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Towards Agent-Oriented Blockchains: Autonomous Smart Contracts

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Advances in Practical Applications of Survivable Agents and Multi-Agent Systems: The PAAMS Collection (PAAMS 2019)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 11523))

Abstract

Features of blockchain technology (BCT) such as decentralisation, trust, fault tolerance, and accountability, are of paramount importance for multi-agent systems (MAS). In this paper we argue that a principled approach to MAS-BCT integration cannot overlook the foundational character of agency—that is, autonomy. Accordingly, we present a custom BCT implementation where autonomy is placed in smart contracts (SC) interpreted as software agents. We show how agency can enhance SC expressiveness with autonomy, situatedness, sociality, and intelligence, and highlight the limitations of state-of-art BCT in supporting MAS design and implementation.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://solidity.readthedocs.io/en/v0.5.3/introduction-to-smart-contracts.html, https://hyperledger-fabric.readthedocs.io/en/release-1.3/chaincode4ade.html.

  2. 2.

    Source code publicly available at [12].

  3. 3.

    We rely on Prolog standard notation for input/output arguments: + is an input, + is an output, ? can be both, whereas @ is a ground input.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Alma Mater Studiorum–Università di Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Giovanni Ciatto, Alfredo Maffi & Andrea Omicini

  2. Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Modena, Italy

    Stefano Mariani

Authors
  1. Giovanni Ciatto
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  2. Alfredo Maffi
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  3. Stefano Mariani
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  4. Andrea Omicini
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Andrea Omicini .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Grenoble Computer Science Laboratory, Grenoble, France

    Yves Demazeau

  2. Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

    Eric Matson

  3. University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain

    Juan Manuel Corchado

  4. University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain

    Fernando De la Prieta

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Ciatto, G., Maffi, A., Mariani, S., Omicini, A. (2019). Towards Agent-Oriented Blockchains: Autonomous Smart Contracts. In: Demazeau, Y., Matson, E., Corchado, J., De la Prieta, F. (eds) Advances in Practical Applications of Survivable Agents and Multi-Agent Systems: The PAAMS Collection. PAAMS 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11523. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24209-1_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24209-1_3

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-24208-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-24209-1

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