Researchers create artificial societies by building simulated environments in which autonomous agents interact.

Emerging in the 1990s, such computational models combine computer science, nonlinear dynamics, and social science to better understand economic change, cultural adaptation and cooperation.

More recently, such models have helped people understand and shape actual social systems and public policy.

Criticisms focus on the cultural assumptions of the researchers and the scientific value of the methods.

Y. Orr, J.S. Lansing, Artificial societies, Reference Module in Social Sciences (2025).