Category: Papers

Behavioral and Topological Heterogeneities in Network Versions of Schelling’s Segregation Model

Will Deter, Hiroki Sayama

Complexity

Agent-based models of residential segregation have been of persistent interest to various research communities since their origin with James Sakoda and popularization by Thomas Schelling. Frequently, these models have sought to elucidate the extent to which the collective dynamics of individual preferences may cause segregation to emerge. This open question has sustained relevance in U.S. jurisprudence. Previous investigation that incorporated heterogeneity of behaviors (preferences) showed reductions in segregation. Meanwhile, previous investigation that incorporated heterogeneity of social network topologies showed no significant impact to observed segregation levels. In the present study, we examined the effects of the concurrent presence of both behavioral and topological heterogeneities in network segregation models. Simulations were conducted using both homogeneous and heterogeneous preference models on 2D lattices with varied levels of densification to create topological heterogeneities (i.e., clusters and hubs). Results show a richer variety of outcomes, including novel differences in resultant segregation levels and hub composition. Notably, with concurrent increased representations of heterogeneous preferences and heterogeneous topologies, reduced levels of segregation emerge. Simultaneously, we observe a novel dynamic of segregation between tolerance levels as highly tolerant nodes take residence in dense areas and push intolerant nodes to sparse areas mimicking the urban–rural divide.

Read the full article at: onlinelibrary.wiley.com

The evolution of energy poverty theory

Zeus Guevara, Mariana Espinosa-Aldama, Oliver López-Corona

Energy Strategy Reviews
Volume 61, September 2025, 101832

• 1st scientometrics study of energy poverty (EP) focused on theoretical development.
• 5 Schools of Thought are identified from the field’s knowledge/information flows.
• The evolution of EP theory shows a convergent trend towards a consensual concept.
• Energy justice has served as a conciliatory perspective.
• The field is young, as there is still wide theoretical and methodological divergence.

Read the full article at: www.sciencedirect.com

Modelling the emergence of open-ended technological evolution

James Winters, Mathieu Charbonneau
Humans stand alone in terms of their potential to collectively and cumulatively improve technologies in an open-ended manner. This open-endedness provides societies with the ability to continually expand their resources and to increase their capacity to store, transmit and process information at a collective-level. Here, we propose that the production of resources arises from the interaction between technological systems (a society’s repertoire of interdependent skills, techniques and artifacts) and search spaces (the aggregate collection of needs, problems and goals within a society). Starting from this premise we develop a macro-level model wherein both technological systems and search spaces are subject to cultural evolutionary dynamics. By manipulating the extent to which these dynamics are characterised by stochastic or selection-like processes, we demonstrate that open-ended growth is extremely rare, historically contingent and only possible when technological systems and search spaces co-evolve. Here, stochastic factors must be strong enough to continually perturb the dynamics into a far-from-equilibrium state, whereas selection-like factors help maintain effectiveness and ensure the sustained production of resources. Only when this co-evolutionary dynamic maintains effective technological systems, supports the ongoing expansion of the search space and leads to an increased provision of resources do we observe open-ended technological evolution.

Read the full article at: arxiv.org

Flow-Lenia: Emergent Evolutionary Dynamics in Mass Conservative Continuous Cellular Automata

Erwan Plantec, Gautier Hamon, Mayalen Etcheverry, Bert Wang-Chak Chan, Pierre-Yves Oudeyer, Clément Moulin-Frier

Artificial Life (2025) 31 (2): 228–248.

Central to the Artificial Life endeavor is the creation of artificial systems that spontaneously generate properties found in the living world, such as autopoiesis, self-replication, evolution, and open-endedness. Though numerous models and paradigms have been proposed, cellular automata (CA) have taken a very important place in the field, notably because they enable the study of phenomena like self-reproduction and autopoiesis. Continuous CA like Lenia have been shown to produce lifelike patterns reminiscent, from both aesthetic and ontological points of view, of biological organisms we call “creatures.” We propose Flow-Lenia, a mass conservative extension of Lenia. We present experiments demonstrating its effectiveness in generating spatially localized patterns with complex behaviors and show that the update rule parameters can be optimized to generate complex creatures showing behaviors of interest. Furthermore, we show that Flow-Lenia allows us to embed the parameters of the model, defining the properties of the emerging patterns, within its own dynamics, thus allowing for multispecies simulation. Using the evolutionary activity framework and other metrics, we shed light on the emergent evolutionary dynamics taking place in this system.

Read the full article at: direct.mit.edu