A Theory of Information Architecture for Networked Decisions: Freshness, Locality, and Coordination

2026-09-06

AI Summary

研究网络系统决策中信息范围与新鲜度之间的权衡，通过比较局部即时观察与全局延迟观察，提出最优信息架构。

Abstract

Networked systems face a tradeoff between the scope of the information behind a decision and its freshness: a broader view of the system supports better coordination, but assembling and communicating it takes time, so it arrives older. We study this tradeoff for a team of agents that repeatedly choose actions to minimize a shared quadratic cost driven by an environment that evolves on its own, unaffected by the agents'actions. An information architecture specifies what each agent observes, from where, and with what delay; we measure an architecture by the cost it loses relative to a decision made with complete, current information. We first compare fresh local observations with a complete but delayed global view. When every component of the environment decorrelates at a common exponential rate, this comparison reduces to a closed-form threshold on the ratio of delay to coherence time. We then study intermediate architectures in which each agent acts on a time-aligned, and therefore older, snapshot of a wider neighborhood. The optimal neighborhood radius occurs where the marginal value of added scope equals the marginal cost of lost freshness. In a canonical spatial model, this radius is set by the spatial-correlation, decision-relevance, and temporal-propagation lengths. Throughout, architecture performance is governed by the predictability of the optimal decision rather than of the raw state.

Problem

• networked decisions
• information freshness
• coordination

Innovation

• Information Architecture
• Freshness and Locality Tradeoff
• Networked Decisions
• Temporal Propagation
• Decision Predictability