Shaping Influence and Influencing Shaping: A Computational Red Teaming Trust-based Swarm Intelligence Model

TL;DR

This paper introduces a trust-based swarm intelligence model for influencing and shaping sociotechnical systems, using computational red teaming and simulation to understand and guide system changes.

Contribution

It provides a formalized model for social influencing and shaping, incorporating trust dynamics, and demonstrates its application through computational simulation.

Findings

Model effectively simulates social influence and shaping behaviors.

Trust dynamics are crucial for successful system change.

Simulation results validate the model's potential for managing complex systems.

Abstract

Sociotechnical systems are complex systems, where nonlinear interaction among different players can obscure causal relationships. The absence of mechanisms to help us understand how to create a change in the system makes it hard to manage these systems. Influencing and shaping are social operators acting on sociotechnical systems to design a change. However, the two operators are usually discussed in an ad-hoc manner, without proper guiding models and metrics which assist in adopting these models successfully. Moreover, both social operators rely on accurate understanding of the concept of trust. Without such understanding, neither of these operators can create the required level to create a change in a desirable direction. In this paper, we define these concepts in a concise manner suitable for modelling the concepts and understanding their dynamics. We then introduce a model for influencing and shaping and use Computational Red Teaming principles to design and demonstrate how this model operates. We validate the results computationally through a simulation environment to show social influencing and shaping in an artificial society.