Easter Boredom Project: The Adaptive Culture Model

So 3-4 years ago I picked up a really neat book on Swarm Intelligence and in it there were a few pages on the Adaptive Culture Model.  I really liked the concept (algorithmically simple and pretty) so I coded up a quick and dirty OpenGL app for it.

Well, for whatever reason, I thought of it a couple days ago and took a day off doing actual work to play with ACM in Flex.

Quick concept rundown.  So basically (from what I remember, don’t quote me) the adaptive culture model describes how information is spread throughout a population, specifically beneficial traits.  I guess an example of this would be success and proximity.  You notice a neighbor being successful, so you incorporate some of their traits into your life in hopes of you being more successful.  This goes from neighbor to neighbor until the successful traits are assimulated into the whole population.  Geography is just an example.  This can also model information spreading through virtual networks and other such fun stuff.

I implemented a quick and dirty presentation of this concept in Flex.  Success is rated by closeness to the target color you choose.  When you click on a couple squares it randomly checks a neighbor to see if it is more successful.  If it is, the neighbor assimilates one of its neighbors traits, which in this case is randomly either the red, green, or blue component.  If the square updates it notifies its neighbors of the change and they go through the same process.

You can change the color while the program is running if you feel like it.  There’s a lot more stuff that’s easily configurable but I got bored of this and am setting it aside for a while.  I’ll release the source when I come back to it later.

It might take a few clicks for the process to start.  Just select your color and keep clicking; when the queue starts filling up you’ll know.