Negotiation in multi-agent systems

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.

Authors

• Martin Beer
• MARK D'INVERNO
• Michael Luck King's College London
• NICK JENNINGS
• CHRIS PREIST
• MICHAEL SCHROEDER

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