Abstract
This paper aims at proposing a general formal framework for dialogue between autonomous agents which are looking for a common agreement about a collective choice. The proposed setting has three main components: the agents, their reasoning capabilities, and a protocol. The agents are supposed to maintain beliefs about the environment and the other agents, together with their own goals. The beliefs are more or less certain and the goals may not have equal priority. These agents are supposed to be able to make decisions, to revise their beliefs and to support their points of view by arguments. A general protocol is also proposed. It governs the high-level behaviour of interacting agents. Particularly, it specifies the legal moves in the dialogue. Properties of the framework are studied. This setting is illustrated on an example involving three agents discussing the place and date of their next meeting.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Amgoud, L., Maudet, N., Parsons, S.: Modelling dialogues using argumentation. In: Proc. 4th Intl. Conf. on Multi-Agent Systems (ICMAS 2000), Boston, pp. 31–38 (2000)
Amgoud, L., Maudet, N., Parsons, S.: An argumentation-based semantics for agent communication languages. In: Proc. 15th Eur. Conf. on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI 2002), Lyon, pp. 38–42 (2002)
Amgoud, L., Parsons, S., Maudet, N.: Arguments, dialogue, and negotiation. In: Proc. 14th Eur. Conf. on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI 2000), Berlin, pp. 338–342 (2000)
Amgoud, L., Prade, H.: Reaching agreement through argumentation: A possibilistic approach. In: Proc. 9th Intl. Conf. on the Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR 2004), Whistler, pp. 175–182 (2004)
Amgoud, L., Prade, H.: Using arguments for making decisions: A possibilistic logic approach. In: Proc. 20th Conf. on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI 2004), Banff, pp. 10–17 (2004)
Fatima, S., Wooldridge, M., Jennings, N.R.: An agenda based framework for multi-issues negotiation. Artificial Intelligence 152, 1–45 (2004)
Kakas, A., Moraitis, P.: Argumentation based decision making for autonomous agents. In: Rosenschein, J.S., Sandholm, T., Wooldridge, M., Yokoo, M. (eds.) Proc. 2nd Intl. Joint Conf. on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS 2003), Melbourne, pp. 883–890. ACM Press, New York (2003)
Kraus, S., Sycara, K., Evenchik, A.: Reaching agreements through argumentation: a logical model and implementation. Artificial Intelligence 104(1–2), 1–69 (1998)
MacKenzie, J.: Question-begging in non-cumulative systems. Journal of philosophical logic 8, 117–133 (1979)
Parsons, S., Sierra, C., Jennings, N.R.: Agents that reason and negotiate by arguing. Journal of Logic and Computation 8(3), 261–292 (1998)
Rahwan, I., Ramchurn, S.D., Jennings, N.R., McBurney, P., Parsons, S., Sonenberg, L.: Argumentation-based negotiation. The Knowledge Engineering Review 18(4), 343–375 (2003)
Sierra, C., Jennings, N.R., Noriega, P., Parsons, S.: A framework for argumentation-based negotiation. In: Rao, A., Singh, M.P., Wooldridge, M.J. (eds.) ATAL 1997. LNCS, vol. 1365, pp. 167–182. Springer, Heidelberg (1998)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2006 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Amgoud, L., Belabbes, S., Prade, H. (2006). Towards a Formal Framework for the Search of a Consensus Between Autonomous Agents. In: Parsons, S., Maudet, N., Moraitis, P., Rahwan, I. (eds) Argumentation in Multi-Agent Systems. ArgMAS 2005. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 4049. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11794578_17
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11794578_17
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-36355-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-36356-9
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)