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I am toying with the idea of constructing a virtual social network of artificial persons. It should have a population of artificial people each having a believa

by listic 7y ago

I am toying with the idea of constructing a virtual social network of artificial persons. It should have a population of artificial people each having a believable friends and family. How do I go about making a believable social graph?

ilikehurdles 7y ago
Sign up for an instagram account?
- listic 7y ago
  Not funny. I'm rather thinking about how one would go about making a procedurally generated Twitter.
yorwba 7y ago
Start from a random graph, then simulate relationship dynamics. People who know each other are more likely to be at the same location, and people who are at the same location have some likelihood of getting to know each other, creating circles of friends. Some people eventually have children together and if they have more, it's likely to be with the same person. Iterate for a few generations and you should get a reasonable graph of friends and family. The harder part is probably procedurally generating believable social activity to communicate those relationships to an observer with enough variety to be interesting.
- Impossible 7y ago
  James Ryan's Talk of the Town does this https://www.jamesryan.world/projects#/talktown/ https://www.jamesryan.world/projects#/talktown/ https://github.com/james-owen-ryan/talktown https://github.com/james-owen-ryan/talktown. His PHD thesis on curated story worlds is here (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330855103_Curating_Simulated_Storyworlds https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330855103_Curating_...) with a good write up by Emily Short here (https://emshort.blog/2019/05/21/curating-simulated-storyworlds-james-ryan/ https://emshort.blog/2019/05/21/curating-simulated-storyworl...). The focus is on generating interesting narratives for games and stories, rather than social network simulation or research, but many of the techniques probably apply.
elihu 7y ago
Erdos Renyi random graphs might be a good place to start. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erd%C5%91s%E2%80%93R%C3%A9nyi_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erd%C5%91s%E2%80%93R%C3%A9nyi_... If you want to start from a real-world dataset, take a look at Stanford's SNAP large network dataset collection. https://snap.stanford.edu/data/ https://snap.stanford.edu/data/
- sago 7y ago
  Watts-Strogatz[0] has some characteristics that improve on pure ER. GP: Sounds like a great project. What's the application? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watts%E2%80%93Strogatz_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watts%E2%80%93Strogatz_model

by listic 7y ago

ilikehurdles 7y ago

listic 7y ago
Not funny. I'm rather thinking about how one would go about making a procedurally generated Twitter.

yorwba 7y ago

Start from a random graph, then simulate relationship dynamics. People who know each other are more likely to be at the same location, and people who are at the same location have some likelihood of getting to know each other, creating circles of friends. Some people eventually have children together and if they have more, it's likely to be with the same person. Iterate for a few generations and you should get a reasonable graph of friends and family. The harder part is probably procedurally generating believable social activity to communicate those relationships to an observer with enough variety to be interesting.

Impossible 7y ago
James Ryan's Talk of the Town does this https://www.jamesryan.world/projects#/talktown/ https://www.jamesryan.world/projects#/talktown/ https://github.com/james-owen-ryan/talktown https://github.com/james-owen-ryan/talktown. His PHD thesis on curated story worlds is here (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330855103_Curating_Simulated_Storyworlds https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330855103_Curating_...) with a good write up by Emily Short here (https://emshort.blog/2019/05/21/curating-simulated-storyworlds-james-ryan/ https://emshort.blog/2019/05/21/curating-simulated-storyworl...). The focus is on generating interesting narratives for games and stories, rather than social network simulation or research, but many of the techniques probably apply.

elihu 7y ago

Erdos Renyi random graphs might be a good place to start. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erd%C5%91s%E2%80%93R%C3%A9nyi_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erd%C5%91s%E2%80%93R%C3%A9nyi_... If you want to start from a real-world dataset, take a look at Stanford's SNAP large network dataset collection. https://snap.stanford.edu/data/ https://snap.stanford.edu/data/

sago 7y ago
Watts-Strogatz[0] has some characteristics that improve on pure ER. GP: Sounds like a great project. What's the application? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watts%E2%80%93Strogatz_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watts%E2%80%93Strogatz_model