Agent-based social simulation: General requirements and for a Colombian approach

The agent-based social simulation has become in recent decades as a useful tool to analyse and develop strategies for solving social problems. The advantages of the multi-agent approach, in conjunction with other techniques as artificial intelligence, have supported different sciences professionals to execute simulations that analyse society behaviours under different circumstances. This paper presents an analysis of the previous work generated in the field of agent-based social simulation. First, it exposes those sociological theories that have driven the use of agents and different types of models proposed. It then develops an analysis of the requirements that have the existing models and the perspectives in this field for a country like Colombia, taking into account the social work developed by the PROSOFI program in the Engineering Department of Javeriana University.