Machine learning dismantling and early-warning signals of disintegration in complex systems

Marco Grassia, Manlio De Domenico () and Giuseppe Mangioni ()
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Marco Grassia: Università degli Studi di Catania
Manlio De Domenico: Fondazione Bruno Kessler
Giuseppe Mangioni: Università degli Studi di Catania

Nature Communications, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract From physics to engineering, biology and social science, natural and artificial systems are characterized by interconnected topologies whose features – e.g., heterogeneous connectivity, mesoscale organization, hierarchy – affect their robustness to external perturbations, such as targeted attacks to their units. Identifying the minimal set of units to attack to disintegrate a complex network, i.e. network dismantling, is a computationally challenging (NP-hard) problem which is usually attacked with heuristics. Here, we show that a machine trained to dismantle relatively small systems is able to identify higher-order topological patterns, allowing to disintegrate large-scale social, infrastructural and technological networks more efficiently than human-based heuristics. Remarkably, the machine assesses the probability that next attacks will disintegrate the system, providing a quantitative method to quantify systemic risk and detect early-warning signals of system’s collapse. This demonstrates that machine-assisted analysis can be effectively used for policy and decision-making to better quantify the fragility of complex systems and their response to shocks.

Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-021-25485-8

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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-25485-8

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