Mark d'Inverno

JAAMAS Journal 2026 Journal Article

The dMARS Architecture: A Specification of the Distributed Multi-Agent Reasoning System

• MARK D'INVERNO
• Michael Luck
• Michael Wooldridge

Abstract The Procedural Reasoning System (PRS) is the best established agent architecture currently available. It has been deployed in many major industrial applications, ranging from fault diagnosis on the space shuttle to air traffic management and business process control. The theory of PRS-like systems has also been widely studied: within the intelligent agents research community, the belief-desire-intention (BDI) model of practical reasoning that underpins PRS is arguably the dominant force in the theoretical foundations of rational agency. Despite the interest in PRS and BDI agents, no complete attempt has yet been made to precisely specify the behaviour of real PRS systems. This has led to the development of a range of systems that claim to conform to the PRS model, but which differ from it in many important respects. Our aim in this paper is to rectify this omission. We provide an abstract formal model of an idealised dMARS system (the most recent implementation of the PRS architecture), which precisely defines the key data structures present within the architecture and the operations that manipulate these structures. We focus in particular on dMARS plans, since these are the key tool for programming dMARS agents. The specification we present will enable other implementations of PRS to be easily developed, and will serve as a benchmark against which future architectural enhancements can be evaluated.

AAMAS Conference 2024 Conference Paper

A Computational Framework of Human Values

• Nardine Osman
• MARK D'INVERNO

There is an increasing recognition of the need to engineer AI that respects and embodies human values. The value alignment problem, which identifies that need, has led to a growing body of research that investigates value learning, the aggregation of individual values into the values of groups, the alignment of norms with values, and the design of other computational mechanisms that reason over values in general. Yet despite these efforts, no foundational, computational model of human values has been proposed. In response, we propose a model for the computational representation of human values that builds upon a sustained body of research from social psychology.

IJCAI Conference 2015 Conference Paper

Heroic versus Collaborative AI for the Arts

• MARK D'INVERNO
• Jon McCormack

This paper considers the kinds of AI systems we want involved in art and art practice. We explore this relationship from three perspectives: as artists interested in expanding and developing our own creative practice; as AI researchers interested in building new AI systems that contribute to the understanding and development of art and art practice; and as audience members interested in experiencing art. We examine the nature of both art practice and experiencing art to ask how AI can contribute. To do so, we review the history of work in intelligent agents which broadly speaking sits in two camps: autonomous agents (systems that can exhibit intelligent behaviour independently) in one, and multi-agent systems (systems which interact with other systems in communities of agents) in the other. In this context we consider the nature of the relationship between AI and Art and introduce two opposing concepts: that of “Heroic AI”, to describe the situation where the software takes on the role of the lone creative hero and “Collaborative AI” where the system supports, challenges and provokes the creative activity of humans. We then set out what we believe are the main challenges for AI research in understanding its potential relationship to art and art practice.

IJCAI Conference 2013 Conference Paper

Communicating Open Systems (Extended Abstract)

• MARK D'INVERNO
• Michael Luck
• Pablo Noriega
• Juan A. Rodriguez-Aguilar
• Carles Sierra

Just as conventional institutions are organisational structures for coordinating the activities of multiple interacting individuals, electronic institutions provide a computational analogue for coordinating the activities of multiple interacting software agents. In this paper, we argue that open multi-agent systems can be effectively designed and implemented as electronic institutions, for which we provide a comprehensive computational model. More specifically, the paper provides an operational semantics for electronic institutions, specifying the essential data structures, the state representation and the key operations necessary to implement them.

AAMAS Conference 2004 Conference Paper

Normative Agent Reasoning in Dynamic Societies

• Fabiola Lopez y Lopez
• Michael Luck
• MARK D'INVERNO

IJCAI Conference 2003 Conference Paper

On Identifying and Managing Relationships in Multi-Agent Systems

• Ronald Ashri
• Michael Luck
• MARK D'INVERNO

Multi-agent systems result from interactions between individual agents. Through these interactions different kinds of relationships are formed, which can impact substantially on the overall system performance. However, the behaviour of agents cannot always be anticipated, especially when dealing with open and complex systems. Open agent systems must incorporate relationship management mechanisms to constrain agent actions and allow only desirable interactions. In consequence, in this paper we tackle two important issues. Firstly, in addressing management, we identify the range of different control mechanisms that are required and when they should be applied. Secondly, in addressing relationships, we present a model for identifying and characterising relationships in a manner that is application-neutral and amenable to automation.

KER Journal 2002 Journal Article

Practical and theoretical innovations in multi-agent systems research

• MARK D'INVERNO
• Michael Luck
• UKMAS 2001 Contributors

1 Introduction UKMAS has now been running for six years, in 1996 and 1997 under the heading of FoMAS (Foundations of Multi-Agent Systems) both organised by Michael Luck at Warwick University and then subsequently in its current incarnation, UKMAS, first by Michael Fisher at Manchester Metropolitan University then by Chris Preist at Hewlett Packard Laboratories, Bristol and finally by Mark d'Inverno at St Catherine's College, Oxford in 2000. After the success of the workshop last year at St Catherine's in providing an excellent opportunity for academics and industrialists to come together to discuss current work and directions in the multi-agent systems field, it was decided by the steering committee to use St Catherine's once again as the venue for UKMAS 2001. The workshop was sponsored by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and by AgentLink, the European Commission's IST-funded Network of Excellence for Agent-Based Computing.

KER Journal 2001 Journal Article

Learning in multi-agent systems

• Eduardo Alonso
• MARK D'INVERNO
• Daniel Kudenko
• Michael Luck
• JASON NOBLE

In recent years, multi-agent systems (MASs) have received increasing attention in the artificial intelligence community. Research in multi-agent systems involves the investigation of autonomous, rational and flexible behaviour of entities such as software programs or robots, and their interaction and coordination in such diverse areas as robotics (Kitano et al., 1997), information retrieval and management (Klusch, 1999), and simulation (Gilbert & Conte, 1995). When designing agent systems, it is impossible to foresee all the potential situations an agent may encounter and specify an agent behaviour optimally in advance. Agents therefore have to learn from, and adapt to, their environment, especially in a multi-agent setting.

KER Journal 2001 Journal Article

Multi-agent systems research into the 21st century

• MARK D'INVERNO
• Michael Luck
• UKMAS 2001 Contributors

There is little doubt that the strength and breadth of UK research into multi-agent systems continues to grow as we move into the new millennium. In the middle of an extremely cold December in 2000, the Third UK Workshop on Multi-Agent Systems (UKMAS 2001) was held at St Catherine's College, Oxford. This was the fifth such meeting in as many years, generously sponsored by EPSRC, FIPA (The Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents) and Hewlett Packard.

ECAI Conference 2000 Conference Paper

Architecture for Agent Programming Languages

• Koen V. Hindriks
• Mark d'Inverno
• Michael Luck

KER Journal 1999 Journal Article

Negotiation in multi-agent systems

• Martin Beer
• MARK D'INVERNO
• Michael Luck
• NICK JENNINGS
• CHRIS PREIST
• MICHAEL SCHROEDER

In systems composed of multiple autonomous agents, negotiation is a key form of interaction thatenables groups of agents to arrive at a mutual agreement regarding some belief, goal or plan, forexample. Particularly because the agents are autonomous and cannot be assumed to bebenevolent, agents must influence others to convince them to act in certain ways, and negotiationis thus critical for managing such inter-agent dependencies. The process of negotiation may be ofmany different forms, such as auctions, protocols in the style of the contract net, and argumentation, but it is unclear just how sophisticated the agents or the protocols for interaction must be forsuccessful negotiation in different contexts. All these issues were raised in the panel session onnegotiation.

KER Journal 1997 Journal Article

Formalisms for multi-agent systems

• MARK D'INVERNO
• Michael Fisher
• Alessio Lomuscio
• Michael Luck
• Maarten de Rijke
• Mark Ryan
• Michael Wooldridge

As computer scientists, our goals are motivated by the desire to improve computer systems in some way: making them easier to design and implement, more robust and less prone to error, easier to use, faster, cheaper, and so on. In the field of multi-agent systems, our goal is to build systems capable of flexible autonomous decision making, with societies of such systems cooperating with one-another. There is a lot of formal theory in the area but it is often not obvious what such theories should represent and what role the theory is intended to play. Theories of agents are often abstract and obtuse and not related to concrete computational models.

ECAI Conference 1996 Conference Paper

Understanding Autonomous Interaction

• Mark d'Inverno
• Michael Luck