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'...
The co-evolution of social institutions, demography, and large-scale human cooperation
Journal Article
Powers, S. T., & Lehmann, L. (2013)
The co-evolution of social institutions, demography, and large-scale human cooperation. Ecology Letters, 16(11), 1356-1364. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.12178
Human cooperation is typically coordinated by institutions, which determine the outcome structure of the social interactions individuals engage in. Explaining the Neolithic tr...
Four levers of reciprocity across human societies: concepts, analysis and predictions
Journal Article
Lehmann, L., Powers, S. T., & van Schaik, C. P. (2022)
Four levers of reciprocity across human societies: concepts, analysis and predictions. Evolutionary Human Sciences, 4, Article e11. https://doi.org/10.1017/ehs.2022.7
This paper surveys five human societal types – mobile foragers, horticulturalists, pre-state agriculturalists, state-based agriculturalists and liberal democracies – from the ...
The concurrent evolution of cooperation and the population structures that support it
Journal Article
Powers, S. T., Penn, A. S., & Watson, R. A. (2011)
The concurrent evolution of cooperation and the population structures that support it. Evolution, 65(6), 1527-1543. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1558-5646.2011.01250.x
The evolution of cooperation often depends upon population structure, yet nearly all models of cooperation implicitly assume that this structure remains static. This is a simp...
When to (or not to) trust intelligent machines: Insights from an evolutionary game theory analysis of trust in repeated games
Journal Article
Han, T. A., Perrett, C., & Powers, S. T. (2021)
When to (or not to) trust intelligent machines: Insights from an evolutionary game theory analysis of trust in repeated games. Cognitive Systems Research, 68, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogsys.2021.02.003
The actions of intelligent agents, such as chatbots, recommender systems, and virtual assistants are typically not fully transparent to the user. Consequently , users take the...
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.
Punishment can promote defection in group-structured populations
Journal Article
Powers, S. T., Taylor, D. J., & Bryson, J. J. (2012)
Punishment can promote defection in group-structured populations. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 311, 107-116. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtbi.2012.07.010
Pro-social punishment, whereby cooperators punish defectors, is often suggested as a mechanism that maintains cooperation in large human groups. Importantly, models that suppo...
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
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...
A mechanism to promote social behaviour in household load balancing
Conference Proceeding
Brooks, N. A., Powers, S. T., & Borg, J. M. (2020)
A mechanism to promote social behaviour in household load balancing. In Proceedings of the Artificial Life Conference 2020 (ALIFE 2020). , (95-103). https://doi.org/10.1162/isal_a_00290
Reducing the peak energy consumption of households is essential for the effective use of renewable energy sources, in order to ensure that as much household demand as possible...