A kinetic framework to study opinion dynamics in multi-agent systems

In this paper we summarize an analytic framework to study opinion dynamics. Such a framework is inspired from physics and, in particular, from the kinetic theory of gases with different types of molecules, known as gas mixtures. By reinterpreting the molecules of gases as agents, and the collisions among molecules as interactions among agents, we show how to adapt the kinetic approach to the study of opinion dynamics in multi-agent systems. First, we briefly introduce the key ingredients of the kinetic theory of gas mixtures to clarify nomenclature and to emphasize the substantial differences with the proposed framework. Then, we show how the kinetic approach can be used to study opinion dynamics in multiagent systems, and how a variety of sociological phenomena can be accommodated in the proposed framework. In the last part of the paper we focus on two sociological phenomena, namely compromise and diffusion, and we describe analytic results concerning stationary profiles of the distribution of opinion, and of the temporal evolution of the average opinion and of the variance of the opinion.