Skip to main content

Multi-agent Naïve Utility Calculus: Intent Recognition in the Stag-Hunt Game

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Social, Cultural, and Behavioral Modeling (SBP-BRiMS 2021)

Abstract

The human ability to utilize social and behavioral cues to infer each other’s intents, infer motivations, and predict future actions is a central process to human social life. This ability represents a facet of human cognition that artificial intelligence has yet to fully mimic and master. Artificial agents with greater social intelligence have wide-ranging applications from enabling the collaboration of human-AI teams to more accurately modelling human behavior in complex systems. Here, we show that the Naïve Utility Calculus generative model is capable of competing with leading models in intent recognition and action prediction when observing stag-hunt, a simple multiplayer game where agents must infer each other’s intentions to maximize rewards. Moreover, we show the model is the first with the capacity to out-compete human observers in intent recognition after the first round of observation.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Barnes, M., Chen, J., Schaefer, K.E., Kelley, T., Giammanco, C., Hill, S.: Five requisites for human-agent decision sharing in military environments. In: Savage-Knepshield, P., Chen, J. (eds.) Advances in Human Factors in Robots and Unmanned Systems, vol. 499, pp. 39–48. Springer, Cham (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41959-6_4 ISBN: 978-3-319-41959-6

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  2. Demiris, Y.: Prediction of intent in robotics and multi-agent systems. Cogn. Process. 8(3), 151–158 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-007-0168-9. ISSN: 1612-4782

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Elsawah, S., et al.: Eight grand challenges in socio-environmental systems modeling. Soc.-Environ. Syst. Model. 2, 16226 (2020). https://doi.org/10.18174/sesmo.2020a16226

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Fiore, S.M., Wiltshire, T.J.: Technology as teammate: examining the role of external cognition in support of team cognitive processes. Front. Psychol. 7, 1531 (2016). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01531. ISSN: 1664-1078

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Forbus, K.D., Ferguson, R.W., Lovett, A., Gentner, D.: Extending SME to handle large-scale cognitive modeling. Cogn. Sci. 41(5), 1152–1201 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12377. ISSN: 1551-6709

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Freeman, J., Baggio, J.A., Coyle, T.R.: Social and general intelligence improves collective action in a common pool resource system. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 117(14), 7712–7718 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1915824117. ISSN: 1091-6490

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Garibay, I., et al.: Deep agent: studying the dynamics of information spread and evolution in social networks. arXiv preprint arXiv:2003.11611 (2020)

  8. Gunaratne, C., Rand, W., Garibay, I.: Inferring mechanisms of response prioritization on social media under information overload. Sci. Rep. 11(1), 1–12 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-79897-5. ISSN: 2045-2322

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Jara-ettinger, J., Gweon, H., Schulz, L.E., Tenenbaum, J.B.: The Naïve utility calculus: computational principles underlying commonsense psychology. Trends Cogn. Sci. 20(8), 589–604 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2016.05.011. ISSN: 1364-6613

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Jara-ettinger, J., Gweon, H., Tenenbaum, J.B., Schulz, L.E.: Children’s understanding of the costs and rewards underlying rational action. Cognition 140, 14–23 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2015.03.006. ISSN: 0010-0277

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Jara-Ettinger, J., Schulz, L.E., Tenenbaum, J.B.: The Naïve utility calculus as a unified, quantitative framework for action understanding. Cogn. Psychol. 123, 101334 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2020.101334. ISSN: 0010-0285

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Johnson, M., Hofmann, K., Hutton, T., Bignell, D.: The Malmo platform for artificial intelligence experimentation. In: IJCAI International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence 2016, pp. 4246–4247 (2016). ISSN: 1045-0823

    Google Scholar 

  13. Orr, M.G., Lebiere, C., Stocco, A., Pirolli, P., Pires, B., Kennedy, W.G.: Multi-scale resolution of cognitive architectures: a paradigm for simulating minds and society. In: Thomson, R., Dancy, C., Hyder, A., Bisgin, H. (eds.) SBP-BRiMS 2018. LNCS, vol. 10899, pp. 3–15. Springer, Cham (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93372-6_1

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  14. Rabkina, I.: Analogical theory of mind: computational model and applications. Ph.D. thesis, Northwestern University (2020). https://search.proquest.com/openview/9b5e17f0c672eeed61afad5273bb39df/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y

  15. Rabkina, I., Forbus, K.D.: Analogical reasoning for intent recognition and action prediction in multi-agent systems. In: Proceedings of the 7th Annual Conference on Advances in Cognitive Systems (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Rajabi, A., Gunaratne, C., Mantzaris, A.V., Garibay, I.: On countering disinformation with caution: effective inoculation strategies and others that backfire into community hyper-polarization. In: Thomson, R., Bisgin, H., Dancy, C., Hyder, A., Hussain, M. (eds.) SBP-BRiMS 2020. LNCS, vol. 12268, pp. 130–139. Springer, Cham (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61255-9_13

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  17. Schlüter, M., et al.: A framework for mapping and comparing behavioural theories in models of social-ecological systems. Ecol. Econ. 131, 21–35 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2016.08.008. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800915306133. ISSN: 0921-8009

  18. Shum, M., Kleiman-Weiner, M., Littman, M.L., Tenenbaum, J.B.: Theory of minds: understanding behavior in groups through inverse planning. In: 33rd AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, AAAI 2019, 31st Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence Conference, IAAI 2019 and the 9th AAAI Symposium on Educational Advances in Artificial Intelligence, EAAI 2019, pp. 6163–6170 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1609/aaai.v33i01.33016163. ISSN: 2159-5399

  19. Skyrms, B.: The Stag Hunt and the Evolution of Social Structure, pp. 1–149 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139165228

  20. Sukthankar, G., Geib, C., Bui, H.H., Pynadath, D., Goldman, R.P.: Plan, Activity, and Intent Recognition: Theory and Practice. Newnes (2014)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This material is based upon work supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) under Contract No. HR001120C0036. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lux Miranda .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2021 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Miranda, L., Ozmen Garibay, O. (2021). Multi-agent Naïve Utility Calculus: Intent Recognition in the Stag-Hunt Game. In: Thomson, R., Hussain, M.N., Dancy, C., Pyke, A. (eds) Social, Cultural, and Behavioral Modeling. SBP-BRiMS 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12720. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80387-2_32

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80387-2_32

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-80386-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-80387-2

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics