How to program a society
Ken Kahn · 1980
Conventional programming languages are inadequate for constructing reasoning systems organized as communities of autonomous individuals. They lack a means of conveniently describing the behavior of individuals, the relationships and communication conventions between individuals and subsocieties. This paper presents the thesis that languages are ideal as an underlying base in the implementation of societies. The language Director is presented as an example of how one can implement individual reasoning agents as actors and their interaction as message passing. Communication and control conventions are established between the actors to form composite actors that correspond to subsocieties. An example of a large actor system called Ani which was implemented in this manner is presented. Portions of Ani's reasoning in creating an animated film are used as illustrations of an actor-based societal reasoning style.