Simulations of Highly Complex Social Systems as a Tool for Designing Information Systems

When designing information systems, it would be good to be able to compare alternatives. However, information systems are complex phenomena as they encompass the humans involved in distributing the information. One possible way of making comparisons would be through simulation. Having constructed a prototype for such a simulation we have seen that the traditional approaches, such as Cellular Automata utilized within the social simulations field are usable but not sufficient. However, the newer agent-based approaches show more promise. We conclude that in order to make simulations of our kind possible, the new technologies, such as multi-agant systems, need be adapted and extended. One of the pieces missing is an agent-based infrastructure building on anticipatory principles for agent information behavior.