He also remains tight-lipped about how the company does it, saying that full disclosure would undermine their predictions because other firms would change their behaviors. Complexity will most likely mesh well with the quick, data-intensive world of the Internet. Jeffrey O. Kephart, manager of IBM's agents and emergent phenomena division at its Thomas J. Watson Research Center, uses complex computer simulations and intelligent agents to model the development of specialized markets and cyclical price-war behavior. Eventually the Internet may enable real-time feedback of data into models. Ultimately it's the ability to adapt at the pace of customer order that's going to be a major component of success.
Some researchers wonder, though, if complexity is being pushed too far.
Agent-based modeling is only as good as what the agents know and what they can learn. And currently most of the agents in models rank low on the intelligence curve. Moreover, most models fail to consider how people make decisions, notes Herbert A. Simon of Carnegie Mellon University, a Nobel laureate in economics who has also advanced the fields of artificial intelligence and sociobiology. Supporters like Casti take this criticism in stride. But that doesn't mean there's not a lot of poetry involved.