Augusto Q. Novais

Negotiation among autonomous computational agents: principles, analysis and challenges

Automated negotiation systems with software agents representing individuals or organizations and capable of reaching agreements through negotiation are becoming increasingly important and pervasive. Examples, to mention a few, include the industrial trend toward agent-based supply chain management, the business trend toward virtual enterprises, and the pivotal role that electronic commerce is increasingly assuming in many organizations. Artificial intelligence (AI) researchers have paid a great deal of attention to automated negotiation over the past decade and a number of prominent models have been proposed in the literature. These models exhibit fairly different features, make use of a diverse range of concepts, and show performance characteristics that vary significantly depending on the negotiation context. As a consequence, assessing and relating individual research contributions is a difficult task. Currently, there is a need to build a framework to define and characterize the essential features that are necessary to conduct automated negotiation and to compare the usage of key concepts in different publications. Furthermore, the development of such a framework can be an important step to identify the core elements of autonomous negotiating agents, to provide a coherent set of concepts related to automated negotiation, to assess progress in the field, and to highlight new research directions. Accordingly, this paper introduces a generic framework for automated negotiation. It describes, in detail, the components of the framework, assesses the sophistication of the majority of work in the AI literature on these components, and discusses a number of prominent models of negotiation. This paper also highlights some of the major challenges for future automated negotiation research.

Towards a generic negotiation model for intentional agents

Intentional agents are charged with generating and executing intentionally plans of action towards the achievement of their goals. They operate in multi-agent systems and situations often arise in which their plans conflict with the plans of other agents. The predominant process for resolving conflicts is negotiation. This paper presents a generic negotiation mechanism, a new approach for defining a structure for negotiation problems, a method for generating negotiation proposals, and methods for generating counterproposals either by making or not making concessions.

Negotiation Among Autonomous Agents: Experimental Evaluation of Integrative Strategies

Autonomous agents generate plans towards the achievement of their goals and, over time, situations arise in which their plans conflict with the plans of other agents. Negotiation is the predominant process for resolving conflicts. This paper presents the key features of a negotiation model for autonomous agents. The model is generic, handles multi-party and multi-issue negotiation, acknowledges the role of conflict as a driving force of negotiation, formalizes a set of human negotiation procedures, allows the dynamic addition and removal of issues, and accounts for a tight integration of the individual capability of planning and the social capability of negotiation. This paper also describes an experiment conducted to evaluate a version of the model that handles two-party, multi-issue negotiation. The results confirmed a number of conclusions about human negotiation

Bilateral negotiation in a multi-agent energy market

Energy markets are systems for effecting the purchase and sale of electricity using supply and demand to set the price. A typical energy market involves a wholesale market for electricity generation, when competing generators offer their electricity output to retailers, and a retail market for electricity retailing, when end-use customers choose their supplier from competing electricity retailers. This paper addresses the challenges created by competitive energy markets towards ensuring the full benefits of deregulation. It presents a multi-agent energy market composed of multiple autonomous computational agents, each responsible for one or more market functions, and each interacting with other agents in the execution of their responsibilities. Additionally, the paper presents a negotiation model for autonomous agents. The model handles bilateral multi-issue negotiation and formalizes a set of negotiation strategies studied in the social sciences and frequently used by human negotiators.

Negotiation tactics for autonomous agents

Autonomous agents are being increasingly used in a wide range of applications. The agents operate in common environments and, over time, conflicts inevitably occur among them. Negotiation is the predominant process for solving conflicts. Recent growing interest in electronic commerce has also given increased importance to negotiation. This paper presents a generic negotiation mechanism that handles multiparty, multi-issue and single or repeated rounds and introduces a set of negotiation tactics that express the initial attitude of the agents and generate counterproposals either by making or not making concessions.

Negotiation among Autonomous Computational Agents

Autonomous agents are being increasingly used in a wide range of applications. Most applications involve or require multiple agents operating in complex environments and, over time, conflicts inevitably occur among them. Negotiation is the predominant process for resolving conflicts. Recent interest in electronic commerce has also given increased importance to negotiation. This paper presents a generic negotiation model for autonomous agents that handles multi-party, multi-issue and repeated rounds. The model is based on computationally tractable assumptions.

Towards an Interdisciplinary Framework for Automated Negotiation

Negotiation is an important and pervasive form of social interaction. The design of autonomous negotiating agents involves the consideration of insights from multiple relevant research areas to integrate different perspectives on negotiation. As a starting point for an interdisciplinary research effort, this paper presents a model that handles bilateral multi-issue negotiation, employs game-theoretic techniques to define equilibrium strategies for the bargaining game of alternating offers, and formalizes a set of negotiation strategies and tactics studied in the social sciences. Autonomous agents equipped with the model are currently being developed using the Jade framework. The agents are able to negotiate under both complete and incomplete information, thereby making the model in particular and the agents in general very compelling for automated negotiation.

Interdisciplinary approach to automated negotiation: a preliminary report

Autonomous agents with negotiation competence are becoming increasingly important and pervasive. This paper follows an interdisciplinary approach to build autonomous negotiating agents by considering both game-theoretic techniques and bargaining procedures from the social sciences. The paper presents a generic model that handles bilateral multi-issue negotiation, describes equilibrium strategies for the bargaining game of alternating offers, and formalizes important strategies used by human negotiators. Autonomous agents equipped with the model are able to negotiate under both complete and incomplete information, thereby making them very compelling for automated negotiation.

On the Empirical Evaluation of an Interdisciplinary Framework for Automated Negotiation

Negotiation is an important and pervasive form of social interaction. The task of designing and implementing autonomous agents with negotiation competence is usually understood as involving the consideration of insights from multiple relevant research areas to integrate different perspectives on negotiation. Hence, this paper uses both game-theoretic techniques and methods from the social sciences as a basis to develop autonomous negotiating agents. It employs game-theoretic techniques to define equilibrium strategies for the bargaining game of alternating offers, and formalizes a set of negotiation strategies and tactics studied in the social sciences and frequently used by human negotiators. This paper also lays the foundation for performing an experiment to investigate the behaviour of autonomous agents equipped with the strategies, paying particular attention to the quality and the cost of bargaining.

Automated Bilateral Negotiation and Bargaining Impasse

The design and implementation of autonomous negotiating agents involve the consideration of insights from multiple relevant research areas to integrate different perspectives on negotiation. As a starting point for an interdisciplinary research effort, this paper employs game-theoretic techniques to define equilibrium strategies for the bargaining game of alternating offers and formalizes a set of negotiation strategies studied in the social sciences. This paper also shifts the emphasis to negotiations that are “difficult” to resolve and can hit an impasse. Specifically, it analyses a situation where two agents bargain over the division of the surplus of several distinct issues to demonstrate how a procedure to avoid impasses can be utilized in a specific negotiation setting. The procedure is based on the addition of new issues to the agenda during the course of negotiation and the exploration of the differences in the valuation of these issues to capitalize on Pareto optimal agreements.