Big data, agents, and machine learning: towards a data-driven agent-based modeling approach

We have recently witnessed the proliferation of large-scale behavioral data that can be used to empirically develop agent-based models (ABMs). Despite this opportunity, the literature has neglected to offer a structured agent-based modeling approach to produce agents or its parts directly from data. In this paper, we present initial steps towards an agent-based modeling approach that focuses on individual-level data to generate agent behavioral rules and initialize agent attribute values. We present a structured way to integrate Big Data and machine learning techniques at the individual agent-level. We also describe a conceptual use-case study of an urban mobility simulation driven by millions of geo-tagged Twitter social media messages. We believe our approach will advance the-state-of-the-art in developing empirical ABMs and conducting their validation. Further work is needed to assess data suitability, to compare with other approaches, to standardize data collection, and to serve all these features in near-real time.