Emergence of collective behaviours: From human altruism to AI existential risks

The mechanisms of emergence and evolution of collective behaviours in evolving systems of multiple interacting agents, be they robots, humans, or even human teams, have been undergoing mathematical study via evolutionary and behavioural modelling methods. Their systematic study also resorts to agent-based modelling and simulation techniques, thus enabling the study of aforesaid mechanisms under a variety of conditions, parameters, and alternative virtual games.

Numerous important and challenging questions faced by several disciplines and societies have been addressed, such as: what are the mechanisms underlying the evolution of cooperative behaviour at various levels of organisation (from genes to human society)? How to mitigate existential risks such as those posed by climate change or advanced Artificial Intelligence technologies? What are the roles of cognition and emotions in behavioural evolution?

In this lecture, I will discuss these collective behaviour research issues, including results and prospects, which are accruing in importance for the modelling of minds with machines and the engineering of prosocial behaviours in both real-world and artificial life systems. The lecture will cover a range of issues from the introduction of cognitive and emotional mechanisms into agents' implementation in an evolving population, to the design of cost-efficient incentives for promoting prosocial behaviours in complex networks, and to the regulation and governance of AI safety development ecology