MOD: Co-Evolution of Innovative Products by Purposive Agents and the Growth of Technological Complexity

George Mason University, Fairfax VA

Investigators

Abstract

Innovation is a driving force in the economy, and is often accompanied by technological complexity. Innovation can naturally be modeled as the co-evolution of a variety of economic goods accomplished by purposive individuals. This project draws on the research literature associated with biological evolution together with more conventional economic models of technological innovation in order to create an agent-based computational model in which purposive actors (simulated as agents) invent new projects, new products diffuse into the economy, the number and diversity of economic goods increases over time, and the technological complexity of the economy grows alongside the agents? welfare. Intellectual Merit This class of models is capable of generating many of the stylized features of actual innovation systems, such as perpetual change, creative destruction, continuously increasing human living standards, and complex chains of inter-related technologies. By creating a high-fidelity model of the technological innovation process, a better understanding of how policy catalyzes innovation is developed. This is a fertile time to make cross-disciplinary approaches to models of innovation, by mixing state-of-the-art computer science techniques with what is known today about innovation within the social sciences. This project includes elements from evolutionary computation, social network analysis, and behavioral economics, and promises to be a new way to investigate the science of science policy. Broader Impacts: Innovation affects all aspects of modern life, and broader impacts are implicitly part of any improved understanding of scientific discovery and industrial commercialization processes. Specifically, the project exposes the kinds of models built by this research to a variety of audiences outside the basic research community. The outstanding Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, near George Mason University, is the location of one such outreach activity. There, seniors in computer science classes may elect to execute a year-long project on a topic of their choice. Increasingly, they choose topics in the social sciences and build agent-based models to realize them. The researchers on this project work with computer science teachers there to engage some of their students to work on models related to science and technology policy.