Simon Powers
Simon Powers

Dr Simon Powers

Lecturer

 0131 455 2718

  S.Powers@napier.ac.uk

   

Biography

Most generally, I am interested in computational social, political, and economic science. My research looks at how tools from computer science and taking an algorithmic viewpoint helps us to answer the key questions in these disciplines. Can human values such as justice and fairness be formalised computationally? Can doing so help to build Artificial Intelligence systems that interact with humans in a more meaningful way? How can we use Artificial Intelligence to help a group work together to avoid overexploiting their resources and falling prey to the Tragedy of the Commons, for example through smart energy management?

My current research investigates the links between institutions, computer science, and multi-agent systems. How can we use tools from computer science to formally model human institutions? And how can what we learn about human institutions help us to build open socio-technical systems in which independent, distributed artificial agents cooperate? Applications of this that I am currently working on include smart grids, community energy systems, and cloud computing.

I previously held postdoctoral positions with Prof. Laurent Lehmann at the Department of Ecology & Evolution, University of Lausanne (2011-2015), and with Dr. Joanna Bryson at the Department of Computer Science, University of Bath (2011). My Ph.D. thesis (2010) is titled "Social niche construction: Evolutionary explanations for cooperative group formation", and was supervised by Prof. Richard Watson at the School of Electronics & Computer Science, University of Southampton.

I am an Associate Editor for IEEE Technology & Society Magazine, and for Adaptive Behavior.

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Conference Organising Activity

  • Programme committee member for SASO 2018: 12th IEEE International Conference on Self-Adaptive and Self-Organizing Systems
  • Programme committee member for GECCO 2018: The Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference
  • Programme committee member for ALife 2018: The 2018 Conference on Artificial Life
  • Programme committee member for SASO 2017: 11th IEEE International Conference on Self-Adaptive and Self-Organizing Systems
  • Programme committee member for GECCO 2017: The Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference
  • Programme committee member for ECAL 2017: 14th European Conference on Artificial Life
  • Programme committee member for GECCO 2016: The Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference
  • Programme committee member for ALife XV: The 15th International Conference on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems

 

Editorial Activity

  • Associate Editor for IEEE Technology & Society Magazine
  • Associate Editor for Adaptive Behavior

 

Invited Speaker

  • Keynote speaker at 5th eCAS Workshop on Engineering Collective Adaptive Systems
  • Seminar at Keele University
  • Keynote speaker at The Second Workshop on Social Learning and Cultural Evolution (SLACE 2017)
  • Seminar at Aston University

 

Research Degree External Examining

  • External PhD examiner at the University of Bristol
  • External PhD examiner at Teesside University
  • External PhD examiner at the University of Otago
  • External PhD examiner at Kings College London
  • Ph.D. external examiner at University of Southampton
  • Ph.D. external examiner at University of Manchester

 

Visiting Positions

  • Fellowship at the Institute of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Keele University

 

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33 results

Can justice be fair when it is blind? How social network structures can promote or prevent the evolution of despotism

Conference Proceeding
Perret, C., Powers, S. T., Pitt, J., & Hart, E. (2018)
Can justice be fair when it is blind? How social network structures can promote or prevent the evolution of despotism. In T. Ikegami, N. Virgo, O. Witkowski, M. Oka, R. Suzuki, & H. Iizuka (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2018 Conference on Artificial Lifehttps://doi.org/10.1162/isal_a_00058
Hierarchy is an efficient way for a group to organize, but often goes along with inequality that benefits leaders. To control despotic behaviour, followers can assess leaders'...

Co-creating Enduring Institutions for Socio-Technical Systems: The Complementarity of Content-based and Value-based Modelling Approaches

Conference Proceeding
Lewis, P. R., Powers, S. T., & Ekárt, A. (2018)
Co-creating Enduring Institutions for Socio-Technical Systems: The Complementarity of Content-based and Value-based Modelling Approaches. In N. Virgo, T. Ikegami, O. Witkowski, M. Oka, R. Suzuki, & H. Iizuka (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2018 Conference on Artificial Lifehttps://doi.org/10.1162/isal_a_00026
No abstract available.

Modelling enduring institutions: The complementarity of evolutionary and agent-based approaches

Journal Article
Powers, S. T., Ekárt, A., & Lewis, P. R. (2018)
Modelling enduring institutions: The complementarity of evolutionary and agent-based approaches. Cognitive Systems Research, 52, 67-81. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogsys.2018.04.012
Empirical work has shown that societies can sometimes avoid antisocial outcomes , such as the Tragedy of the Commons, by establishing institutional rules that govern their int...

The institutional approach for modeling the evolution of human societies

Journal Article
Powers, S. T. (2018)
The institutional approach for modeling the evolution of human societies. Artificial Life, 24(1), 10-28. https://doi.org/10.1162/ARTL_a_00251
Artificial Life is concerned with understanding the dynamics of human societies. A defining feature of any society is its institutions. However, defining exactly what an insti...

Emergence of hierarchy from the evolution of individual influence in an agent-based model

Conference Proceeding
Perret, C., Powers, S. T., & Hart, E. (2017)
Emergence of hierarchy from the evolution of individual influence in an agent-based model. In Proceedings of the 14th European Conference on Artificial Life 2017, (348-355
The sudden transition from egalitarian groups to hierarchical societies that occurred with the origin of agriculture is one of the most striking features of the evolution of h...

Defection

Book Chapter
Powers, S. T. (2017)
Defection. In Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science (1-4). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1616-1
No abstract available.

The institutional approach for modeling the evolution of human societies

Conference Proceeding
Powers, S. (2016)
The institutional approach for modeling the evolution of human societies. In Proceedings of the Artificial Life Conference 2016https://doi.org/10.7551/978-0-262-33936-0-ch011
Artificial Life is concerned with understanding the dynamics of human societies. A defining feature of any human society is its institutions. However, defining exactly what an...

When is bigger better? The effects of group size on the evolution of helping behaviours: Effects of group size on evolution of helping

Journal Article
Powers, S. T., & Lehmann, L. (2017)
When is bigger better? The effects of group size on the evolution of helping behaviours: Effects of group size on evolution of helping. Biological Reviews, 92(2), 902-920. https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.12260
Understanding the evolution of sociality in humans and other species requires understanding how selection on social behaviour varies with group size. However, the effects of g...

How institutions shaped the last major evolutionary transition to large-scale human societies

Journal Article
Powers, S. T., van Schaik, C. P., & Lehmann, L. (2016)
How institutions shaped the last major evolutionary transition to large-scale human societies. Philosophical Transactions B: Biological Sciences, 371(1687), 20150098. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2015.0098
What drove the transition from small-scale human societies centred on kinship and personal exchange, to large-scale societies comprising cooperation and division of labour amo...

An evolutionary model explaining the Neolithic transition from egalitarianism to leadership and despotism.

Journal Article
Powers, S. T., & Lehmann, L. (2014)
An evolutionary model explaining the Neolithic transition from egalitarianism to leadership and despotism. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 281, 20141349-20141349. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2014.1349
The Neolithic was marked by a transition from small and relatively egalitarian groups, to much larger groups with increased stratification. But the dynamics of this remain poo...

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