One of the most original, engaging, and profound books that I have ever encountered. Richards starts modestly by reconstructing social choice theory on networks. As the chapters unfold, he reveals how this framework extends to reveal unexpected insights into movement, coordination, and cognition. Anigrafs will likely be a classic within artificial intelligence.
Scott E. Page, Leonid Hurwicz Collegiate Professor of Complex Systems, Political Science, and Economics, University of Michigan; External Faculty, Santa Fe Institute
In a well-written, fascinating manner, Richards confronts the 'daemons' that compete for control of their home, a particular cognitive system. By relating daemons, which try to influence cognitive functioning toward their favored choices, to individuals whose similar behavior colors group decisions, Richards cleverly relates and uses recent advances in group decision processes from Social Choice Theory to advance an understanding of how cognitive systems reach conclusions.
Donald Saari, Distinguished Professor and Director, Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences, University of California, Irvine; author of Disposing Dictators, Demystifying Voting Paradoxes
First there was Selfridge's 'Pandaemonium,' a winner-take-all network in which daemons independently shouted their vote and the one with the loudest voice won. Then Kilmer and McCulloch's RETIC, schema theory, and distributed artificial intelligence showed how schemas or agents could reach consensus through competition and cooperation. Instead, the daemons here—'anigrafs' (animals, schemas, agents, nodes in a graph)—break through their solipsism by adopting a voting scheme that adds to a daemon's shout the voices of all its neighbors on a similarity graph, allowing other preferences to win if they satisfy a social contract. Richards applies this scheme to swimmers, walkers, dancers, planners, explorers and, of course, alliances.
Michael A. Arbib, Professor of Computer Science and Neuroscience, University of Southern California; author of How the Brain Got Language
This volume is a delightful exploration of an innovative approach to cognition and will be of interest both to cognitive theoreticians and to systems builders looking for new metaphors for composing simple parts into more complex structures.
H Van Dyke Parunak