Peace
Games with Open Modeling Network
In
the last few years the transformation of the communication network, which
started with launching of the first communication satellite in the mid 1960s,
culminated in establishment of globally interconnected packet switched Value
Added Networks (VANs).
Concurrently with this technological development we can observe growing
and unsolved difficulties in dealing with the problems caused by the population
explosion, depletion of natural resources and problems of global ecology
management.
On
the other hand, recent trend to automation, which is fueled by economic
competition in particular between the U.S. and Japan, development of expert
systems and the explosive growth of defense systems with shorter and shorter
reaction time are rapidly changing the global economic and political situation
in both developed and developing countries. The growing interdependence of national economies and the
complexity of the global issues require higher level of cooperation and
understanding between the highly diverse groups and nations which populate this
planet.
In
this article we will examine the application of the new development in the area
of distributed systems and Computer Aided Communication (CAC) to the analysis
of the global sociological and economical issues. Based on the review of the past attempts and experiences
with model acceptance and validation, we argue that meaningful and credible
simulation has to be implemented as a modeling network composed of a large
number of locally developed and verified models. No single model, developed by local group of experts has a
chance for universal acceptance when it is dealing with controversial and
confrontation prone area such as global resource allocation and economical
policies.
Yet,
a comprehensive model of global resources, ecology and economy is needed for
the rational management of ecology and for economic cooperation between nations
and economic blocks. As a solution
to the dilemma between the need for a unified model and a diversity of views
and the special interests of diverse groups, we consider a public Open Modeling
Network (OMN) which will consist of models developed by local experts
interconnected by global VANs.
New
problems of interfacing of models which utilize different methodologies and use
different computers and computer languages will require adoption of new
standards, allowing for translation of the content and meaning of the
information generated and needed by the individual models and development of
policies which would prevent manipulation of the data by special interest
groups. In the long run, it can be
expected that the benefits of participation in the public network will exceed
the problems caused by sharing some data and costs. The benefits will result from access to vast databases of
relevant and up-to-date economical information and improved communication on
the global scale.
The problem of managing the variety of heterogeneous models, each operating locally, yet affected from time to time by the results of similar runs at other locations, is compared to Scheduling Algorithm problem, which is required by all asynchronous distributed systems consisting of the distributed communicating processors. In particular we
consider the application of Time Warp algorithm.
The
GLObal Systems Analysis and Simulation (GLOSAS) Project proposes to utilize the
semantic benefits of gaming simulation on a global scale to aid decision makers
in appreciating the impact of their decisions on interwoven global problems,
i.e., the construction of Globally Distributed Decision Support System (GDDSS)
for plus sum, peace game.
The CAC, with cooperative executions of autonomously managed simulation sub-models at distributed locations in gaming mode, can provide a "meta-language" allowing improved communications among users of the sub-models.
Progress
in the study of distributed systems has yielded a new scheduling algorithm, the
Virtual Time concept, which allows organization of the information exchange
among dispersed, dissimilar computational resources with asynchronous and
parallel executions. These new developments are applied here to the Distributed Computer Simulation Systems (DCSS) of the GLOSAS Project, which deals with coordination of the distributed sub-models and their experts via the global VANs for global crisis and ecology management.
1.
INTRODUCTION: POWERFUL NEW TOOLS FOR COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE
Society needs much more sophisticated tools to deal with complex global problems, which so overwhelm the world's leaders that they are tempted to simplistic solutions. Nightingale (1985), writing about a playwright, spoke of Michael Frayn's concern for "the awesome complexity of the world, and our desperate attempts to reduce it to nice, neat shape." Gleick
(1985) reported how the mathematician, Benoit Mandelbrot, has expanded the work
of scholars who "missed a whole range of things" because they "simply
didn't have the tools" they needed to deal with "complexity (which)
has been developing slowly in many disciplines for nearly a
generation." Mandelbrot's
work, he said, is a part of the revolution in understanding chaos, the study of
turbulence and disorder in a whole range of phenomena.
Now,
however, powerful new computer-communication and simulation tools can make it
possible, as never before in history, for any intelligent citizen to have a
hand in developing new alternatives to war and other complex international
problems. Even the political
geniuses, and perhaps there are a few, have not been able to keep in mind all
they need to know and understand to deal with the whole complexity of global
inter-relation. But computers,
combined with other electronic technology, can now make possible mind-tools for
a powerful new "collective intelligence."
It
is now possible to combine existing technologies to make sophisticated and more
holistic explorations of various scenarios for solving global social
problems. Many small computers in
different countries can be interconnected, through globally distributed network
processing and information processing, into modeling and simulation instruments
as powerful as those used by the Pentagon for war gaming. People-enhancing and mind- empowering
tools can thus be created by combining such technology as: Value Added Networks
(VANs), satellites, packet radio, video disk and expert systems, global data
banks, wireless portable terminals, and more.
Developing
experiences from modeling and gaming can also be combined in global systems and
data banks with a cascading effect, to empower explorations for new
international institutions, remodeling existing ones, new strategies by
official government agencies, universities, peace institutions, churches and
lay person groups. Before they are
put into effect, often at great cost and risk, new strategies can be explored
through gaming simulations by collective effort of people with different views
located at various parts of world, to see how they might prevent crises, deal
with crises, and make various efforts more effective in preventing war and
creating conditions for peace.
2.
COMPUTERS PLUS WHAT?
Rossman
(1985) describes various advanced tools that might be interconnected for
powerful explorations through and for collective intelligence. They are:
(1) The meshing
of phone and computer systems into a single mode, combined with expert systems
and data banks via satellites creates a new tool with breathtaking
possibilities. Computer expert systems, as intelligent assistants, can fuse the knowledge of many specialists into tools to deal with complex problems, as providing their users with diagnosis and hinted solutions, which often outsmart human experts who designed and built the systems.
(2) The work of one huge computer can be done by a distributed network of many interconnecting microcomputers, which make up a reasoning system, stocked with all necessary knowledge. Access to information
stored on optical video disks, with high-powered laser diode, can be obtained
within seconds, e.g., over one dozen volumes of encyclopedia can be packed into
a single shiny 5 1/4 inch disk - even including color illustration diagrams and
pictures, and very possibly with voice and music annotations in the future.
(3) A global
computer network can be a major new tool for coordinating resources - including
brainware of project participants.
Computer modeling and simulations to explore risks and possibilities
then become a powerful tool for calculating the consequences of experimental
change, by the people of different views and disciplines in various countries
who created those cooperative simulation models.
(4) Fifth
generation computer tools, instead of solving problems step-by-step, can break
complex projects up into thousands of units, each to work simultaneously by
different computers all over the world, the so-called distributed, asynchronous
parallel processing as resembling numerous neurons in our human brain. The fusing of expertise through networks
of minds can result as thousands of interconnected computers help people work
simultaneously on different aspects of the same problem or project,
particularly on the utmost crisis of human kinds, i.e., to prevent nuclear war
and holocaust. "No matter
where a nuclear conflict would begin on our planet and no matter who would
initiate the first strike, whether or not a retaliatory strike would follow,
the entire human race would share a common fate: no one can hope to survive a
nuclear catastrophe," as said by Moiseev (1984), Director of Research at
Computer Center of U.S.S.R. Academy of Science.
3.
MOTIVATION AND FIELD OF APPLICATION
The
topic of this paper is a technological fix for intractable global problems,
such as hunger, poverty or arms race, involving many diversified groups
covering a wide social and political spectrum. These different groups have different motivations and views
of the issues and use different techniques, terminologies and concepts. In such situations, communication
problems often prevent a smooth progress to solution of the issues. New techniques of the distributed
computer simulation can provide planning and management methods which can
overcome wide communication gaps.
3.1
Minus vs. Plus Sum Games
Not
all problems can be solved by improved communications alone. In some intractable problems, parties in the issues take a position, which they are able to maintain and defend within the existing socioeconomic power structures. Such problems resemble the situation of two armies, which dig in and wait for the outbreak of hostilities. Such situations can usually be represented mathematically as a game with negative sum, in which non-cooperative strategies are rewarded and tend to be chosen as an optimal strategy by at least some major players. Such situations are not amenable to our
technological solution and will not be discussed here.
In
this paper we address a class of the social situations which can be described
by a plus sum game, a game in which the optimal strategies require cooperation
and exchange of messages rather than exchange of artillery fire. These situations are often intractable
because of the large number of players having different views of the problem,
different special interest and conflicting approaches or belief systems.
The
term "player" is used here in the abstract sense of the game theory
and may include agencies, organizations, corporations or industries as well as
individuals. The players are
characterized by their needs, goals and means of manipulating their
environment. The players may be
geographically scattered, use different (natural as well as computer
programming) languages and have a wide range of physical and technological
tools.
3.2
Computer Simulation of Social and Managerial Problems
Determination
of an optimal strategy for complex social problems would be difficult, even if
the issue were well described and agreed upon by the parties of the game. Moreover, in social problems the
concepts are usually fuzzy, ill defined and often changing their meaning during
the game. We will discuss tools, which enable the players to reach consensus and interactively find, maintain and coordinate the optimal strategy.
The new technological developments, which we will describe below, do not address any of the social problems directly.
The problems can only be solved by the consensus or battle of the
players. The techniques address
the cause of the intractability, namely the management problems related to the
languages and communications.
"Management"
is the activity enabling human groups to achieve their collective goals. Many techniques have been developed and
refined ranging from art to scientific discipline (Boettinger, 1975). Management science, as it implies, is
the scientific approach to the analysis of management of enterprises or systems
and their behavior whether for individual, communal, national or for global.
In
contrast to physical and nonliving systems, social and living systems are
hardly ever amenable to testing and "management science" has an
inherent contradiction between the nature of "management art" and its
"scientific" approach.
The remedy to this is to create models, which simulate the system behavior, much as it is done by an airplane model in a wind tunnel. Computer simulation, which utilizes software rather than a hardware model, is therefore the essential tool of management science.
3.3
Importance of Modeling
Schank
(1984) of the Yale Artificial Intelligence Lab points out that from now on it
will be essential to use computer modeling for making important decisions,
models which incorporate more and more knowledge about people and
institutions. Until recently, he
says, it has not been possible to make large conceptual computer models of
governments, of the work of politicians and other complex systems. Now, however, such models can be
increasingly complex, integrated, and can be more and more useful and
trustworthy for testing ideas, theories and possible actions. Computers will not make good decisions
but can be used to help human beings make better ones.
Licklider
(1983) says that computer modeling and simulations are already beginning to
play an important role in government research and planning, as these expand and
multiply beyond space and military projects to other national planning efforts. The Soviet Union, he reports, is planning to create a 3,000-computer nationwide network with databases for planning. (Russians were, after
all, the first who attempted to apply linear programming optimization to their
national economic planning, albeit premature at that time.) Moiseev (1984) proposed that
"further advances in the instruments of global analysis ... should be
widely applied in arriving at quantitative characteristics of global processes
and in evaluating the capacity of alternative development strategies to
influence the course of human civilization."
Gilpin
(1983), in discussing war games, says that the economic and military changes
which result from the use of computers and other advanced technologies are
bringing human society into an age wherein more is to be gained through
cooperation and an international division of labor than through strife and
conflict. For in the electronic
global village all people will either lose or win together. To survive in a global society, Shubik
(1983) suggests, we must develop tools to control pollution, fight inflation,
provide justice and welfare, and to warn of new dangers and threats, such as
acid rain or greenhouse effect to name but a few. This requires the building of more and more sophisticated
models of an emerging global system in which computers and communication
networks are to the twenty-first century what roads were to the first century's
Roman empire.
3.4
Solution of Social Problems
Moiseev
(1984) says that "past efforts in modeling the socio-economic sphere were
largely concerned with the evolution of economic factors. The studies of the Club of Rome offer
an example. Yet a purely economic
analysis can offer little help in what is in fact most important, namely, the
search for ways to resolve the contradictions that are tearing human societies
today. The problem of identifying
contradictions together with procedures for resolving them through compromises
defines the most important branch of research activities today. Methods for finding not merely
acceptable compromises but also mutually advantageous compromises may one day
exert a decisive influence on the further development of human societies. The theory of compromises is currently
one of the rapidly developing branches of science. New approaches and methods have been identified in recent
years that make it possible to find mutually advantageous variants of
compromises in complex contradictory situations."
The
complexity and interrelatedness of the global issues requires technical expertise
combined with effective public forum, which is accessible and understandable to
a wide spectrum of groups and organizations. The builders and users of models for global issues are
geographically scattered, use different languages, reside in different time
zones and have different levels of expertise and need for technical details.
Their
work to resolve the conflicts based on the quantitative facts and figures of
computer simulation requires an asynchronous communication mechanism and can be
facilitated by interactive gaming simulation. Consequently, the asynchronous scheduling among dispersed,
dissimilar models via global data communication networks becomes a vital tool. The CAC approach allows integrated
management of all communication modes: man-to-man, man-machine and
machine-to-machine.
3.5
Methodology
The
technique described in this paper is a result of the synergism of several
recent developments, such as the trend to distributed computing, particularly
in the area of databases and knowledge based systems, spread of telecomputing,
the developments in computer modeling and simulation and some recent
theoretical developments of the scheduling algorithms. We will describe qualitatively a new
application of these developments, specially the asynchronous scheduling
algorithms, an application of distributed computer simulation system (DCSS) to
the field of communication. We
call this new area of application of computer simulation technology "Computer
Aided Communication" or CAC.
In
reference to the International Standards Organization's (ISO)/Open System
Interconnection (OSI) reference model, our discussion is confined to the
Application Layer (Utsumi, 1982).
To outline CAC, we will trace its sources in the recent development of
the relevant disciplines.
4.
HISTORICAL ROOTS OF CAC AND RELATED FIELDS
The
art of model building is ancient and predates the advent of computers. Computer hardware, however, was the
first totally "plastic medium" which permitted to model dynamically
wide variety of the real processes.
4.1
Interactive Gaming Simulation
Computer
models are increasingly used as an advanced design tool. The systems represented by data
structures are "animated" and the (simulated) performances of the
virtual system are "measured" and evaluated. It is often the "measurement"
part of the computer experiment which yields major benefits of the
exercise. The variables which are
inaccessible or buried in noise tend to stand out clearly and augment the
designer's and/or user's understanding of the relevant process performances.
The
computer model, when compared to a hardware test bed or prototype, offers a
unique advantage as it allows one to develop meaningful statistics of ill
defined, stochastic or chaotic systems.
The real systems which operate with uncertainty, for example, social
systems, can be effectively characterized by this technique. Computer models also aid visualization
of the mechanism of the processes which cannot be observed directly and are too
complex for unaided imagination.
The
interactive mode of computer simulation, which uses animated graphics to feed
in the "real time" the effect of players choices, becomes further
enhanced in the gaming mode, when several players interact simultaneously with
the same simulation model and obtain an immediate feedback not only about
simulated part of the system but also about the tactical choices of other
players.
4.2
Distributed, Parallel Simulation
The
need for more memory, larger processing speed and utilization of other computational,
communication and display resources is increasingly more often solved by
recourse to the distributed processing.
This trend has a specific significance in the field of the real time
computer simulation, which is used as a part of controllers which regulate the
course of the actual real processes.
This is the application in which the computer is indeed operating in
analogy with human brain.
4.3
Distributed Modeling
We
have explained above why the trend to the distributed processing is particularly
urgent in the field of simulation.
The motivation is the same as in other areas - the need for faster
computing. There is another
motivation for the distributed approach to models of social systems which is
one of the key concepts behind the CAC technique. To notice the other motivation we must view the phenomenon
of the distributed modeling along the whole hardware to software dimension and
shift our attention from the computational machines to the methodology of
developing models.
The
RAND Strategy Assessment Center (Davis, 1983) can serve as an example of the
centrally developed distributed model.
The hardware is distributed for speed and power, but the software is
developed from the unified point of view.
The unified systematic approach to the aspect of the reality, which is
to be captured by the model, is indeed essential part of the traditional
approach to the modeling methodology.
The major part of developing computer simulation models deals with the
concepts, terminology and selection of the proper sets of equations or
non-numerical algorithms. It is
this initial phase of the model development, in which the originally
diversified views of the contributors are unified into the coherent view of the
problem, which is critical for eventual credibility and acceptance of the
model.
In
this early stage of modeling, "relevant" aspects are being included
into the model and some other variables and processes are
"neglected." Modeler
absorbs the partial views of the assembled teams of experts and must often
reconcile conflicting terminologies and conventions of different
disciplines. The success of the
later model is critically dependent on this early stage, as it determines the
acceptance of the model results by the users.
The
sensitivity of the model credibility and acceptance to the environment is
increasing as we move from hard to soft sciences and is one of the major
obstacles to the application of modeling methodology to the solution of social
problems, particularly in the situations which include confrontations. The reasons for this barrier are well
known, yet persistent.
The
CAC aims to circumvent or even, in somewhat paradoxical manner, to exploit this
feature of the model building. The
CAC techniques can manage and organize communications not only among models but
also modelers and users (policy makers), and also among users of different
views. The communications include
not only text, but also voice (analog or digital) store-and-forward
(asynchronous) message exchange, graphics and various video formats, which are
used to convey and interpret results of distributed simulation models.
4.4 Need
for Interconnections of Dissimilar Models
The
computer models are rarely neutral.
In the situations where players are to gain or loose, the acceptance of
a particular computer model tends to favor one party, usually the one who has
developed the model. This is true
even in the situation of plus sum game, in which both parties benefit from the adoption
of the common strategy. Models
utilize certain concepts, certain point of view and good models often contain a
philosophy of possible solutions.
The negotiation is half won, once one can make the opponent to "see
the things our way." An acceptance of our computer model aids a way of
achieving that. By the same token,
the art of propaganda consists of implanting concepts, slogans and labels,
i.e., imposing acceptance of a certain model of reality and of forces affecting
it.
These
examples illustrate a mechanism which in a less extreme form is present in the
development of every computer model, and prevents a development of a large
"master model" which could be used to solve social and economical
problems. The uneasy feeling,
caused by the overtones of an Orwellian society, controlled by an impersonal
elite, operating and perhaps controlling a huge supercomputer containing vast
databases concerning public and perhaps even private affairs, is another
example of the same mechanism which operates in building, propagation and use
of the models in the social arena.
We all, being players in the public affair games, are concerned about
the model which may be accepted or imposed on us and may be used to allocate
the winnings and losses and in selection of the common policies and strategies.
This
non-neutrality of the model and language, which operates generally in human
affairs, can be seen as an analogy or perhaps a complement of Heisenberg's
Uncertainty Principle: by observing the system, we affect and change it. Here, merely by describing the system,
we change our perception of that system.
While
this mechanism operates on all levels, it becomes particularly apparent in the
building of computer models based on soft rather than hard sciences, applied to
social problems and involving resource allocation issues. It is in the marginal cases, where
these effects may be weak and unsuspected, that neglect of this mechanism is
likely to cause problems. These
problems are often manifested merely by nonacceptance of the model, sometime
dubbed as NIH (=Not Invented Here) syndrome and not always recognized as major
obstacle to application of simulation to the social issues.
4.5
Interconnection of Distributed Databases
The
same mechanism operates on the databases, again both computerized or not. The databases are more widespread than
computer models and so the operation of this "Uncertainty Principle for
application software" is better known; it is centered around the concept
of the "access." As the
technology is supplying the computational resources in ever increasing
quantities, hardware aspect is becoming less important. The other motivation for the move to
distributed database is not hardware driven but related to the application and
use of the data. The users of the
databases are scattered geographically and those who generate, collect or
create the data may need to exercise a measure of control on their data (e.g.,
restrictions of trans-national data flow recently emerged in European countries
(Utsumi, (1978), Norman, (1981)).
To
accommodate this need for local control of the data and some transactions,
database programs allow some users, "owners of the data," to issue
specific permits. Resulting set of
"permits," which gives different privileges to different users,
reflects and modifies the power structure of the organization which is
developing the database. As with
computer models, when the mechanism of the extended Uncertainty Principle is
ignored, the resulting database is abandoned as inflexible, impractical or
irrelevant.
Distributed
databases exhibit new complexity which is directly related to the fact that
multiple users or players with different payoffs in the game are using the same
set of data. This new complexity
includes the traditional aspects, such as issues of integrity, concurrency,
location and duplication of the data.
However, the aspect of access, and control of data are becoming dominant
issues.
Next
generation of the databases combined with simulation models will expand
considerably the ability of game players to assign dynamically wide variety of
constraints and permits, which will allow information to flow freely through
the network, be modified as needed, accounted for, edited as needed, delivered
to proper audiences, protected, rewarded, etc.
The
aspects of merging dissimilar databases and the social or political concerns,
such as concerns about the inevitably creeping motion to interconnecting
databases developed by governmental agencies, all those aspects closely
parallel the concerns and problems which we have discussed in connection with
computer models.
4.6
Integration of Simulation Model and Database
This
similarity between the two fields of telecomputing is not surprising when
viewed in the light of the latest developments in the techniques of the simulation. The area of simulation, databases and
of artificial intelligence are converging. Large scale state-of-the-art simulation projects are heavily
database based and often use commercial relational databases, such as ORACLE or
INGRES. The database is used to
store initial data and parameters as results of the simulation. Manifestation of the same trend are
commercial simulation packages, such as TESS by Pritsker & Associates,
which combine graphics and database with simulation.
As
the speed of computation will increase, the relational databases will be used
concurrently with the simulation.
The database will be able to display any object or particular attributes
of an object or entity and a model running in the background which will be able
to animate the object, and so convey the data and change of the data/objects
with a particular scenario or parameters of the simulation run.
4.7
Advanced Programming Languages
One
of the outstanding fifth generation programming languages is MODEL developed by
Prywes and others at University of Pennsylvania (Cheng, et al (1984), Prywes,
et al (No Date and 1985) and Tseng, et al (No Date)). MODEL is a powerful, non-procedural computer language which
generates programs automatically, using as input a description of the problem
rather than a description of the solution. It allows sequential or parallel processing on dispersed,
dissimilar mainframe computers (currently IBM and DEC/VAX). The detailed design of communications
and synchronization is performed by the automatic programming system.
With
MODEL, novices can solve problems that once could tax even the most skilled
programmer. To communicate a
problem to MODEL, it is only need to specify the problem mathematically,
without regard to how it will be implemented. Because only a basic knowledge of mathematics is required,
any nonprogrammer still feel comfortable using the system. Compared with COBOL, MODEL uses only
one-fifth as many statements.
MODEL
can support bottom-up approach to building a large scale system from existing
subsystems, as well as the conventional top-down approach. The MODEL language specification is
easy to modify. It is incremental,
in the sense that variables or equations can be added at the end or in any
place, since order of statements is arbitrary.
Multiple
designs are examined automatically.
The computer chooses the most efficient. Operations are sequenced automatically, and MODEL
automatically checks for consistency and completeness. Job control language to set up and
execute concurrent processing is also generated automatically. It generates command language programs
that schedule the execution of modules, maximize parallelism, and set up the
communications among modules which will be executed in parallel. A component graph is constructed which
serves as a basis for scheduling.
This graph consists of nodes representing parallel components and edges
indicating sequential or arbitrary order of initiation of these components.
Entire
independently developed systems may be easily connected. Thus, the creation of a new system that
encompasses old system would not require design of a new system, only at most
additions of modules to convert data.
In the cooperative computation mode, individuals or groups develop
systems independently, motivated by their own interests. They may later discover that by joining
their systems they can have even greater capabilities than the total of the
separate systems. All that is
required then is to develop modules that convert the data to a common format
and form a new interconÄnected system.
The
MODEL language has been used to make possible the distributed processing of
Project LINK which is an econometric forecasting simulation of world economy
with individual country's economic model.
Project LINK was originated and developed by Nobel Laureate Professor
Lawrence Klein of University of Pennsylvania. Professor Prywes plans to locate the distributed processors
in Japan and West Germany which will be interconnected by global VANs. We are assisting him to realize his
plan with the use of the extended line of the U.S. CSNET to Japan.
Another
relevant trend is the use of the object oriented programming languages (Cox,
1984), such as SMALLTALK or PROLOG, which work with sophisticated data structures. Objects can be data entities describing
the real, physical objects, they may correspond to files or data sets, tables
in the database or they may represent executable programs.
When
we view this modern trend to object oriented programming in the above sketched
environment of the distributed computer simulation systems (DCSS) communicating
over the global data networks, we see the objects being sent from one location
to another, executed and animated as a part of a simulation run, used as data
envelopes and equipped with a set of attributes which define their access
status, sensitivity of the data and so on.
The
collection of the object traveling on loosely connected networks of the
dissimilar computers forms a meta-language which is able to transcend the
barrier to the application of the computer models to the social problems
described above. The language,
which is formed from independently defined object/concepts which the players
can adopt or bypass, does not impose the specific world view of a language
designer on the players. In this
dynamic aspect which allows the different groups to adopt, drop and modify the
objects used for mutual communication, the meta-language composed of the
objects resembles the natural languages and shares some of their
efficiencies. However, it differs
from the natural languages as it consists of the objects which conform to
certain rules of the formal syntax and can be directly executed or read by all
component computer models in the system.
4.8
Summary
It
is the hardware aspect of the "distributed" system which makes for
the quantum leap in the use of the computer systems to the social issues - as
it allows them to tailor the systems to the existing relationships and power
structure of the society. As the
society is not a monolith, controlled and manipulated form one center, a single
large supercomputer operated by an elite team of experts does not satisfy
criteria enumerated above, for an environment to be able to produce a
successful computer model and simulation.
Below, we will describe the methodology for building of the large scale
models of the social systems which extend the benefits of the distributed
simulation into the software aspect of the problem.
5.
DEVELOPMENT OF ASYNCHRONOUS MODELING
On
the boundaries of recent developments of various disciplines described in the
preceding sections, one can discern a new application of the computer
simulation technology, which will be the communication intensive discipline. Affected fields are education, large scale
industrial and scientific projects and management of multinational
corporations. However, the
application which appears to have the most potential to benefit from this new
technology is the global resource allocation, and environmental and ecological
management.
These
applications represent the "social order" which is a prerequisite to
development of any new technology.
Modeling of energy and other global resources was discussed under the
key word of GLOSAS Project, which stands for GLObal Systems Analysis and
Simulation (Utsumi, 1972 to 1985), to which readers are referred for further
details. A comprehensive and
coherent model of the global resources is a prerequisite to consensus on proper
resource allocation and ecologically sound policies.
Allocation
of natural resources on merely a national scale is a complex problem, requiring
skillful blending of the technical expertise, political consensus and complex
administrative and financial systems.
On the global scale, the communication problems so far prevented all but
the most rudimentary manifestation of the emerging consensus - that something
more than business as usual is to be done soon, to counteract and reverse
destabilizing effects of the increasing population to the natural resources ratio
and attendant increase in international tension.
We
have summarized above the obstacles which prevent the successful development of
the large scale, comprehensive computer models in those areas. We not only do not have consensus, but
we do not even have a common picture of what the problem is. The simulation is the tool for the
development of all that; first - of the common picture of the problem, then of
the common terminology and gamut of possible strategies and finally the
development of the consensus on global strategies. The interactive gaming simulation tests the mutual
interaction of strategies of the players in the game and allows assessment of
future consequences of the individual local strategies.
The
first step in the evolution of the distributed gaming simulation, which
may be the implementation test bed for Computer Aided Communication, is the
development of the isolated, individual models of the reality. Many such models already exist, ranging
from economical models, e.g., Meadows' "Limit to Growth" (Meadows,
1972 and 1974) and Onishi's FUGI model (1983 to 1984) to purely technical ones
- models allowing engineers to design a car engine or allowing meteorologist to
predict weather.
Incidentally,
Onishi's FUGI model with economic and resource/energy forecasting submodels of
over 125 individual countries was once used by economists of India, New
Zealand, Australia and the United States with the HUB computer conferencing
system of the Institute For The Future (IFTF) in Menlo Park, CA, over global
VANs when East-West Center in Honolulu conducted an international economic
affair gaming simulation, though the FUGI model was processed by a central
mainframe computer at that time (Lipinski, 1982). The GLOSAS Project will attempt to distribute FUGI's
national economic and resource models to as many countries as possible,
starting between the U.S. and Japan with the use of the extended line of the
U.S. CSNET to Japan.
Each
such model represents an aspect of the multi-faceted reality, and moreover it
tends to contain a bias of the model authors. The bias tends to be more important for the models dealing
with the soft sciences and issues and may be decisive feature for models
dealing with the natural resource allocation. Each such model is developed freely, without a need for a
common world view, or even a same methodology, simulation language or similar
hardware.
The
conventional approach to the modeling is to obtain and consolidate common views
and concepts. In contrast to that,
GLOSAS Project and CAC admit and acknowledge persistence of conflicting
opinions existing in the real world, and hence concentrate on the
interconnection of dissimilar models.
The
second step is to create the globally distributed computer simulation
system (DCSS) by the interconnection of independently created and verified
individual self-standing models.
This second task is being addressed by the standards for the
communication technology manifested by the current ISO/OSI standard and
concurrent growth and spread of the computer networks. Additional standards, subdividing the
7th OSI layer for application programs, will cover the specifics of the Open
Model Interconnection (OMI) and allow exchange of the model specific messages
and objects.
The
third step is the most interesting: What have we achieved if we interconnect dissimilar computer models, developed by experts of different disciplines located at different sites, using different methodologies, financed by different institutions, which themselves are tied to opposing power structures with conflicting interests? Imagine that we have done that: We have a public database of the existing computer models which are conditionally
available for concurrent asynchronous execution. The database lists the assumptions of the models, their
inputs and output variables, network addresses, mode of access, etc. Let us call the resulting Tower of
Babel of inconsistent and contradictory models an Incoherent Modeling Network.
The
interconnection of the heterogeneous models into one communication network
creates a distributed virtual process, which can serve as semantic laboratory,
a test bed for development of the computer tools for interpreting meaning of
the I/O files of one model in terms of another model. In the process of such interpretation/translation, the
meaningless incoherent messages, some of them at any rate, have a chance of
becoming information.
The
meaning of the message depends on two complementary structures: the physical
structure of the message itself, the sequence of the symbols, of letters and
words. The meaning also depends on
the model of the world which the recipient of the message is running. If the recipient, be it man,
organization or machine, is not running a model of the world which can interpret
the message, then there is no meaning, hence no information transfer. (The former corresponds to our
different natural languages and the latter to cultures.) The completion of the third step will
not in itself create any new meaning, consensus or understanding on the
"airwaves" - it will merely put the incoherent messages into a
computer-readable form, so to speak.
The
fourth step is devoted to the task of translation and correlation. There is a large selection of
techniques available, which allow one to find and extract relevant information
from the usually vast number of irrelevant messages which we call noise. These techniques range from the mundane
regression analysis which calculates the positive or negative correlation
between two variables, to the sophisticated techniques, such as the Cluster
Analysis used in the Mathematical Taxonomy.
The
task of the translation in our CAC is not accomplished by mechanical search for
the statistical correlations between the parameters and outputs of the various
models, even though, in some cases, the techniques of the artificial
intelligence can be used to detect unsuspected relationships in classes of
corresponding models. An example
of such models may be classes of the economical models which simulate national
economies, industries and various technical aspects, such as material or
financial management, transportation, etc.
Prerequisite
for interfacing the content of models is interpretation of elementary
dimensions of the models. In our
example of the economical models, the dimensions would include the virtual time
in the simulated universe and the geography which defines the boundaries of the
different economies, etc.; Dimensions facilitate the interpretation of the
results of one model in terms of the inputs of the other models. These meta-models, or translating
models, can be seen as new abstract concepts, which can only emerge in a
meaningful fashion after the more concrete concepts are well anchored in the
actual proxies.
The
building of the interconnecting and interpreting models will be analogous to
the creative capability which can suddenly see, in an intuitive flash, a
connection of previously unrelated thought processes. This specialized, high-level translation process will be
complemented by the process more akin to the usual, present day
translation. In the process of
executing the individual models, it will become possible to build dictionaries
which can relate the concepts of some models to those of the other Ämodels.
In
contrast to the usual dictionaries of common languages, these dictionaries can
be quantitative, dynamic and will have full benefit arising from the semantic
clarity which the concepts used as basis of a computer model tend to acquire. This clarity of concepts, which the
users of good computer models tend to acquire, represents the semantic benefit
of the simulation.
6.
MECHANISM OF THE ASYNCHRONOUS, DISTRIBUTED SIMULATION
In
the rest of this text we draw a loose, yet exact analogy between the simulation
runs of the global modeling network and the transactions of a conventional
Discrete Event (DE) simulation run.
The most familiar form of the computer simulation is the Continuous
System (CS) modeling. CS models
essentially solve a system of the differential equations, which use time as the
independent variable. Essential
feature of the CS models is the time loop, which increment the time variable in
the small steps and updates the state variables in the model. In the DE model, time is a dependent
variable. The model is represented
as a series of events which have specific causal and temporal relationship.
The
essential feature of the DE simulation is the Scheduling Algorithm, which
increments the time in finite chunks and schedules the events in proper
sequence. The computational load
of the DE simulation thus consists of the isolated sets of the operations,
i.e., transactions which can in many cases be carried over in parallel.
6.1
Synchronous and Asynchronous Data Networks
There
are two fundamentally different approaches to the design of the systems. The classical approach of the digital
electronics utilizes the central clock: time is piped into all components of
the system and assures that they operate in synchrony. In the area of the computer networks,
this approach is utilized by the token rings, such as, for example, the famous
Cambridge Ring, which interconnects dissimilar computers and terminals. Ring was originally developed at the
campus of the Cambridge University in England, and due to IBM's adoption of the
token ring, it will be used in many office systems.
In
such a system, there is a continuous stream of bits, travelling around the ring
from station to station like cars in a train. All stations read the bit stream and echo it to the next
station on the ring. When the cars
are empty, the station holding the token can deposit a pattern of the bits -
its message, to the passing cars.
Everything is orderly and somewhat boring - that is the synchronous
approach to the data communication and processing - somewhat like a planned
economy; it works - but it is fairly slow.
In
the asynchronous system there is no central clock. Each component generates its own timing and for each
communication event, the pair of components, a listener and a talker, must
negotiate who talks when. An
example of such asynchronous communication network is a well publicized
Ethernet network, which runs a single coaxial cable through a sequence of
offices and interconnects dissimilar computers, terminals, printers, file servers
and what have you.
When
station A wants to send a short message, called packet, to station B, it first
listens if the cable, which all station share, is quiet. If there is no carrier, the station
starts sending. After a while, the
signal spreads over the whole network and then nobody can interrupt the A - it
has "captured" the cable.
For this reason, the packets must be fairly short and stations are
subject to a "protocol," which prohibits them from accessing the
channel just any time the cable is quiet.
The purpose of the protocol is to guarantee to all stations a chance to
capture the channel and transmit their packets.
This
asynchronous technique of communication, called Carrier Sense Multiple Access
(CSMA), was first used on the ALOHA packet radio network to link terminals at
the University of Hawaii campuses and was later developed into the ARPANET
protocols and led to the new communication paradigm of the packet switched
communication networks. Early VAN
networks, such as GTE/TELENET, were instrumental in commercialization of this
new technology. The key aspect of
these networks is that many stations can share not only the same communication
media, as with multiplexing, but even the same channel. This leads to the economy of these
networks. Negative aspect of the
technique is the fact that the packets, even when subject to the protocol,
sometimes collide and become garbled.
6.2
Rollback Mechanism for Asynchronous Scheduling
The
propagation delays and the methods of dealing with them, are the key issue of
communication networks and other distributed systems, ranging from the
multiprocessor arrays, such as Heterogeneous Element Processor (HEP) of
Denelcor, Inc. in Denver, CO, to the global communication networks, such as
GTE/TELENET. As the systems are
getting larger, the implementation of the central clock is getting more
difficult and expensive, and there is a trend to use asynchronous designs,
particularly for large systems.
The
key feature of the asynchronous systems is an element of risk. As in unplanned economy the CSMA
networks can respond faster: any station can start transmitting when the
network is idle; the station need not wait for a token or other permit before
it starts transmitting.
When
the assumption that channel was available fails, and the packets collides, the
stations (packet-switching nodes) take a corrective action: they rollback the
counter of packets sent and re-transmit the packet at the later time, when
protocol affords them another chance, resembling a feedback mechanisms in the
democratic society. The basic
features of the asynchronous protocols for distributed computer simulation
systems is that individual submodel components make assumptions about the rest
of the system and go ahead acting on them, rather than always waiting for
verification of their model.
This
leads to some "failures," such as collision of the packets which
require a restorative action. As
all these failure events are taking place in the computer, the restorative
action typically means that the calculation based on the false premises or
packets garbled in the collision are erased and recalculated and resent. This restorative action is called
"the rollback." In the case of the rollback the simulation clock,
which meters the virtual time of the model, is moved back and all messages sent
during the "rolled back" time interval are "unsent." It is
a nontrivial exercise to demonstrate that on the average the virtual time will
always be progressing (Jefferson, 1983 to 1984).
6.3
Asynchronous Scheduling Algorithms
As
with the example of the Local Area Networks (LANs) given above, i.e., token
ring and Ethernet, there are two basic approaches to execution of the
distributed computer model. When
the model is executed in a synchronous manner, all components must complete the
prescribed task and report the results, before the next task can be
initiated. With the asynchronous
design philosophy, the system has no central managers and components compete
for resources according to their own perception of the availability, and
subject to the built-in protocol.
(a)
Boundary Conditions as Exogenous Variables. In order to sketch the application of the asynchronous
execution, let's imagine a whole system composed of a number of heterogeneous
and initially incoherent models as a large processor array. In this analogy, each individual
simulation run, which can actually employ resources of a large mainframe for
many hours, is seen as a single transaction of the total network. Each simulation run is performed in
isolation, defined by the assumed parameters of the model and by some initial
and boundary conditions. Such
simulation run, being independent of the other runs of the heterogeneous
system, can be performed at any time and is subject to the interpretation of
the results by the local experts or users, who developed the model for their
limited purposes and from their limited perspectives.
Let's
now view the multitude of such individual transactions, each describing one
aspect of the same multi-faceted reality.
For simplicity, we may imagine this common larger reality as the flow of
materials described by the usual partial differential equations. The simulation runs of any given
component model can be seen as a sequence of the transactions, a process
simulating any particular cell of our hypothetical material. Each transaction starts with certain
initial conditions and then needs the boundary conditions, which define the
effect of the neighboring cells.
The boundary conditions of the partial differential equation describe
the interaction between the cells and interrelatedness between the different
processes.
On
a slightly more general level, we can consider boundaries between the
disciplines and methodologies as defining boundaries of the different component
models/cells of the heterogeneous system.
In the GLOSAS Project, these component models are complementary
submodels residing in dispersed dissimilar personal, mini- or mainframe
computers which are interconnected via ordinary voice grade telephone lines or
VANs.
In
the synchronous scheme of the simulation, the interfaces between the
interacting cells have to be defined in advance as calculation of one cell
cannot proceed before the computation of the state of the neighboring cells was
completed.
In
the asynchronous approach, the calculation of boundary conditions can be a
guess of what message an interacting process can bring. This is similar to the risk taking of a
station in the CSMA scheme, i.e., "guessing" that the channel is
available and going ahead with the transmission. On the human scale of the individual component submodels
operated by their team of the resident experts at different locations for their
particular sectors or fields, this corresponds to the guessing the best values of
the parameters which interact with and influence the outcome of the simulations
of their cooperative submodels, but which are not in the center of the
model. Such parameters and data
correspond to the "boundary conditions" of the cell of the total process,
the cell on which they focus their attention.
As
an example of such a peripheral parameter in the model of the economy (the
so-called exogenous variable of an econometric model), we can consider the
effects of weather. The physical
processes of the weather are at the center of a different model, which
corresponds to the other cell, cell interacting with economic model cell. On perhaps more significant level, we
may recall a typical model serving the needs of industrial management, which
tend to treat the variable on "labor unrest" as a peripheral
parameter, akin to the weather and other "acts of God." In the
paradigm of the heterogeneous
simulation as envisioned by the GLOSAS Project, the labor itself through their
own unions would have a model of the economical situation, a model which would
be written from their point of view and which will interact with the management
models.
By
interconnecting many such models which serve different special interest groups,
not only the prediction capability of each component is improved, but also the
interaction of the groups is harmonized through the exchange of the information
encoded into the powerful concepts/objects which are interchanged between the
communicating component submodels - that is the essence of the CAC
concept. It is apparent, on
extrapolating this principle of allowing "peripheral data" of one
group to be supplied by the other group, for which those data are vital, that
the network of the communicating component submodels must eventually engulf the
whole globe. This is a consequence
of well publicized statement of interdependency of today's economical
reality. The GLOSAS Project, being
a top down approach to the building of the heterogeneous modeling networks,
anticipates this gradual growth of the network which can be only closed on the
global level.
(b)
Rollback of Asynchronous Distributed Simulation Models. The new element, which CAC is bringing
into the traditional way of building models, is the formalized sequence of the
iterations which causes the whole network of the submodels to converge into a
consistent global model. The
submodels, which run on the individual processors of the network, may be either
CS or DE models. Each simulation
run is viewed as a single transaction (a meta-transaction) of the global
network. As in the case of the
original Time Warp scheduling (Jefferson, 1983 to 1984), the transactions are
carried out independently, and when completed, they signal the results of the
transaction to other computational processors which are performing related
calculations. In some cases, this
signaling of the new results of one run will invalidate the result of the other
run/transaction performed at the other locations. This represents the case of the rollback in the global network.
The
results of the simulation run are typically stored in the machine which
produced them. In the system of
the interconnected processors, these results are available to the other models,
notably to the models which simulate interrelated phenomena. The fact that the subject matter of the
models is interrelated naturally has to be established empirically and may
require extensive translation and manipulation of the data. In the final analysis, the interaction
is revealed by the fact that results of the repeated simulation runs will be
improved, as new useful information about the aspect of the reality, on which
this model is focused, is provided by the other cell - a complementary
submodel.
The
mechanism of the rollback, in the Jefferson's sense, is implemented via this
shared database of the simulation results: Each time a (good) simulation run is
made and new "result" is entered into the public database of GLOSAS,
a "message" is sent to all those other cells (i.e., other component
submodels) which utilized those result in the past. All those models, (subject to their owners' acceptance),
will then rerun their own simulation, using the updated "boundary
conditions" or "exogenous variables," which are the translated
effects of the "results" of the original run.
Usefulness
of information which leads to improved predictions on a particular component
model, is verified and utilized by the local team. It is in this process of "making sense of other model
outputs" that the new meaning is discovered. This new, useful information, derived from the public Open
Modeling Network (OMN) provides positive reinforcement for further
participation network. It is the
balance of such benefit and of cost which will determine the rate of the growth
of the modeling network.
6.4
Domain of Coherence
This
represents the "rollback" of cooperative complementary submodels of
the globally distributed gaming simulation of our GLOSAS Project, which is an
analogy of the Time-Warp rollback and having the same cascading effects and
reverberations. The degree to
which the individual components respond to a major rollback is a measure of the
coherence of the network; In the process of the evolutions of the network, we
can expect the "domains of coherence" to develop (as similar to the
coalition or alliance of nations), which will find it useful to exercise their
models in orderly sequences. There
will also be the "other drummers," sending their beacons through the
network in search of correlations with kindred processes. Since there is no central authority in
the network, and since the degree of activity and participation is controlled
locally and autonomously by each component model facility, no single unit or
central agency can force their "view" of the reality on other participants
in the process.
There
may be actual physical messages sent to all other "corresponding
nodes," i.e., nodes which simulate potentially interacting processes, or
the mechanism of the rollback can be accomplished by checking the appropriate
items in the shared database of the system before a new simulation run is
made. The essential feature is the
self-correcting effect of the rollback, which will make the system to converge
to a solution and to more or less coherent simulation of the wider and wider
aspects of the reality.
7. PEACE
GAMES
7.1
Waging Peace with Globally Interconnected Computers
The
Computer Aided Communication (CAC) is a result of synergism of the new paradigm
of communicating computers and of distributed simulation. Semantic benefits of simulations with a
single computer or interconnected microprocessors located at a single site have
been well demonstrated for both exact as well as social sciences. However, current systems of models
leave much to be desired; there is a need for substantial improvements in the
way in which they are constructed and analyzed (Moiseev, 1984).
The
technology now exists, for example, to interconnect hundreds or thousands of
personal computers, in different countries, through distributed network and
information processing, into modeling and simulation instruments for playing
"peace games" on the scale of Pentagon war games.
When
legislation was proposed for a U.S. Peace Academy, like West Point and
Annapolis, many asked what peacemaking skills it would teach? The GLOSAS Project suggests an exciting
answer beyond the training of conventional state department personnel, or even
negotiators with skills like those of Terry Waite who sought to obtain the release
of hostages in the Middle East, working for the Archbishop of Canterbury.
All
kinds of possibilities for waging peace could be explored through computer
simulations to see what might work, to discover results before risks are
actually taken. Developing
expertise in modeling and gaming can be combined in global systems, with a
cascading effect, to empower explorations of new international institutions, to
remodel existing ones. New
precision can come into the diagnosis of problems and the definition of issues
and alternatives. It is now possible
to combine existing technologies to make possible sophisticated and more
holistic explorations of various scenarios in solving global social problems,
by the people and for the people of the entire world. Moiseev (1984) says that "reason will become a decisive
factor in nature's and society's evolution. Science is able to prompt certain variants of actions and
evaluate them with due account of the real contradictions and actual situations
that exist in our world."
In
contrast to massively-funded global projects, (which can be encouraged by
foundations and governments), the process of computer simulations of new
alternatives for waging peace can begin locally in many small ways, then
information and experience can be shared as networks and data banks are
gradually developed and enlarged.
In time there can be global data banks and global game plans which
groups large and small, global and local, can plug into and use. War games must be kept secret, but
peace waging can invite the participation of any qualified persons, and can be
used to educate, train, and democratically involve large numbers of people in
many countries.
Threat
of war is a primitive method of global resource allocation. It is the only working method currently
in existence. To move beyond war,
we must provide alternative techniques for accomplishing the same task,
techniques which emerge from the consensus, rather than from the barrel of the
gun. So far the problems of
reaching consensus on the global level have appeared to be intractable. We are not much closer to an agreement
on basic issues than we were twenty years ago. The difference is in growing realization that the past
techniques are obsolete and have to be replaced by the so-called win-win (plus
sum) strategy.
"Games"
and "simulations" could be undertaken to explore new alternatives for
the United Nations, for regional associations of nations, for world law and
courts, for development, for trust-building, negotiation, conflict-resolution,
police-peace forces, citizen action and preparation, for dealing with
terrorism, unilateral actions, etc.
7.2
Globally Integrated Use of Meta-Language
Is
it appropriate to use such words as "tool" or "instrument"
for combinations of so many different kinds of technology into a more powerful
"system"? As the
bulldozer becomes one component in a system for empowering human hands to do
physical work - to move mountains - so now what can be combined to empower
human minds to deal with overwhelmingly complex "mental mountains"?
When
we speak of "peace games" (the word coined by Utsumi, 1977), some
people persist in visualizing some little computer games to play on a screen,
where we are talking about research and planning on a global scale. As millions of people must mobilize to
wage war, we are talking about the possibility of mobilizing the brains of
millions of people to wage peace.
The GLOSAS Project proposes gaming simulations on a very large scale to
help decision makers deal with interwoven problems. It seeks to construct a Globally Distributed Decision
Support System: for a plus sum, peace game. This system, with cooperative execution of autonomously
managed simulation submodels at distributed locations, can provide a
"meta-language" for improved communication among users of submodels.
Progress
in the study of distributed systems has produced a new scheduling algorithm -
the Virtual Time concept - which allows for the organization and exchange of
information among dispersed, dissimilar computers with automatic programming
capability, asynchronous and parallel executions and self-correction/adjustment
of discrepancies of simulation results produced by various submodels at
dispersed locations. These new
developments are applied here to the Distributed Computer Simulation Systems
(DCSS) of the GLOSAS Project, which deals with coordination of the distributed
submodels and their experts via the global VAN for global crisis and ecology
management.
In
less technical terms, we are talking about combining the power of global
multimedia communication networks for integrated transmission of data, text,
voice, image and video synchronously and/or asynchronously, global
teleconferencing and computer conferencing, simulation and gaming methodologies
as in war games and economic modeling, electronic data banks and indexing,
expert systems, computer bulletin boards and "situation rooms."
For
example, a new generation of machines that route messages along telephone
lines, as well as AT&T's lower prices for leased lines, have encouraged
hundreds of companies to install private telecommunications networks. The new networks transmit data and
video as well as telephone calls, and they save money. Corporations create networks by using
multiplexers to bypass local telephone companies and tie in directly to
AT&T. The networks are called
T-1 systems because they use T-1 (Transmission-1), the fastest
telecommunications lines which transmit digitized voice, video, and data at
1.544 megabit per second (Baig, 1985).
We
are not talking about computers that would do our thinking for us, taking over
to guide a missile, or perhaps even deciding when to shoot it. We are talking about mind-empowerment
tools to help people to better thinking.
Society has vast amounts of data that are not adequately brought to bear
in solving many kinds of problems because the information is scattered,
uncoordinated, and not available when needed. We need tools to put this data together in what Shubik
(1983) calls pictures and wholes.
He describes four kinds of models: verbal, mathematical, pictorial, and
digital. All of these might be
used by people are seeking to build up more comprehensive models of
alternatives to war.
7.3
Collective Intelligence
The
problem is not technology, but what mind-tools we need and how to develop and
use them. Their value, to
paraphrase Papert (1980), will be determined by their success in helping us ask
the most fundamental questions and solve the most desperate of human global
problems, since they are ubiquitous to human destiny affecting our beloved
future generations. Some of the
preliminary thought about waging peace through simulations was begun by Carroll
(1983) as he explored the idea of a Catholic Peace Center. We must use these powerful new tools,
he said, to understand how the human mind functions in matters of peace and
war. Peace is not being achieved
through weapons technology alone, so he proposed a system of "war
control" wherein strong and weak nations could cooperate much like the
system of ground control which regulates air traffic. As yet, he said, people do not even know how to define peace
except as the absence of war, so that sophisticate systems analysis is needed
to experiment with peace systems.
Collective
intelligence is needed for theory and practice. Hinds (1983) of the Peace Research Network says that
computers and computer communications can make highly significant contributions
to two fundamental tasks are at the heart of peace and world order: trust and
community building, and conflict resolution. New tools can now make it possible for more and more people
- even millions and tens of millions - to get more involved in these
explorations, and thus also in fundamental, the so-called grass-root,
decision-making.
7.4 To
do What?
A
great deal of modeling experience is available in political science and
economic models, and in strategic decision modeling as in the work of the Club
of Rome. Kaplan (1979) says that
although great individual minds may have been responsible for spectacular human
advances at times, from now on human progress will require a community of minds
in which theories are collectively developed, criticized, applied, and
tested. Until that happens, he
says, human thought in the areas of war, peace, and international relationships
will continue to be too simplistic and inadequate.
As quoting from Stech and Ratliffe (1976), Johnson-Lenz (1980) defined "group work" as;
Individuals
bound together through communication to get something done taking into account
how people function together in a social system and taking into account how
people relate to one another as individuals using procedures to organize and
systematize the work with leaders who help train group members and select
procedures in group meetings.
Completing a task effectively involves INTENTIONALLY designing the
group's work so that the end product will help them achieve their purpose and INTENTIONALLY
working together in ways that insure effective interpersonal
relationships. Seldom, if ever, do
task or interpersonal aspects of group work just "happen" if maximum
group effectiveness is desired.
Members must intentionally function in ways that cause them to happen
effectively.
Johnson-Lenz
then says that effective group work in the electronic medium thus requires BOTH
explicit and intentional group processes/procedures AND the computer software
to support them. Johnson-Lenz
calls this union of GROUP process and computer softWARE support as GROUPWARE to
distinguish it from either process or software alone. The most effective results are achieved when the groupware
is carefully matched to the group's needs and preferences. The development and adoption of
groupware can change the social system and functioning within the group and
improve its task products and interpersonal relationships.
Individuals
can continue to make significant and often exciting contributions, especially
as their research and thought is empowered with fifth generation computer
tools. They can as individuals and
in small groups explore strategies such as those necessary to solve the
"prisoner's dilemma" game, as Alexrod (1984) described. Already, across international lines,
people begin to confer through computer conferencing.
What
are some of the games, or simulations, that might be undertaken? The list is
endless, and many groups in different situations may explore different
possibilities, separately or through computer connections. Some might begin with the United
Nations, exploring alternatives for revising its structure or procedures. It will be possible to try out ideas,
through simulations, that nations are unwilling to consider officially. For example:
o What might be done by a global congress - sometimes teleconference and sometimes computer conference in which people did not need money to leave home - that represented neighborhoods instead of nations, with expanded town-to-town horizontal relationships - like sister cities of various countries? Suppose these were regional assemblies?
o What might be accomplished by "conflict anticipation groups" that went in to monitor any potential area of conflict?
o What kind of international police forces might be developed, perhaps to use nonviolent methods?
o Many kinds of important cases that are not allowed to come to the World Court might be simulated to see what the outcome would be (e.g., simulation effort on Law of Sea, Sebenius (1984))? Suppose, for example, any world leader who uses armed force in any situation were required to justify his actions as logically presenting quantitative results of gaming simulation before a global tribunal, such as United Nations' Security Council, but conferred by millions of people via global teleconferencing. Hearing might especially be held to examine cases of torture and human rights.
Licklider
(1983) says that it is technically possible now to give international politics
much greater depth, wider scope, with much more citizen involvement. Millions of people, in fact, can be
active participants, which make it increasingly difficult for dictators to control
or subvert the process. It will be
a long time, he feels, before computer networks and conferencing can be used
for the official work of legislatures, but simulations - large-scale unofficial
experiments can begin at any time.
7.5 Who
will do it?
Official
governmental and university projects will require special funding, but it is
unlikely that "peace games" will be monopolized by government and
official groups. War games, the
nations feel, must be secret and official, where their quest for peace is
nearly always an open process, involving anyone who may be interested. Student groups, church groups, peace
groups, and informal groupings of interested people can begin to work on peace
simulations right now - indeed, some have already started. Ordinary people, with computer
facilities, are dreaming and experimenting (Aaron, 1986). Some of them are in the third world,
where computer networking can help them reach out to work with those who may be
more technically advanced.
Such
groups can begin to examine the models they have in their minds, the usually
unexamined political models which have led too often to war. As any given experiment enlarges to the
point of complexity, dimensions of it can be divided up with groups in
different places keeping in touch with each other via computer bulletin boards
or conferencing. As data banks and
systems are developed more and more groups can involve themselves in a
continuing computer conference.
This is not so much a new process as it is a way for more and more
people to put their heads together.
(The advantage here is that those people can work at their preferred
locations and time.) Schank (1984) tells how nearly every experiment fails in
his computer lab, because the participants set impossibly difficult goals for
themselves. Yet each failure, when
examined, reveals the next step for experimentation is a continuing process of
learning and development. In a
similar way, instead of pessimism and discouragement about continuing failures
in disarmament and peace processes, many more people need to use emerging mind
tools to learn from political failures.
This is because the safeguard of gaming simulation is NOT to destroy
anything whatsoever in our real world.
Crawford
in Aaron's article (1985) says that "some people wonder if games have
educational value ... Games are nature's way of educating ... The neat thing
about a game is that nobody gets hurt." Crawford believes computers offer "a new way of thinking
about the truth ... the best way to learn process is to dive in and mess
around. The computer can help us
do that." "The game will bring about a more mature set of attitudes
about the world for those who play it."
Moiseev
(1984) says that, "in spite of the very great complexity of the ecological
situation, of the depletion of the planet's resources, and of all the
contradictions in the objectives and strivings of individuals, countries, and
regional groupings, there do exist rational alternatives for a joint
development of man and nature - of which he is himself a part. And modern science does possess the
faculty of finding the ways that lead to that harmony without which the human
race cannot have a future. As scientists
join their efforts in studying the problem of co-evolution they will find the ways
that lead to the achievement of those ideals of harmonious relations between
man and nature that are common to all world religions and to the world's
philosophical teachings."
8.
ACHIEVEMENTS AND CURRENT STATUS OF GLOSAS PROJECT
During
the past dozen years, thanks to great help and assistance from the U.S.
Governmental agencies and to the support letters provided from various people
in the U.S., we have accomplished and/or contributed to the following with our
considerable time, effort and even private funds, as benefiting various U.S.
and Japanese organizations in computer, telecommunications and information
industries;
(a) Extensions
of the U.S. VANs to various overseas countries, particuIlarly to Japan, as
enabling the market expansion of American and Japanese information industries
to overseas countries (Utsumi, 1979, 1980),
(b) Japanese
deregulation for the interconnection of multiple host computers in the U.S. to
a U.S./Japan private leased data communication line (Utsumi, July and August,
1981),
(c) Japanese
deregulation for the use of electronic mail and computer conferencing services
via the U.S./Japan public packet-switching line, as enabling the proliferation
of the former of many service companies and providing opportunity of extending
American education to overseas countries with the use of the latter (Utsumi,
July and August, 1981, April, 1982, 1984),
(d) Liberalization
of the procurement policy of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) Corporation,
as enabling American and European communication hardware and software products
to be marketed to NTT (Utsumi, August, 1981 and 1984),
(e) De-monopolizations
of telecommunication industries in Japan, as enabling various private
terrestrial and satellite communication service companies to emerge (Utsumi,
August, 1981 and 1984),
(f) Proliferation
of private and public VANs in Japan, as over 100 VAN service companies to
emerge (Utsumi, August, 1976 to December, 1977),
(g) Extension
of the U.S. CSNET to Japan, as enabling computer scientists and engineers of
both countries to work together (Utsumi, April, 1981).
After
having established necessary infrastructure as the first stage of our GLOSAS
project, our current and future effort will be focused on the substance and
content of global telecommunication networks, starting with the extensions of
American education to Japan and other countries with the use of electronic mail
and computer conferencing (the prelude to the second and grand developing stage
of our GLOSAS Project), and then PEACE GAMING by the users of global
communication media, and hence the realization of the globally collective
intelligence. Examples are to
assist;
(1) Extension
of TELEclass (Telecommunication Enriches Language Experiences) Project of the
State of Hawaii and University of Hawaii to over dozen high schools in Japan,
Korea and other Asian countries, with the combined uses of speakerphones and
slow scan TV monitor via ordinary overseas telephone lines and also computer
conferencing of Electronic Information Exchange Systems (EIES) of New Jersey
Institute of Technology (NJIT), i.e., simultaneous multimedia communication of
voice, image and text.
Incidentally,
EIES also has internetwork capability to ARPANET, MILNET, MINET, CSNET, BITNET,
USENET, GTE/TELENET, UNINET, MAILNET, E-NET (DEC), XEROX, etc. Any EIES users can exchange electronic
mail messages with the persons who can access those networks. They are at several thousands organizations
(government, military, industries, education and research institutions) in almost
any countries in the Western world.
(2) Extension
of Connected Education with undergraduate and graduate level university courses
for academic credit provided by the New School for Social Research (both in New
York City) with students and faculty members from Japan, Singapore,
Scandinavia, United Kingdom, Europe, Canada, etc., with the use of EIES, i.e.,
a forerunner of Global University.
We are certain that, as demonstrated in the past decade, our GLOSAS Project
and its future consequences will contribute to the betterment of U.S./Japan
relations, not only from the viewpoints of computer, telecommunications and
information technologies, but also from the viewpoints of trade, economic,
culture, and Pacific security.
Japan is a good candidate as the first step for this cooperative effort
because of its high tech status in electronics and computers.
Though
it may be some more years ahead, after establishing the firm track records
between the U.S. and Japan, we intend to extend similar schemes to other countries. After all, anyone can now be reached
from/to almost any countries in the free world via the global VANs. Then, why not make an effort to reach
out to people in various countries more vigorously for the promotion of our
mutual understanding and peace keeping among nations?
9.
CONCLUSION
A
long-range, gradually developing process is being initiated. People in Europe, America and Japan
have become increasingly frustrated at the failure of their leaders to look far
ahead, to plan alternatives to solve crucial problems before it is too late,
especially when national projects are becoming large scale and long range to
consume huge sum of effort and expenditures. It is difficult to get political leaders to look beyond the
end of their terms of office to do more than improvise patchwork solutions for
each crisis that arises. More
powerful collective intelligence tools can now enable gaming simulations and
research to look further ahead into the future, and deeper into the
morass. Fernbach (1983) calls
symbolic processing the "sleeping giant" of the future which can make
it possible for a problem to be examined and solved on a larger and larger
scale. Moiseev (1984) says that
"science (has now) established the possibility of evaluating alternative courses
of development of civilization itself, and thus of providing to those who wield
power in this world a fundamental perspective on the development of global
processes that could not have been gained with traditional methods."
In
these gradually more and more coherent global simulation runs, the various
aspects of the reality will add up to a representation of the complex situation
on a scale unprecedented in the history.
It is safe to assume that such a holistic perception of the global
situation and its problems will facilitate steps leading to the improvement of
the present state of the global affairs.
It is well recognized that manmade disasters are becoming more serious
and critical, with the danger of the nuclear war leading the list.
In
this paper we have sketched some technical developments in the area of computer
technology, in particular of the computer modeling and simulation which have
potential for facilitating the evolution of global consensus. The process of using these techniques,
as envisioned by the GLOSAS Project, would build the global public database and
library of models, which would represent the relevant issues in the different
ways. The models would allow the
gaming simulation which would illustrate and demonstrate the consequences of
the decisions, policies and local strategies.
The
resulting public system would allow integration of the experts and technical
approaches and models among themselves.
More importantly, the system allows for open public review of the
technical proposals and for an open forum on the policy decisions and
issues. The system, by using the
CAC techniques, allows for incorporation of the conflicting views and opinions
into the system, thus preventing manipulation of the data by a central
agency. The resulting system of
the distributed simulation tends to support and enhance a democratic decision
making based on the public discussion and consensus. It is this later aspect, which makes this method different
from the past attempts to application of the large scale computer simulation to
social problems.
Based
on our experience with model acceptance, validation, verification and result
dissemination, we consider this new approach to be indispensable for successful
application of the powerful techniques of the computer simulation to urgent
global problems. We hope that the
proposed global peace gaming system, when fully developed, will become in
effect equivalent to an "anti-bomb" with enormous power, as Moiseev
(1984) envisioned. If properly
utilized it should be able to paralyze the numerous forces that are prepared to
use nuclear weapons in resolving contradictions and disputes.
The
proposed global peace gaming system will also become an educational tool for
the students of international affairs and political science. Moreover, such system can become the
fundamental foundation for a GLOBAL UNIVERSITY with students and faculty
members of various countries, which will promote mutual understanding among people
of the world - hence world peace keeping.
Education of youngsters/adults on a global scale is the BEST future
investment for world peace and progress.
10.
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11.
Biographical Information of Authors
Takeshi Utsumi, Ph.D., P.E., is President of Global Information Services, a firm which assists business-customers in various countries, especially Japan, to access computer information via global Value Added communication Networks (VANs). He is Technical Director of the Japan
GLOSAS (GLObal Systems Analysis and Simulation) Association, responsible for
using advanced computers, telecommunications, systems analysis, and simulation
technology to seek solutions to worldwide problems. Among his over a hundred related scientific papers are many
presentations, for example, to the Summer Computer Simulation Conferences which
he created and named. He is a
member of Japanese and American societies for computer simulation, as well as
many other scientific groups, and is now completing a technical book on what is
proposed for this paper.
Peter O. Mikes, C. Sc., graduated from the School of Technical and Nuclear Physics in Prague, Czechoslovakia and received degree of Candidate of Mathematical and Physical Sciences from the Caroline University in Prague. He published papers in the field of
statistical mechanics of polymers and developed series of the simulation models
for Xerox Corporation. He is
currently a staff member of Informatics General Corporation, a NASA contractor
providing software support for Ames Research Center. He developed a Discrete Event model of the fiber-optics
based Local Area Network (LAN) for Space Station and is currently working on
the Numerical Aerodynamical Simulator (NAS) project.
Parker Rossman, Ph.D., author, lecturer and futurist, is former Dean of the Ecumenical Continuing Education Center at Yale University. His many published books include Computer: Bridges to the
Future (Judson Press, 1985) which includes sections on the potential impact of
forthcoming fifth generation computer intellectual tools on research, the shape
of thought, institutions, and global action for peace and justice. His articles in The Futurist include an
essay on "The Coming Great Electronic Encyclopedia," and he is now
writing a popular book for the lay readers on the possibilities for using
technology (proposed by Utsumi) for large-scale peace waging which can involve
amateurs as well as official government agencies and universities.