Natural and artificial computing and reasoning in economic affairs

During a century or so, good reasoning in economic affairs was reduced to the search of computable algorithms for Expected Utility Optimization: but is the “Principle of least Action”, which was so powerful for guiding the researches in Physics and Natural Sciences as relevant as expected for guiding the good use of “reason in human affairs”? The discussion of the theoretical and practical weaknesses of the Paradigm of Expected Utility Optimization proposed since forty years notably by H. A. Simon, leads to the formulation of another paradigm, probably more relevant for the guidance of researches in economics and management affairs: “the Principle of Intelligent Action”, focus on the property of symbols computation systems. The general framework of Plausible Rationality, as established by G. Polya permits the formulation of programmable heuristics (or production rules) which can be expressed in terms of artificial symbolic computations. A more General Research Program is now open to research in Economic Reasoning by the developments of Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Sciences: the design of relevant economic heuristics guiding the Decision Making Processes.