Abstract
- Opinion dynamics is nowadays a very common field of
research. In this article we
formulate and then study a novel, namely strategic perspective on such
dynamics: There are the usual 'normal' agents that update their
opinions, for instance according the well-known bounded confidence
mechanism. But, additionally, there is at least one strategic agent.
That agent uses opinions as freely selectable strategies to get control
on the dynamics: The strategic
agent of our benchmark problem tries, during a campaign of a certain
length, to influence the ongoing dynamics among normal agents with
strategically placed opinions (one per period) in such a way, that, by
the end of the campaign, as much as possible normals end up with
opinions in a certain interval of the opinion space. Structurally, such
a problem is an optimal control problem. That type of problem is
ubiquitous. Resorting to advanced and partly non-standard methods for
computing optimal controls, we solve some instances of the campaign
problem. But even for a very small number of normal agents, just one
strategic agent, and a ten-period campaign length, the problem turns
out to be extremely difficult. Explicitly we discuss moral and
political
concerns that immediately arise, if someone starts to analyze the
possibilities of an optimal opinion control.
- Keywords:
- Opinion Dynamics, Optimal Opinion Control, Bounded
Confidence, Mixed Integer Linear Programming, Heuristics
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