Antifragility
{{Short description|System property}}
Antifragility is a property of systems in which they increase in capability to thrive as a result of stressors, shocks, volatility, noise, mistakes, faults, attacks, or failures. The concept was developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book, Antifragile, and in technical papers.{{cite book |author=Nassim Nicholas Taleb |year=2012 |title=Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder |publisher=Random House |page=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781400067824/page/430 430] |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781400067824 |url-access=registration |isbn=9781400067824}},{{cite journal | last1 = Taleb | first1 = N.N. | last2 = Douady | first2 = R. | year = 2013 | title = Mathematical definition, mapping, and detection of (anti) fragility | journal = Quantitative Finance | volume = 13 | issue = 11| pages = 1677–1689 | doi = 10.1080/14697688.2013.800219 | arxiv = 1208.1189 | s2cid = 219716527 }} As Taleb explains in his book, antifragility is fundamentally different from the concepts of resiliency (i.e. the ability to recover from failure) and robustness (that is, the ability to resist failure). The concept has been applied in risk analysis,{{cite journal | last1 = Aven | first1 = T | year = 2014 | title = The Concept of Antifragility and its Implications for the Practice of Risk Analysis | journal = Risk Analysis | volume = 35 | issue = 3| pages = 476–483 | doi = 10.1111/risa.12279 | pmid = 25263809 | bibcode = 2015RiskA..35..476A | s2cid = 5537979 }}{{cite journal | last1 = Derbyshire | first1 = J. | last2 = Wright | first2 = G. | year = 2014 | title = Preparing for the future: Development of an 'antifragile' methodology that complements scenario planning by omitting causation | url = https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/52933/1/Derbyshire_Wright_TFSC2014_methodology_that_complements_scenario_planning_by_omitting_causation.pdf | journal = Technological Forecasting and Social Change | volume = 82 | pages = 215–225 | doi = 10.1016/j.techfore.2013.07.001 }} physics,{{cite journal | arxiv=1409.2609 | doi=10.1063/1.4898663 | title=Asymmetric Coulomb fluids at randomly charged dielectric interfaces: Anti-fragility, overcharging and charge inversion | date=2014 | last1=Naji | first1=Ali | last2=Ghodrat | first2=Malihe | last3=Komaie-Moghaddam | first3=Haniyeh | last4=Podgornik | first4=Rudolf | journal=The Journal of Chemical Physics | volume=141 | issue=17 | pmid=25543341 }} molecular biology,{{cite journal | last1 = Danchin | first1 = A. | last2 = Binder | first2 = P. M. | last3 = Noria | first3 = S. | year = 2011 | title = Antifragility and tinkering in biology (and in business) flexibility provides an efficient epigenetic way to manage risk | journal = Genes | volume = 2 | issue = 4| pages = 998–1016 | doi = 10.3390/genes2040998 | doi-access = free | pmid = 24710302 | pmc = 3927596 }}{{Cite book|doi = 10.1007/978-94-007-6488-0_25|chapter = Niches and Adaptations of Polyextremotolerant Black Fungi|title = Polyextremophiles|series = Cellular Origin, Life in Extreme Habitats and Astrobiology|year = 2013|last1 = Grube|first1 = Martin|last2 = Muggia|first2 = Lucia|last3 = Gostinčar|first3 = Cene|volume = 27|pages = 551–566|isbn = 978-94-007-6487-3}} transportation planning,{{cite book | doi=10.1109/SysCon.2014.6819271 | chapter=Detecting antifragile decisions and models lessons from a conceptual analysis model of Service Life Extension of aging vehicles | title=2014 IEEE International Systems Conference Proceedings | date=2014 | last1=Levin | first1=Jeffrey S. | last2=Brodfuehrer | first2=Steven P. | last3=Kroshl | first3=William M. | pages=285–292 | isbn=978-1-4799-2086-0 }}Isted, R. (2014, August). [https://trid.trb.org/view/1326879 The use of antifragility heuristics in transport planning]. In Australian Institute of Traffic Planning and Management (AITPM) National Conference, 2014, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia (No. 3). engineering,{{cite journal | last1 = Verhulsta | first1 = E | year = 2014 | title = Applying Systems and Safety Engineering Principles for Antifragility | url = https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877050914007005/pdf?md5=4fb7dc9771377a226f97df7065ecea37&pid=1-s2.0-S1877050914007005-main.pdf | journal = Procedia Computer Science | volume = 32 | pages = 842–849 | doi = 10.1016/j.procs.2014.05.500 | doi-access = free }}{{cite journal | last1 = Jones | first1 = K. H. | year = 2014 | title = Engineering Antifragile Systems: A Change In Design Philosophy | url = https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877050914007042/pdf?md5=d790c1c358550a1dafd986d976751c48&pid=1-s2.0-S1877050914007042-main.pdf&_valck=1 | journal = Procedia Computer Science | volume = 32 | pages = 870–875 | doi = 10.1016/j.procs.2014.05.504 | doi-access = free | hdl = 2060/20140010075 | hdl-access = free }}{{Cite journal|last1=Lichtman|first1=M.|last2=Vondal|first2=M. T.|last3=Clancy|first3=T. C.|last4=Reed|first4=J. H.|date=2016-01-01|title=Antifragile Communications|journal=IEEE Systems Journal|volume= 12|issue= |pages=659–670|doi=10.1109/JSYST.2016.2517164|issn=1932-8184|hdl=10919/72267|url=http://hdl.handle.net/10919/72267|bibcode=2018ISysJ..12..659L|s2cid=4339184|hdl-access=free}} aerospace (NASA),Jones, Kennie H. "Antifragile Systems: An Enabler for System Engineering of Elegant Systems." (2015), NASA, [https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20160007433] and computer science.{{cite book | doi=10.1109/SICE.2014.6935315 | chapter=An initial approach towards the implementation of human error identification services for antifragile systems | title=2014 Proceedings of the SICE Annual Conference (SICE) | date=2014 | last1=Ramirez | first1=Carlos A. | last2=Itoh | first2=Makoto | pages=2031–2036 | isbn=978-4-9077-6446-3 }}{{cite journal | last1 = Abid | first1 = A. | last2 = Khemakhem | first2 = M. T. | last3 = Marzouk | first3 = S. | last4 = Jemaa | first4 = M. B. | last5 = Monteil | first5 = T. | last6 = Drira | first6 = K. | year = 2014 | title = Toward Antifragile Cloud Computing Infrastructures | url = https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877050914007017/pdf?md5=579fbbe1aa1f4e10e7ad57bc2d5535e9&pid=1-s2.0-S1877050914007017-main.pdf&_valck=1 | journal = Procedia Computer Science | volume = 32 | pages = 850–855 | doi = 10.1016/j.procs.2014.05.501 | doi-access = free | url-access = subscription }}{{cite journal | last1 = Guang | first1 = L. | last2 = Nigussie | first2 = E. | last3 = Plosila | first3 = J. | last4 = Tenhunen | first4 = H. | year = 2014 | title = Positioning Antifragility for Clouds on Public Infrastructures | url = https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877050914007029/pdf?md5=d95c293f104f0ad2b85e72bee4dcd33d&pid=1-s2.0-S1877050914007029-main.pdf&_valck=1 | journal = Procedia Computer Science | volume = 32 | pages = 856–861 | doi = 10.1016/j.procs.2014.05.502 | doi-access = free }}
Taleb defines it as follows in a letter to Nature responding to an earlier review of his book in that journal:
{{Blockquote|quote=Simply, antifragility is defined as a convex response to a stressor or source of harm (for some range of variation), leading to a positive sensitivity to increase in volatility (or variability, stress, dispersion of outcomes, or uncertainty, what is grouped under the designation "disorder cluster"). Likewise fragility is defined as a concave sensitivity to stressors, leading to a negative sensitivity to increase in volatility. The relation between fragility, convexity, and sensitivity to disorder is mathematical, obtained by theorem, not derived from empirical data mining or some historical narrative. It is a priori.|author=Taleb, N. N.|source=Philosophy: 'Antifragility' as a mathematical idea. Nature, 2013 Feb 28; 494(7438), 430-430}}
Antifragile versus robust/resilient
In his book, Taleb stresses the differences between antifragile and robust/resilient. "Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better." The concept has now been applied to ecosystems in a rigorous way.{{Cite journal|last1=Equihua|first1=Miguel|last2=Espinosa|first2=Mariana|last3=Gershenson|first3=Carlos|last4=López-Corona|first4=Oliver|last5=Munguia|first5=Mariana|last6=Pérez-Maqueo|first6=Octavio|last7=Ramírez-Carrillo|first7=Elvia|title=Ecosystem antifragility: Beyond integrity and resilience|journal=PeerJ|year=2020|volume=8|pages=e8533|doi=10.7717/peerj.8533|pmid=32095358|pmc=7020813 |doi-access=free }} In their work, the authors review the concept of ecosystem resilience in its relation to ecosystem integrity from an information theory approach. This work reformulates and builds upon the concept of resilience in a way that is mathematically conveyed and can be heuristically evaluated in real-world applications: for example, ecosystem antifragility. The authors also propose that for socio-ecosystem governance, planning or in general, any decision making perspective, antifragility might be a valuable and more desirable goal to achieve than a resilience aspiration. In the same way, Pineda and co-workers{{Cite journal|last1=Pineda|first1=Omar K.|last2=Kim|first2=Hyobin|last3=Gershenson|first3=Carlos|date=2019-05-28|title=A Novel Antifragility Measure Based on Satisfaction and Its Application to Random and Biological Boolean Networks|journal=Complexity|volume=2019|pages=1–10|doi=10.1155/2019/3728621|issn=1076-2787|doi-access=free|arxiv=1812.06760}} have proposed a simply calculable measure of antifragility, based on the change of “satisfaction” (i.e., network complexity) before and after adding perturbations, and apply it to random Boolean networks (RBNs). They also show that several well known biological networks such as Arabidopsis thaliana cell-cycle are as expected antifragile.
Antifragile versus adaptive/cognitive
An adaptive system is one that changes its behavior based on information available at time of utilization (as opposed to having the behavior defined during system design). This characteristic is sometimes referred to as cognitive. While adaptive systems allow for robustness under a variety of scenarios (often unknown during system design), they are not necessarily antifragile. In other words, the difference between adaptive and antifragile is the difference between a system that is robust under volatile environments/conditions, and one that is robust in a previously unknown environment.{{Clarify|date=June 2018}}
Mathematical heuristic
Taleb proposed a simple heuristic{{Cite SSRN |last1=Taleb|first1=Nassim Nicholas|last2=Canetti|first2=Elie|last3=Kinda|first3=Tidiane|last4=Loukoianova|first4=Elena|last5=Schmieder|first5=Christian|date=2012-08-01|title=A New Heuristic Measure of Fragility and Tail Risks: Application to Stress Testing|language=en|ssrn=2156095}} for detecting fragility. If is some model of , then fragility exists when , robustness exists when , and antifragility exists when , where
.
In short, the heuristic is to adjust a model input higher and lower. If the average outcome of the model after the adjustments is significantly worse than the model baseline, then the model is fragile with respect to that input.
Applications
The concept has been applied in business and management,{{Cite journal|doi=10.1016/j.pursup.2021.100699|title=Gaining from disorder: Making the case for antifragility in purchasing and supply chain management|year=2021|last1=Nikookar|first1=Ethan|last2=Varsei|first2=Mohsen|last3=Wieland|first3=Andreas|journal=Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management|volume=27|issue=3|page=100699 |doi-access=free}} physics, risk analysis,{{Cite journal|doi=10.1111/risa.12279|title=The Concept of Antifragility and its Implications for the Practice of Risk Analysis|year=2015|last1=Aven|first1=Terje|journal=Risk Analysis|volume=35|issue=3|pages=476–483|pmid=25263809|bibcode=2015RiskA..35..476A |s2cid=5537979 }} molecular biology,{{cite journal|author1=Antoine Danchin|author2=Philippe M. Binder|author3=Stanislas Noria|title=Antifragility and Tinkering in Biology (and in Business) Flexibility Provides an Efficient Epigenetic Way to Manage Risk|journal=Genes|date=2011|volume=2|issue=4|pages=998–1016|doi=10.3390/genes2040998|pmid=24710302|pmc=3927596|doi-access=free }} transportation planning,{{cite journal|last1=Isted|first1=Richard|title=The Use of Anti-Fragility Heuristics in Transport Planning|date=August 2014|issue=3|url=http://www.aitpm.com.au/ArticleDocuments/249/Transport_and_Land_Use_Session_3-Richard_Isted_The_use_of_anti_fragility_heuristics_in_transport_planning.pdf.aspx?Embed=Y|publisher=Australian Institute of Traffic Planning and Management National Conference|location=Adelaide, South Australia|access-date=2016-02-01|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303214045/http://www.aitpm.com.au/ArticleDocuments/249/Transport_and_Land_Use_Session_3-Richard_Isted_The_use_of_anti_fragility_heuristics_in_transport_planning.pdf.aspx?Embed=Y|archive-date=2016-03-03|url-status=dead}} urban planning,{{Cite journal|last1=Blečić|first1=Ivan|last2=Cecchini|first2=Arnaldo|date=2019-09-12|title=Antifragile planning|journal=Planning Theory|language=en-US|volume=19|issue=2|pages=172–192|doi=10.1177/1473095219873365|hdl=11584/278497 |s2cid=219975474|issn=1473-0952|hdl-access=free}}{{Cite journal|last=Roggema|first=Rob|date=2019-02-21|title=Design for Disruption: Creating Anti-Fragile Urban Delta Landscapes|url=https://www.cogitatiopress.com/urbanplanning/article/view/1469|journal=Urban Planning|language=en|volume=4|issue=1|pages=113–122|doi=10.17645/up.v4i1.1469|issn=2183-7635|doi-access=free}}{{Cite journal |last1=Redmond |first1=Alan Martin |last2=Vlachopanagiotis |first2=Theocharis |last3=Moschopoulou |first3=Aikaterini |last4=Grizos |first4=Konstandinos |last5=Manthos |first5=Evangelos |last6=Rezgui |first6=Yacine |date=2023 |title=Antifragile Cities – Decision Support Tools to Support the Implementation of the Climate-neutral and Smart Cities |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/375698367 |journal=MODERN SYSTEMS 2023: International Conference of Modern Systems Engineering Solutions - 2023}} engineering, aerospace (NASA), computer science,{{Cite journal|last=Lichtman|first=Marc|title=Antifragile Communications|url=http://hdl.handle.net/10919/72267|journal= IEEE Systems Journal|volume=12|issue=1|pages=659–670|doi=10.1109/JSYST.2016.2517164|access-date= September 27, 2020|bibcode=2018ISysJ..12..659L|hdl=10919/72267|year=2018|s2cid=4339184|hdl-access=free}} water system design,{{Cite journal|last1=Goodwill|first1=Joseph E.|last2=Ray|first2=Patrick|last3=Nock|first3=Destenie|last4=Miller|first4=Christopher M.|date=2021-12-23|title=Emerging investigator series: moving beyond resilience by considering antifragility in potable water systems|url=https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2022/ew/d1ew00732g|journal=Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology|language=en|volume=8|issue=1|pages=8–21|doi=10.1039/D1EW00732G|s2cid=244063552 |issn=2053-1419|url-access=subscription}} and cancer.{{cite journal |last1=Taleb |first1=NN |last2=West |first2=J |title=Working with Convex Responses: Antifragility from Finance to Oncology. |journal=Entropy |date=13 February 2023 |volume=25 |issue=2 |page=343 |doi=10.3390/e25020343 |doi-access=free |pmid=36832709|pmc=9955868 |arxiv=2209.14631 |bibcode=2023Entrp..25..343T }}{{cite arXiv|last1=Axenie |first1=C |last2=López-Corona |first2=O |last3=Makridis |first3=MA |last4=Akbarzadeh |first4=M |last5=Saveriano |first5=M |last6=Stancu |first6=A |last7=West |first7=J |title=Antifragility as a complex system's response to perturbations, volatility, and time |date=2023 |class=q-bio.PE |eprint=2312.13991}}
In computer science, there is a structured proposal for an "Antifragile Software Manifesto", to react to traditional system designs.{{Cite journal|last1=Russo|first1=Daniel|last2=Ciancarini|first2=Paolo|date=2016-01-01|title=A Proposal for an Antifragile Software Manifesto|journal=Procedia Computer Science|series=The 7th International Conference on Ambient Systems, Networks and Technologies (ANT 2016) / The 6th International Conference on Sustainable Energy Information Technology (SEIT-2016) / Affiliated Workshops|volume=83|pages=982–987|doi=10.1016/j.procs.2016.04.196|doi-access=free}} The major idea is to develop antifragility by design, building a system which improves from environment's input.