Collective Agency and Cooperation in Natural and Artificial Systems ― Explanation, Implementation and Simulation

In this book philosophical approaches to cooperation and collective agency meet research into human-machine interaction and cooperation from engineering, robotics, computer science and AI. Bringing these so far largely unrelated fields of study together leads to a better understanding of collective agency in natural, artificial and hybrid systems by comparing different cases and helps to improve the design and performance of hybrid systems involving human and artificial agents. First steps in this direction were taken at the conference on “Collective Agency and Cooperation in Natural and Artificial Systems” which took place July 22-24 2013 at the University of Stuttgart. The talks that were given at the conference provide the basis for the book manuscript. The volume consists of four sections. The first section is dedicated to the issue of agency. The second section of the book turns to human-machine cooperation. The focus of the third section is the transition from cooperation to collective agency. The last section concerns the relationship of collective agency and social simulations in the broader framework of cultural evolution and discusses on this basis the singularity of human intelligence.

Prof. Catrin Misselhorn holds the chair for the philosophy of science and technology at the University of Stuttgart and is the director of the Institute of Philosophy. Her research is situated at the intersection of philosophy, science and technological culture. She has published numerous articles in the area of socio-technical epistemology, the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of robotics in renowned international journals, e.g., The Monist, Minds and Machines. She is directing the project “Simulating Collective Agency and Decision Processes” in the cluster of excellence SimTech (Simulation Technologies) at the University of Stuttgart.