Locally noisy autonomous agents improve global human coordination in network experiments

Nature
Hirokazu Shirado, Nicholas A Christakis

Abstract

Coordination in groups faces a sub-optimization problem and theory suggests that some randomness may help to achieve global optima. Here we performed experiments involving a networked colour coordination game in which groups of humans interacted with autonomous software agents (known as bots). Subjects (n = 4,000) were embedded in networks (n = 230) of 20 nodes, to which we sometimes added 3 bots. The bots were programmed with varying levels of behavioural randomness and different geodesic locations. We show that bots acting with small levels of random noise and placed in central locations meaningfully improve the collective performance of human groups, accelerating the median solution time by 55.6%. This is especially the case when the coordination problem is hard. Behavioural randomness worked not only by making the task of humans to whom the bots were connected easier, but also by affecting the gameplay of the humans among themselves and hence creating further cascades of benefit in global coordination in these heterogeneous systems.

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Citations

Mar 16, 2018·Scientific Reports·Balaraju BattuNarayanan Srinivasan
Nov 22, 2018·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Massimo StellaManlio De Domenico
Jul 11, 2019·Journal of the Royal Society, Interface·Kunal BhattacharyaKimmo Kaski
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Apr 26, 2019·Nature·Iyad RahwanMichael Wellman
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Apr 9, 2020·Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology·Yaron Ilan
Mar 8, 2019·Nature Communications·Hirokazu ShiradoNicholas A Christakis
Aug 25, 2018·Science·Mariarosaria Taddeo, Luciano Floridi
Jun 11, 2020·Proceedings. Mathematical, Physical, and Engineering Sciences·Hirokazu ShiradoNicholas A Christakis
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Sep 5, 2021·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Abdullah AlmaatouqDuncan J Watts
Jun 27, 2019··Mohsen Mosleh, Mohsen Mosleh

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