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Arguing about Preferences and Decisions

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Argumentation in Multi-Agent Systems (ArgMAS 2010)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 6614))

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Abstract

Complex decisions involve many aspects that need to be considered, which complicates determining what decision has the most preferred outcome. Artificial agents may be required to justify and discuss their decisions to others. Designers must communicate their wishes to artificial agents. Research in argumentation theory has examined how agents can argue about what decision is best using goals and values. Decisions can be justified with the goals they achieve, and goals can be justified by the values they promote. Agents may agree on having a value, but disagree about what constitutes that value. In existing work, however, it is not possible to discuss what constitutes a specific value, whether a goal promotes a value, why an agent has a value and why an agent has specific priorities over goals. This paper introduces several argument schemes, formalised in an argumentation system, to overcome these problems. The techniques presented in this paper are inspired by multi attribute decision theory.

Categories and Subject Descriptors

I.2.4 [Artificial Intelligence]: Knowledge Representation Formalisms and Methods.

General Terms: Design.

The research reported here is part of the Interactive Collaborative Information Systems (ICIS) project, supported by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, grant nr: BSIK03024.

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van der Weide, T.L., Dignum, F., Meyer, J.J.C., Prakken, H., Vreeswijk, G.A.W. (2011). Arguing about Preferences and Decisions. In: McBurney, P., Rahwan, I., Parsons, S. (eds) Argumentation in Multi-Agent Systems. ArgMAS 2010. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 6614. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-21940-5_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-21940-5_5

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-21939-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-21940-5

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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