Managing Social Influences throughArgumentation-Based Negotiation

Present by Yi Luo

Paper in workshop of AAMAS-06

Fifth International Joint Conference on AUTONOMOUS AGENTS AND MULTIAGENT SYSTEMS (AAMAS 2006)

Workshop: Argumentation in Multi-Agent Systems (ArgMAS)

Nishan C. Karunatillake1, Nicholas R. Jennings1, Iyad Rahwan2, Sarvapali D. Ramchurn1. Managing Social Influences through Argumentation-Based Negotiation

School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK.

Institute of Informatics, The British University in Dubai (Fellow) School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.

Background internal influences Vs. social

influence Internal: intrinsic motivations External: role, relationship Example: a teacher is trying to sell a book to his

student

Incomplete knowledge: don’t know status in society

Conflict between internal and social influence

Background

Argumentation-based negotiation (ABN) exchange additional meta-information such as

justifications, critics, and other forms of persuasive language

gain a wider understanding of the internal and external influences

Background

Objective: Propose a ABN framework allowing agents

detect, manage and resolve conflicts Giving agents the capability to challenge their

counter parts and obtain the reasons for violating social commitment

simulate to compare the result for agents with and without argumentation in the social context

Social Argumentation Model Social influence schema Social Arguments language and protocol Decision functions

Social Argumentation Model: Social Influence Schema

Social commitmentx: debtor y: creditor θ: actionSocial commitment is a commitment by agent x to another ag

ent y to perform a stipulated action θ x attains an obligation toward the y to action θ y attains certain right to demand (compensation) or require

the performance of θ relationship: encapsulation of social commitments

between associated roles

Social Argumentation Model: Social Influence Schema

Act (x, student) and RoleOf(student, student-teacher-relationship)= In (x, student, student-teacher-relationship)

Social Argumentation Model: Social Influence Schema

Social Argumentation Model: Social Influence Schema

Social Argumentation Model: Social Influence Schema every two agents combined with an action c

an be associated together as a social commitment

A set of SCs can be associated together as a relationship

Every two roles in the society can have a relationship

Social Argumentation Model:Social Arguments Socially influencing decision: argue about validity of reaso

ning Dispute a1 is in role r1, SC is a social commitment associated with rel

ationship p Rebut agent is also is another role which associate another action Rebut conflicts between two existing obligations, rights and actions

Negotiating social influence: trading promise to undertake future obligation Promise not to exercise certain right

Social Argumentation Model:Language and Protocol Domain language + communication

language= Utterance

Domain language: premise about social context conflicts that may face while executing actions

Communication language: elocutionary parties OPEN-DIALOGUE, PROPOSE, ACCEPT, REJECT, CHALLENGE, ASSERT AND CLOSE-DIALOGUE

Social Argumentation Model:Language and Protocol Protocol Opening

Conflict recognition: initial interaction, bring the conflict in surface

Conflict diagnosis: establish root cause of the conflict

Conflict management: allows agents to argue addressing the cause of this conflict

Agreement: mutually acceptable solution or agreeing to disagree

Closing

Social Argumentation Model: Decision Making Functionality

Social Argumentation Model: Decision Making Functionality Challenge the rejection / end negotiation / f

orward an alternative proposal Generating a proposal If it is capable of performing the reward If the benefit it gains from the request is greater than the cost

of reward Evaluating a proposal if it is capable of performing the request The benefit of the reward is greater than the cost incerred in

performing the request

Social Argumentation Model: Decision Making Functionality

Argumentation Context

Scenario: task allocation Self-interested agents interact to obtain services to

achieve a given set of actions Agent has: A list of actions that is required to achieve Capability to perform actions

Argumentation Context: Scenario

Capability: type + level Actions: time + capability type +

minimum capability level + reward

Argumentation Context: modeling Social Influence

Role-relationship structure Associated degree of influence: decommitment pe

nalty Assign roles to actual agents

Argumentation Context: modeling Social Influence

Agent a0:• Obligation to provide:- c0 to an agent acting r1; obliged to pay 400 if decommitted.- c1 to an agent acting r1; obliged to pay 100 if decommitted.• Rights to demand:- c0 from an agent acting r1; right to demand 200 if decommitted.

Argumentation Context: modeling Social Influence Test how agents use argumentation to

manage and resolve conflicts created due to incomplete knowledge about their social influence

Provide only a subset of the agent-role map:

perfect knowledge (0% missing knowledge) Completely unaware of social influence (100% missing

knowledge)

Argumentation Context: Agent Interaction

An agent requires a certain capability will generate and forward proposals to another agent, asking him to sell its service in exchange for a certain reward (algorithm 1): propose (do (aj, θj), do (ai, m))

If the receiving agent perceives this proposal to be viable and believes it is capable of performing it, then will accept it. Otherwise it will reject the proposal (Algorithm 2).

Argumentation Context: Agent Interaction In case of a reject, the original proposing agent will attempt t

o forward a modified proposal. The interaction will end either when one of the proposals is accepted or when all valid proposals that the proposing agent can forward are rejected (Algorithm 3).

agents argue: (algorithm 4) detect conflicts by analyzing the decommitment penalties Try to resolve it by exchanging their respective justifications If there are inconsistencies, social arguments are used If they are both valid, then each agent would point-out alternative justifications via assert

ing missing knowledge The defeat-status is computed via a validation heuristic, which simulates a defeasible mo

del

Argumentation Context: Agent Interaction

Managing Social Influences

Demanding compensation:Right to demand compensation and the right to

challenge non-performance of social commitment

Managing Social Influences

Managing Social Influences Observation 1: The argumentation strategy allows agents to manage t

heir social influences even at high uncertainty levels. Observation 2: In cases of perfect information and complete uncertai

nty, both strategies perform equally. Observation 3: At all knowledge levels, the argumentation strategy ex

changes fewer messages than the non-arguing one.

Managing Social Influences

Managing Social Influences Observation 4: When there are more social influences within

the system, the performance benefit of arguing is only significant at high levels of knowledge incompleteness.

Managing Social Influences

Questioning non-performanceArgue-In-First-Rejection and Argue-In-Last-Rejection

Observation 5: The effectiveness of the various argumentation strategies are broadly similar

Observation 6: Allowing the agents to challenge earlier in the dialogue, significantly increases the efficiency of managing social influences.

Managing Social Influences

Conclusion The incomplete knowledge and the diverse conflicting influe

nces may prevent agents from negotiation

in order to function as a coherent society, agents require a mechanism to manage their social influences in a systematic manner.

Argumentation based approach improve the multi-agent system to form an agreement more effectively and efficiently.

Questions?

Thank you