Cooperating Agents: A Unified Theory of Communication and Social Structure
Elsevier eBooksPublished 1 January 1989
Eric Werner
Citations139
Generate an AI Snapshot to get a quick, structured summary of this paper.
Study Snapshot
ObjectiveStudy objective
MethodsResearch methodology
PopulationPopulation studied
Sample sizeSample sizes
OutcomesStudy outcomes here
ResultsStudy results comes here
LimitationsResearch study limitations comes here
A concise AI-generated summary of the paper will appear here once you click Generate AI Snapshot.
TL;DR
The unified theory of communication, intention, and social structures is used to develop a theory of social cooperation for multiagent systems, which fulfills a necessary condition for the design of complex agents that cooperate as a group.
Abstract
We aim at providing a general theoretical framework for designing agents with a communicative and social competence. Thereby, we develop the foundations for the design of systems of agents that behave as a social unit or group. A unified theory of communication, cooperation, and social structure is presented. First, a theory of the cognitive states, the information and intentional states, of an agent is given. A theory of communication is developed that gives a formal account of how messages affect the intentions or plans of an agent. The theory of intentions is used to define the concepts of social role and social structure. The unified theory of communication, intention, and social structures is used to develop a theory of social cooperation for multiagent systems. This fulfills a necessary condition for the design of complex agents that cooperate as a group. We apply the theories with an analysis of two examples: the contract net protocol and a Wittgensteinian language game.
Keywords
Computer ScienceDecision Sciences
IEEE Journal on Robotics and AutomationA robust layered control system for a mobile robot
7,718 Citations1986Rodney A. Brooks
A new architecture for controlling mobile robots is described, building a robust and flexible robot control system that has been used to control a mobile robot wandering around unconstrained laboratory areas and computer machine rooms.
Artificial IntelligenceStrips: A new approach to the application of theorem proving to problem solving
4,073 Citations1971Richard Fikes, Nils J. Nilsson
A new problem solver called STRIPS is described that attempts to find a sequence of operators in a space of world models to transform a given initial world model into a model in which a given goal formula can be proven to be true.
IEEE Transactions on ComputersThe Contract Net Protocol: High-Level Communication and Control in a Distributed Problem Solver
3,647 Citations1980Smith
The contract net protocol has been developed to specify problem-solving communication and control for nodes in a distributed problem solver.
Computational LinguisticsAttention, intentions, and the structure of discourse
2,606 Citations1986Barbara J. Grosz, Candace L. Sidner
A new theory of discourse structure that stresses the role of purpose and processing in discourse is explored and various properties of discourse are described, and explanations for the behavior of cue phrases, referring expressions, and interruptions are explored.
Artificial IntelligenceTowards a general theory of action and time
2,562 Citations1984James F. Allen
A formalism for reasoning about actions that is based on a temporal logic allows a much wider range of actions to be described than with previous approaches such as the situation calculus and a framework for planning in a dynamic world with external events and multiple agents is suggested.
Artificial IntelligenceNegotiation as a metaphor for distributed problem solving
1,235 Citations1983Randall Davis, Reid G. Smith
A framework called the contract net is presented that specifies communication and control in a distributed problem solver, and comparisons with planner, conniver, hearsay-ii, and pup 6 are used to demonstrate that negotiation is a natural extension to the transfer of control mechanisms used in earlier problem-solving systems.
Artificial IntelligenceViewing control structures as patterns of passing messages
1,161 Citations1977Carl Hewitt
A light sensing apparatus is described which employs a GaAsP MOS light-receiving element to which a potential is applied for creating a depletion region.
Journal of the ACMKnowledge and common knowledge in a distributed environment
963 Citations1990Joseph Y. Halpern, Yoram Moses
It is shown that states of knowledge of groups of processors are useful concepts for the design and analysis of distributed protocols and that, formally speaking, in practical systems common knowledge cannot be attained.
Artificial IntelligenceAnalyzing intention in utterances
779 Citations1980James F. Allen, C. Raymond Perrault
It is shown that, given a setting in which purposeful dialogues occur, this model of cooperative behavior can account for responses that provide more information that explicitly requested and for appropriate responses to both short sentence fragments and indirect speech acts.
Cognitive ScienceElements of a plan-based theory of speech acts
724 Citations1979Philip R. Cohen, C. Raymond Perrault
Cognitive ScienceElements of a Plan‐Based Theory of Speech Acts*
398 Citations1979Philip R. Cohen, C. Raymond Perrault
This paper explores the truism that people think about what they say and proposes hat, to satisfy their own goals, people often plan their speech acts to affect their listeners' beliefs, goals, and emotional states.
Programming Languages
396 Citations1969A. Forino
Elsevier eBooksREASONING ABOUT KNOWLEDGE AND ACTION
372 Citations1981Robert C. Moore
The importance of having systems that understand the concept of knowledge, and how knowledge is related to action, and a logic of knowledge based on the idea of possible worlds is presented.
Cambridge University Press eBooksPlanning English Sentences
359 Citations1985Douglas E. Appelt
This book is an investigation into the problems of generating natural language utterances to satisfy specific goals in the speaker's mind and is thus an ambitious and significant contribution to research on language generation in artificial intelligence.
Knowledge and common knowledge in a distributed environment
286 Citations1984Joseph Y. Halpern, Yoram Moses
The International Journal of Robotics ResearchSymbolic Error Analysis and Robot Planning
230 Citations1982Rodney A. Brooks
The mathe matical underpinnings for building programs (plan checkers) that carry out the second approach automatically, which uses a geometric, computer-aided design (CAD) type of data base to infer the effects of actions and the propa gation of errors.
Proceedings of the IEEERobot programming
220 Citations1983Tomás Lozano‐Pérez
The key requirements for robot programming systems examined in the paper are in the areas of sensing, world modeling, motion specification, flow of control, and programming support.
Elsevier eBooksUsing Partial Global Plans to Coordinate Distributed Problem Solvers
210 Citations1988Edmund H. Durfee, Victor Lesser
A new framework is introduced that supports different styles of cooperation by using partial global plana to specify effective, coordinated actions for groups of problem solvers by generating and maintaining partial global plans in a distributed system.
On knowing what to say: planning speech acts.
178 Citations1978Philip R. Cohen
New Generation ComputingFormal theories of knowledge in AI and robotics
170 Citations1985Stanley J. Rosenschein
This work contrasts this conception of what it means for a machine to know a proposition with another, the situated-automata approach, which seeks to analyze knowledge in terms of relations between the state of a machine and thestate of its environment over time using logic as a metalanguage in which the analysis is carried out.
Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC)The use of meta-level control for coordination in a distributed problem solving network
166 Citations1983Daniel D. Corkill, Victor Lesser
A decentralized approach to network coordination that relies on each node making sophisticated local decisions that balance its own perceptions of appropriate problem solving activity with activities deemed important by other nodes is described.
Elsevier eBooksCOMMUNICATION AND INTERACTION IN MULTI-AGENT PLANNING**This research was supported in part by ONR contract N000014-80-C-0296 and in part by AFOSR contract F49620-79-C-0188.
164 Citations1988Michael Georgeff
An essential feature of the method is that the analysis is performed without generating all possible interleavings of the plans, thus avoiding a combinatorial explosion.
International Joint Conference on Artificial IntelligenceThe restricted language architecture of a hybrid representation system
144 Citations1985Marc Vilain
This paper describes KL-TWO, a hybrid reasoner based on the restricted representation facility RUP, and discusses KL- TWO, its subcomponents, and the techniques used to interface them.
Munich Personal RePEc Archive (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich)Communication and interaction in multi-agent planning
116 Citations1988Michael Georgeff
Rational interaction: cooperation among intelligent agents
106 Citations1986Jeffrey S. Rosenschein
This dissertation describes a framework for interacting intelligent agents, and explores strategies of interaction among intelligent agents using a formalism that removes some serious restrictions that underlie previous research in distributed artificial intelligence.
Journal of Economic TheoryCredible negotiation statements and coherent plans
73 Citations1989Roger B. Myerson
Criteria are developed to determine which negotiation statements are credible with respect to a reference payoff allocation for the negotiator's possible types, including mechanism design by an informed principal.
Elsevier eBooksRepresenting and Using Organizational Knowledge in Distributed AI Systems
64 Citations1989Les Gasser, Nicholas F. Rouquette +2 more
The state of research toward a general coordination mechanism for distributed intelligent systems is reported on, and a testbed called the Intelligent Coordination Experiment (ICE) is developed in which the coordination mechanisms are implemented.
Munich Personal RePEc Archive (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich)A First-Order Formalization of Knowledge and Action for a Multiagent Planning System.
58 Citations1980Kurt Konolige
An alternative formalism for reasoning about knowledge, belief, and action is developed and it is shown how this formalism can be used to deal with several well-known problems, and then described how it could be used by a plan constructing system.
Toward a Theory of Communication and Cooperation for Multiagent Planning
47 Citations1988Eric Werner
A formal computational theory of high-level linguistic communication that serves as a foundation for understanding cooperative action in groups of autonomous agents is developed by examining and describing how messages affect the planning process and thereby relating communication to the intentions of the agents.
Munich Personal RePEc Archive (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich)The Structures of Discourse Structure.
39 Citations1985Barbara J. Grosz, Candace L. Sidner
The authors illustrate the application of a computational theory of discourse structure to such phenomena as clue words, referring expressions and interruptions and discuss the recognition of intentions in discourse.
What can machines know? On the epistemic properties of machines
21 Citations1986Ronald Fagin, Joseph Y. Halpern +1 more
This work presents a formal model in which it can capture the types of assumptions frequently made about systems and provides complete axiomatizations for knowledge in a number of cases of interest.
A formal computational semantics and pragmatics of speech acts
9 Citations1988Eric Werner
A theory of force is given that allows for a semantically and pragmaticaly motivated taxonomy of speech acts and the relevance of the communication theory to complex distribution artificial intellince, DAI, systems is described.
Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC)Preliminary Report on a Theory of Plan Synthesis
8 Citations1985Edwin Pednault
This work aims at developing efficient planning techniques to determine why the programs work when they are applicable, and whether they can be generalized to solve larger classes of problems.