Complex R.O.M.E. 2026 is an online free workshop that aims to bring together researchers from different disciplines interested in researching at the intersection of history with complexity science, network science, computational social science, mathematical modelling, and artificial intelligence. Complex R.O.M.E. welcomes both completed and preliminary research, as well as methodological contributions, new datasets, and position presentations.
Senior and junior researchers are equally encouraged to participate, with the goal of fostering interdisciplinary discussion, collaboration, and new approaches to understanding the dynamics of historical societies.
The 2026 edition will take place fully online on September 30–October 1, 2026, and participation is free. This year’s keynote speakers will be
• Peter Turchin (CSH, University of Oxford, University of Connecticut)
• Débora Zurro Hernández (IMF-CSIC)
More at: https://complexrome.com/evento-2026.html
Month: September 2026
Evolution of collective behavior from individually optimized chemotactic agents
Ryosuke Takata, Yujin Tang, Yingtao Tian, Norihiro Maruyama, Hiroki Kojima, Takashi Ikegami,
Collective Intelligence
This study simulates the dynamics of a collection of clonal agents responding to chemical gradients (chemotaxis) to demonstrate the evolution of individual variation. To build our multi-agent simulation, we first optimized single agents that rely on a neural network to perform chemotaxis. We then constructed multi-agent simulations using clones of these evolved individuals. We find that mutual interactions lead to the emergence of behavioral variation. We also find population-level performance degradation during later evolutionary stages, despite maintained high individual performance and simplified neural architectures. This decline occurred because agents developed reduced sensory-motor coupling. This latter finding demonstrates that incentives for individual variation worked against the collective interest.
Read the full article at: journals.sagepub.com
