so he can play with them, he decided to create his own reality in Science Fiction.

After a decade in the San Francisco Bay Area, he now lives in the Pacific Northwest. His debut novel, Purged Souls, was a Foreword INDIES Book of the Year finalist. When not writing, he ponders AI ethics, teaches AI, and mentors future scientists.