Uri Wilensky, William Rand-An Introduction to Agent-Based Modeling: Modeling Natural, Social, and Engineered Complex Systems with NetLogo-The MIT Press (2015)
Slogan: Low Threshold, No Ceiling
Meaning -- Easy to enter (low amount of training required) + Sky is the limit in terms of what you can do with this training in ABM
As the world becomes more interconnected and complex, our ability to understand it must also. Simple models no longer suffice to answer many of our questions. The advent of widespread fast computation has enabled us to work on more complex problems and to build and analyze more complex models. This has generated a new field of knowledge called “ complex systems. ” This book is an introduction to one of the primary methodologies that has arisen from complex systems research. This methodology, called agent-based modeling, is a new way of doing science by conducting computer-based experiments.
An explosion of data available has led emergence of new types of questions to be answered on the basis of this massive amount of data: For example, “ How do multiple species interact and compete to form a stable ecosystem? ” “ How do political institutions affect individual decisions, especially when those individuals have the ability to manipulate political institutions? ” or “ How can we engineer robots that can work and interact with complex social processes? ”
As these complex questions are asked, future scientists, researchers, engineers, business entrepreneurs, politicians, and practitioners will be called on to answer them. The toolkit of complex systems methods will become a necessity for these individuals, and agent-based modeling (ABM) will play a central role in that toolkit. Through this book, we will provide an introduction to ABM for anyone interested in answering questions.