The Actor model attempts to divide the problem space into a number of Actors each of whom can perform a unit of work. The actor can make local decisions, create more actors, send more messages, and determine how to respond to the next message received

The actor model has become a popular model and is built into languages like Erlang and Scala. As well as having the growth of libraries like Functional Java for existing languages like Java

The blackboard pattern uses specialists units to modify a shared space. It consists of 3 parts:

1. First specialist modules (called knowledge sources (KSs)). Are like a human expert that can contribute their expertise to the shared space at a blackboard.
2. The blackboard, a shared repository of problems, partial solutions
3. The control shell (manager, moderator) which controls the flow of problem-solving activity