On the relevance of utterances in formal inter-agent dialogues

ABSTRACT

Work on argumentation-based dialogue has defined frameworks within which dialogues can be carried out, established protocols that govern dialogues, and studied different properties of dialogues. This work has established the space in which agents are permitted to interact through dialogues. Recently, there has been increasing interest in the mechanisms agents might use to choose how to act --- the rhetorical manoeuvring that they use to navigate through the space defined by the rules of the dialogue. Key in such considerations is the idea of relevance, since a usual requirement is that agents stay focussed on the subject of the dialogue and only make relevant remarks. Here we study several notions of relevance, showing how they can be related to both the rules for carrying out dialogues and to rhetorical manoeuvring.

REFERENCES

• 1: L. Amgoud and C. Cayrol. On the acceptability of arguments in preference-based argumentation framework. In Proceedings of the 14th Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence, pages 1--7, 1998.
• 2: L. Amgoud, S. Parsons, and N. Maudet. Arguments, dialogue, and negotiation. In W. Horn, editor, Proceedings of the Fourteenth European Conference on Artificial Intelligence, pages 338--342, Berlin, Germany, 2000. IOS Press.
• 3: J. Bentahar, M. Mbarki, and B. Moulin. Strategic and tactic reasoning for communicating agents. In N. Maudet, I. Rahwan, and S. Parsons, editors, Proceedings of the Third Workshop on Argumentation in Muliagent Systems, Hakodate, Japan, 2006.
• 4: Philippe Besnard , Anthony Hunter, A logic-based theory of deductive arguments, Artificial Intelligence, v.128 n.1-2, p.203-235, May 2001 [doi>10.1016/S0004-3702(01)00071-6]
• 5: C. Cayrol, C. Devred, and M.-C. Lagasquie-Schiex. Handling controversial arguments in bipolar argumentation frameworks. In P. E. Dunne and T. J. M. Bench-Capon, editors, Computational Models of Argument: Proceedings of COMMA 2006, pages 261--272. IOS Press, 2006.
• 6: B. Chaib-Draa and F. Dignum. Trends in agent communication language. Computational Intelligence, 18(2):89--101, 2002.
• 7: Frank Dignum , Barbara Dunin-Keplicz , Rineke Verbrugge, Agent Theory for Team Formation by Dialogue, Proceedings of the 7th International Workshop on Intelligent Agents VII. Agent Theories Architectures and Languages, p.150-166, July 07-09, 2000
• 8: Phan Minh Dung, On the acceptability of arguments and its fundamental role in nonmonotonic reasoning, logic programming and n-person games, Artificial Intelligence, v.77 n.2, p.321-357, Sept. 1995 [doi>10.1016/0004-3702(94)00041-X]
• 9: P. M. Dung , R. A. Kowalski , F. Toni, Dialectic proof procedures for assumption-based, admissible argumentation, Artificial Intelligence, v.170 n.2, p.114-159, February 2006 [doi>10.1016/j.artint.2005.07.002]
• 10: R. A. Flores and R. C. Kremer. To commit or not to commit. Computational Intelligence, 18(2):120--173, 2002.
• 11: D. M. Gabbay and J. Woods. More on non-cooperation in Dialogue Logic. Logic Journal of the IGPL, 9(2):321--339, 2001.
• 12: D. M. Gabbay and J. Woods. Non-cooperation in Dialogue Logic. Synthese, 127(1--2):161--186, 2001.
• 13: C. L. Hamblin. Mathematical models of dialogue. Theoria, 37:130--155, 1971.
• 14: Sarit Kraus , Katia Sycara , Amir Evenchik, Reaching agreements through argumentation: a logical model and implementation, Artificial Intelligence, v.104 n.1-2, p.1-69, Sept. 1998 [doi>10.1016/S0004-3702(98)00078-2]
• 15: N. Oren, T. J. Norman, and A. Preece. Loose lips sink ships: A heuristic for argumentation. In N. Maudet, I. Rahwan, and S. Parsons, editors, Proceedings of the Third Workshop on Argumentation in Muliagent Systems, Hakodate, Japan, 2006.
• 16: S. Parsons and N. R. Jennings. Negotiation through argumentation --- a preliminary report. In Proceedings of Second International Conference on Multi-Agent Systems, pages 267--274, 1996.
• 17: Simon Parsons , Michael Wooldridge , Leila Amgoud, An analysis of formal inter-agent dialogues, Proceedings of the first international joint conference on Autonomous agents and multiagent systems: part 1, July 15-19, 2002, Bologna, Italy [doi>10.1145/544741.544835]
• 18: Simon Parsons , Michael Wooldridge , Leila Amgoud, On the outcomes of formal inter-agent dialogues, Proceedings of the second international joint conference on Autonomous agents and multiagent systems, July 14-18, 2003, Melbourne, Australia [doi>10.1145/860575.860674]
• 19: Henry Prakken, On Dialogue Systems with Speech Acts, Arguments, and Counterarguments, Proceedings of the European Workshop on Logics in Artificial Intelligence, p.224-238, October 02, 2000
• 20: H. Prakken. Relating protocols for dynamic dispute with logics for defeasible argumentation. Synthese, 127:187--219, 2001.
• 21: H. Prakken and G. Sartor. Modelling reasoning with precedents in a formal dialogue game. Artificial Intelligence and Law, 6:231--287, 1998.
• 22: I. Rahwan, P. McBurney, and E. Sonenberg. Towards a theory of negotiation strategy. In I. Rahwan, P. Moraitis, and C. Reed, editors, Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Argumentation in Multiagent Systems, New York, NY, 2004.
• 23: C. Reed, Dialogue Frames in Agent Communication, Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Multi Agent Systems, p.246, July 03-07, 1998
• 24: M. Rovatsos, I. Rahwan, F. Fisher, and G. Weiss. Adaptive strategies for practical argument-based negotiation. In I. Rahwan, P. Moraitis, and C. Reed, editors, Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Argumentation in Multiagent Systems, New York, NY, 2004.
• 25: Michael Schroeder , Daniel A. Plewe , Andreas Raab, Ultima ratio (poster): should Hamlet kill Claudius?, Proceedings of the second international conference on Autonomous agents, p.467-468, May 10-13, 1998, Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States [doi>10.1145/280765.280906]
• 26: K. Sycara. Argumentation: Planning other agents' plans. In Proceedings of the Eleventh Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, pages 517--523, 1989.
• 27: D. N. Walton and E. C. W. Krabbe. Commitment in Dialogue: Basic Concepts of Interpersonal Reasoning. State University of New York Press, Albany, NY, USA, 1995.

INDEX TERMS

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

General Terms:
Design, Languages, Theory

Keywords:
argumentation, dialogue, relevance