Dynamics of Large Autonomous Computational Systems

Tad Hogg and Bernardo A. Huberman

HP Laboratories

Abstract

Distributed large scale computation gives rise to a wide range of behaviors, from the simple to the chaotic.This diversity of behaviors stems from the fact that the agents and programs have incomplete knowledge and imperfect information on the state of the system. We describe an instantiation of such systems based on market mechanisms which provides an interesting example of autonomous control. We also show that when agents choose among several resources, the dynamics of the system an be oscillatory and chaotic. Furthermore, we describe a mechanism for achieving global stability through local controls.

Full paper: compec.pdf