Awareness in collective decision-making: Modeling and control in a game-theoretic framework

TL;DR

This paper explores how game theory and network systems can model and influence collective decision-making to promote societal good, emphasizing awareness and control strategies.

Contribution

It reviews recent control-theoretic approaches to generate awareness and steer population dynamics towards beneficial societal outcomes.

Findings

Awareness impacts collective behavior change.

Control strategies can guide societal dynamics.

Modeling tools help address climate and social issues.

Abstract

For a society to remain healthy and prosperous, people must collectively behave and act to contribute to the common good, even if there is often a tradeoff against their individual benefit. Paradigmatic examples include the adoption of sustainable behaviors and technologies to combat the climate crisis, and the mobilization for collective action to promote the rights and freedoms of repressed minorities. In this tutorial, we illustrate how game theory and network systems theory can be powerful tools to model and study this collective decision-making problem. We provide examples of how awareness of this tradeoff can impact collective change toward the societal good, exploring different problem contexts such as sustainable behavior and collective action. Finally, we review recent developments using systems and control-theoretic approaches to generate awareness and guide the emergent population dynamics towards a desired outcome, and conclude by highlighting new research and application frontiers.