Dirk Helbing
Short biography
Dirk Helbing is Professor of Sociology, in particular of Modelling and Simulation, at ETH Zurich. He is known for his work on pedestrian crowds, vehicle traffic, and agent-based models of social systems, globally networked risks and how to respond. He is coordinator of the FuturICT Initiative, which focus- es on the understanding of techno-socioeconomic systems, using Smart Data. Within the ERC Advanced Investigator Grant “Momentum” he works on social simulations based on cognitive agents. His current research focuses on norms and conflict, and the role of success-driven motion for the establishment of cooperation among selfish individuals.
Modelling the evolution of social complexity and order
What are the principles that keep our society together? The social challenges of humanity in the 21st century ranging from the financial crises to the impacts of globalization, require us to make fast progress in our understanding of “the evolution of society”, and how our future can be managed in a resilient and sustainable way. Based on simple evolutionary models of social interactions, one can gain surprising insights into the social, macro-level outcomes and dynamics resulting from individual micro-level interactions. The consideration of randomness, spatial or network interdependencies, and nonlinear feedback effects turns out to be crucial to get fundamental insights into how social patterns and dynamics emerge. Depending on the nature of these interactions, they may imply the spontaneous formation of social conventions and social cooperation, but also their sudden breakdown. Applying state-of-the- art modelling enables to capture complex interaction dynamics at the macro-level and shows that increasingly complex forms of cooperation form an important driver of the evolution of society.
