# Limits of Optimization

## TL;DR

This paper explores when optimization techniques fail, especially in complex social systems.

## Contribution

It introduces a framework to understand the limitations of optimization in open social systems.

## Key findings

- Optimization processes effective for abstract objects may not work for complex social systems.
- The paper identifies conditions under which optimization is limited in real-world applications.

## Abstract

Optimization is about finding the best available object with respect to an objective function. Mathematics and quantitative sciences have been highly successful in formulating problems as optimization problems, and constructing clever processes that find optimal objects from sets of objects. As computers have become readily available to most people, optimization and optimized processes play a very broad role in societies. It is not obvious, however, that the optimization processes that work for mathematics and abstract objects should be readily applied to complex and open social systems. In this paper we set forth a framework to understand when optimization is limited, particularly for complex and open social systems.