Complexity, Virtualization, and the Future of Cooperation
On August 27, 2010, Steve Omohundro gave a talk at Halcyon Molecular on “Complexity, Virtualization, and the Future of Cooperation”.
Here’s a pdf file of the slides:
Here’s the abstract:
We are on the verge of fundamental breakthroughs in biology, neuroscience, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence. Will these breakthroughs lead to greater harmony and cooperation or to more strife and competition? Ecosystems, economies, and social networks are complex webs of “coopetition”. Their organization is governed by universal laws which give insights into the nature of cooperation. We’ll discuss the pressures toward creating complexity and greater virtualization in these systems and how these contribute to cooperation. We’ll review game theoretic results that show that cooperation can arise from computational limitations and suggest that the fundamental computational asymmetry between posing and solving problems and may lead to cooperation in an ultimate “game-theoretic physics” played by powerful agents.
Self-Aware Systems 