Liberalizing protocols for argumentation in multi-agent systems

ABSTRACT

This publication summarizes research on the the design and implementation of liberalized version of existing truth-finding protocols for argumentation, such as the standard two-agent immediate-response protocol for computing the credulous acceptance of conclusions in an argument system. In the new setup agents decide autonomously which issues need to be discussed, when to query other agents, when to keep on querying other agents, and when to settle for an answer. In this way, inter-agent disputes are regulated by the agents themselves, rather than that they follow an outlined protocol. The paper concludes with a prototype implementation and with a comparison of related work on conversation analysis and computational dialectic.

REFERENCES

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.2 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
        I.2.11 Distributed Artificial Intelligence
            Subjects: Multiagent systems

Additional Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.2 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
      I.2.3 Deduction and Theorem Proving
          Subjects: Nonmonotonic reasoning and belief revision

General Terms:
Algorithms, Design, Experimentation

Keywords:
argumentation, communication, multi-agent dialogue, scheduling