ANT-style critique of ABM

A short recent article in the Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation by Venturini, Jensen, and Latour lays out a critique of the explanatory strategy associated with agent-based modeling of complex social phenomena (link). (Thanks to Mark Carrigan for the reference via Twitter; @mark_carrigan.) Tommaso Venturini is an expert on digital media networks at Sciences Po (link), Pablo Jensen is a physicist who works on social simulations, and Bruno Latour is -- Bruno Latour. Readers who recall recent posts here on the strengths and weaknesses of ABM models as a basis for explaining social conflict will find the article interesting (link). VJ&L argue that agent-based models -- really, all simulations that proceed from the micro to the macro -- are both flawed and unnecessary. They are flawed because they unavoidable resort to assumptions about agents and their environments that reduce the complexity of social interaction to an unacceptable denominator; and they are unnecessary because it is now possible to trace directly the kinds of processes of social interaction that simulations are designed to model. The "big data" available concerning individual-to-individual interactions permits direct observation of most large social processes, they appear to hold.

Here are the key criticisms of ABM methodology that the authors advance:

• Most of them, however, partake of the same conceptual approach in which individuals are taken as discrete and interchangeable 'social atoms' (Buchanan 2007) out of which social structures emerge as macroscopic characteristics (viscosity, solidity...) emerge from atomic interactions in statistical physics (Bandini et al. 2009). (1.2)
• most simulations work only at the price of simplifying the properties of micro-agents, the rules of interaction and the nature of macro-structures so that they conveniently fit each other. (1.4)
• micro-macro models assume by construction that agents at the local level are incapable to understand and control the phenomena at the global level. (1.5)

And here is their key claim:

• Empirical studies show that, contrarily to what most social simulations assume, collective action does not originate at the micro level of individual atoms and does not end up in a macro level of stable structures. Instead, actions distribute in intricate and heterogeneous networks than fold and deploy creating differences but not discontinuities. (1.11) 

This final statement could serve as a high-level paraphrase of actor-network theory, as presented by Latour in Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. (Here is a brief description of actor-network theory and its minimalist social ontology; link.)

These criticisms parallel some of my own misgivings about simulation models, though I am somewhat more sympathetic to their use than VJ&L. Here are some of the concerns raised in earlier posts about the validity of various ABM approaches to social conflict (link, link):

• Simulations often produce results that appear to be artifacts rather than genuine social tendencies.
• Simulations leave out important features of the social world that are prima facie important to outcomes: for example, quality of leadership, quality and intensity of organization, content of appeals, differential pathways of appeals, and variety of political psychologies across agents.
• The factor of the influence of organizations is particularly important and non-local.
• Simulations need to incorporate actors at a range of levels, from individual to club to organization.

And here is the conclusion I drew in that post:

• But it is very important to recognize the limitations of these models as predictors of outcomes in specific periods and locations of unrest. These simulation models probably don't shed much light on particular episodes of contention in Egypt or Tunisia during the Arab Spring. The "qualitative" theories of contention that have been developed probably shed more light on the dynamics of contention than the simulations do at this point in their development.

But the confidence expressed by VJ&L in the new observability of social processes through digital tracing seems excessive to me. They offer a few good examples that support their case -- opinion change, for example (1.9). Here they argue that it is possible to map or track opinion change directly through digital footprints of interaction (Twitter, Facebook, blogging), and this is superior to abstract modeling of opinion change through social networks. No doubt we can learn something important about the dynamics of opinion change through this means.

But this is a very special case. Can we similarly "map" the spread of new political ideas and slogans during the Arab Spring? No, because the vast majority of those present in Tahrir Square were not tweeting and texting their experiences. Can we map the spread of anti-Muslim attitudes in Gujarat in 2002 leading to massive killings of Muslims in a short period of time? No, for the same reason: activists and nationalist gangs did not do us the historical courtesy of posting their thought processes in their Twitter feeds either. Can we study the institutional realities of the fiscal system of the Indonesian state through its digital traces? No. Can we study the prevalence and causes of official corruption in China through digital traces? Again, no.

In other words, there is a huge methodological problem with the idea of digital traceability, deriving from the fact that most social activity leaves no digital traces. There are problem areas where the traces are more accessible and more indicative of the underlying social processes; but this is a far cry from the utopia of total social legibility that appears to underlie the viewpoint expressed here.

So I'm not persuaded that the tools of digital tracing provide the full alternative to social simulation that these authors assert. And this implies that social simulation tools remain an important component of the social scientist's toolbox.