eswaran subrahmanian - serious games in complex design of urban systems and policy

Serious Games in Complex Design of Urban Systems and Policy

Eswaran Subrahmanian and the Fields of View TeamCMU and Fields of View

July 22, 2015Serious games Conference

Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA

Outline

• A complex system• A methodology for complex system design• Fields of View • A framework for designing - PSI• Methods for imagining Complex systems• Games – Examples using PSI• Summary

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Traditional Model

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Complex Adaptive SystemsAn Alternate model

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Realizing a New MethodologyTwo key Questions

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Realizing a New MethodologyTwo key Questions

How do we create a space that allows for the incorporation of complexity,

participation, visualization, emergence, exploration, dynamism

and interdisciplinarity?

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Realizing a New MethodologyCreating Space for Interdisciplinary Research/Systems Design

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Methodology For Complex Systems design

Adapted from J. Lederberg, “Epicycles in Scientific Discovery,” Excitement and Fascination of Science: Reflections by Eminent Scientists, Annual Reviews, 1990

Stakeholders

Fields of view: an Overview

A Framework for Designing

Characterizing Designing

We characterize the design problem in the Product (P), Social (S) and Institutional spaces (I)

• PSI Framework (Subrahmanian, Reich and Meijer)– Product space:

Technical parts, new product, other policies and methods– Social space:

How people use it, skills and knowledge used, social norms– Institutional space:

Rules that organisations have, laws, procurement structures, etc. or markets for specific goods

13Copyright © 2015 Subrahmanian, Reich, Meijer

Copyright © 2015 Subrahmanian, Reich, Meijer

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PSI a Framework for Understanding Designing:

1) Reich, Subrahmanian: Designing PSI, ICED 2015, Milan Italy.2) Meijer, Subrahmanian, Reich, Serious games for Designing Complex systems, 30th anniversary Richard Duke’s book on Gaming for Strategy and Policy, 2014. 2014.


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Clarifying “Spaces”• The spaces are not the physical spaces in which design takes place but…• Different design contexts could be characterized in each of the 3 spaces• Depending on the context, each space may have N dimensions

IP S

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Imagination does the work of crisis without a crisis, making it possible for us to experience

change without ruin. Imagination cannot do this work with unless it is

suitably equipped.

-Roberto Mangabeira Unger, In, Self Awakened: Pragmatism Unbound, 2009.

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Methods for Imagining System Needs and Design Spaces

Simulation Gaming

Visualization

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Policy exercises:

Duke and Geurts (2004) say:Policy exercises (a combination of gaming, simulation

and participatory modeling) enhance:– A platform for Communication– A space for Creativity– Understanding Complexity– Reaching Consensus– Having Commitment to action

What is Gaming Simulation?

• A gaming simulation session: – mimics the behaviour of a real-world system– Uses real people as decision makers– Combines with (computerized) simulation models

• A broad range of simulations in which the role of a human decision maker is enacted by a real human participants instead of a computer.

• Technology is not essential, but driven by the goals of the gaming simulation.


City Game:Exploring the Problem Space using Social space

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Evolution of a City

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Evolution of a city

Multiple definitionsfor a city

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Changing definitions of a city

Emergency-Coordination game:Exploring the Institutional Space using the Space

Funding sponsors- Next Generation Infrastructure Foundation, TU-Delft, Netherlands- Jamshetji Tata Trust

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Emergency co-ordination game

ಕಾ�ಸು�- ಕಸು / ₹ubbish!

Design across Cultures

Collaborators:- mediaLab, Amsterdam- IIIT-Bangalore

https://vimeo.com/117558184

https://vimeo.com/117558184

Experiencing Policy making: A Game for co-ordinating consensus

Funding sponsors- Next Generation Infrastructure Foundation, TU-Delft, Netherlands- Jamshetji Tata Trust

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Indian Energy Policy Game Results: A Sample Focusing on Consensus

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TEAM 1 TEAM 2

A Game to explore Problem and Institutional Spaces

Funding sponsors- TARU Leading Edge Private Limited, India.

Create Problem space definition and Corresponding Institutional space design

Another example: Dutch Railway System


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The Challenge

• 100% extra trains 2020• 50% in 2012 regional

• First: major corridors• “Untimetabled traffic”

– Like a metro system

• All within 10% of the budget required in the ‘old’ way

Gaming in Railway Traffic Control: System Level Design with Operators

• Traditional design in railway operations is top-down– Testing in computer simulations– Then push to operations?

• But will it work in practice?– Current robustness and resilience is already under pressure– Engineering has many assumptions about the operations.– The difference between theory and practice exists only in

practice• Talking with operations doesn’t help: do it with them!

– Reason is found in implicit, but very effective, mental models


Courtesy Sebastian Meijer

What was Tested and Found?• A change in the P space (more trains) led to…

….necessary changes in the S space (#perspectives to include in solving a disruption), which then turned to ask for…

• …changes in the I space (Access to knowledge and Institutional Structure) (now embodied in the OCCR functionality)

• Gaming as a way to go back and forth between changes.• Participation of operators in strategic design of infrastructure

IP S

In Summary

• There is no right or wrong solutions to Complex design problems

• It is matter of how the problem is formulated for the desired outcomes

• Characterizing designing as Problem and social spaces and institutional spaces.

• Use of games to explore different alternative explorations of the PSI Space.

• Examples in Energy, Garbage collection, city design and train systems.

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Acknowledgement• Collaborators (current affiliations)

– Bhagyalakshmi – Data collation and Translation (Fields of View)– Harsha K - Computer Science and Games (Fields of View)– Onkar Hoysala – Computer science (Fields of View)– Dr. Robin King –Economist (Georgetown University and Embarq-WRI)– Sruthi Krishnan – Journalist, Writer and Computer science (Fields of View)– Dr. Sebastiaan Meijer - Organizations and Games (TU-Delft and KTH Sweden) – Dr. Niveditha Menon –Sociologist (Center for Budget and Policy Studies)– Bharath Palavalli – Computer science and Games (Fields of View)

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Thank You [email protected]

If interested in the work Fields of View does in India –

See http://www.fieldsofview.in

eswaran subrahmanian - serious games in complex design of urban systems and policy

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