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International Workshop on Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages

ATAL 1998: Intelligent Agents V: Agents Theories, Architectures, and Languages pp 133–148Cite as

Social Structure in Artificial Agent Societies: Implications for Autonomous Problem-Solving Agents

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 1555))

Abstract

In Distributed Problem-solving systems a group of purposefully designed computational agents interact and co-ordinate their activities so as to jointly achieve a global task. Social co-ordination is a decentralised mechanism, that sets out from autonomous, non-benevolent agents that interact primarily to improve the degree of attainment of their local goals. One way of ensuring the effectiveness of social co-ordination with respect to global problem solving is to rely on self-interested agents and to coerce their behaviour in a desired direction. In this paper we model the notion of social structure for a particular class of multiagent domains, and determine its functionality with respect to social co-ordination. We show how social structure can be used to bias macrolevel properties in the frame of multiagent system design, and discuss microlevel implications respecting the architecture of autonomous problem-solving agents.

This work was partially supported by the Human Capital and Mobility Program (HCM) of the European Union, contract ERBCHBICT941611.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Engineering, Rey Juan Carlos University at Madrid Campus de Móstoles s/n, 28933, Móstoles (Madrid), Spain

    Sascha Ossowski

  2. Department of Artificial Intelligence, Technical University of Madrid Campus de Montegancedo s/n, 28660, Boadilla del Monte (Madrid), Spain

    Ana García-Serrano

Authors
  1. Sascha Ossowski
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  2. Ana García-Serrano
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. John Wiley & Sons Ltd., International House, Ealing, London, W5 5DB, UK

    Jörg P. Müller

  2. Mitchell Madison Group, Level 49, 120 Collins St., Melbourne, Victoria, 3000, Australia

    Anand S. Rao

  3. Department of Computer Science, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, 27695-8206, USA

    Munindar P. Singh

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© 1999 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Ossowski, S., García-Serrano, A. (1999). Social Structure in Artificial Agent Societies: Implications for Autonomous Problem-Solving Agents. In: Müller, J.P., Rao, A.S., Singh, M.P. (eds) Intelligent Agents V: Agents Theories, Architectures, and Languages. ATAL 1998. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1555. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-49057-4_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-49057-4_9

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-65713-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-49057-9

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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