A formal model for designing dialogue strategies

ABSTRACT

Modeling different types of dialogue between autonomous agents is becoming an important research issue. Several proposals exist with a clear definition of the dialogue protocol, which is the set of rules governing the high level behaviour of the dialogue. However, things seem different with the notion of strategy. There is no consensus on the definition of a strategy and on the parameters necessary for its definition. Consequently, there are no methodology and no formal models for strategies.This paper argues that a strategy is a two steps decision process: i) to select the type of act to utter at a given step of a dialogue, and ii) to select the content which will accompany the act. The first step consists of selecting among all the acts allowed by the protocol, the best option which according to some strategic beliefs of the agent will at least satisfy the most important strategic goals of the agent. The second step consists of selecting among different alternatives (eg. different offers), the best one which, according to some basic beliefs of the agent, will satisfy the functional goals of the agent. The paper proposes then a formal model based on argumentation for computing on the basis of the above kinds of mental states, the best move (act + content) to play at a given step of the dialogue.

REFERENCES

• 1: L. Amgoud. A general argumentation framework for inference and decision making. In Proceedings of the 21th Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence, pages 26--33, 2005.
• 2: L. Amgoud and N. Maudet. Strategical considerations for argumentative agents. In Proc. of the 10^th International Workshop on Non-Monotonic Reasoning, session "Argument, Dialogue, Decision", NMR'2002, 2002.
• 3: L. Amgoud and K. Souhila, On the study of negotiation strategies. In In AAMAS 2005 Workshop on Agent Communication (AC05), pages 3--16, 2005.
• 4: D. N. Walton and E. C. W. Krabbe. Commitment in Dialogue: Basic Concepts of Interpersonal Reasoning. State University of New York Press, Albany, NY, 1995.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.2 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
      I.2.3 Deduction and Theorem Proving

Additional Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.2 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
        I.2.11 Distributed Artificial Intelligence

General Terms:
Human Factors, Theory

Keywords:
dialogue, strategies