Sugarscape

Sugarscape is a model artificially intelligent agent-based social simulation following some or all rules presented by Joshua M. Epstein & Robert Axtell in their book Growing Artificial Societies.

Origin

Fundaments of Sugarscape models can be traced back to the University of Maryland where economist Thomas Schelling presented his paper titled Models of Segregation. Written in 1969, Schelling and the rest of the social environment modelling fraternity had their options limited by a lack of adequate computing power and an applicable programming mechanism to fully develop the potential of their model.

John Conway's agent-based simulation "Game of Life" was enhanced and applied to Schelling's original idea by Joshua M. Epstein and Robert Axtell in their book Growing Artificial Societies. To demonstrate their findings on the field of agent-based simulation, a model was created and distributed with their book on CD-ROM. The concept of this model has come to be known as "the Sugarscape model". Since then, the name "Sugarscape" has been used for agent-based models using rules similar to those defined by Epstein & Axtell.