Welcome to the new version of CaltechAUTHORS. Login is currently restricted to library staff. If you notice any issues, please email coda@library.caltech.edu
Published April 1990 | public
Book Section - Chapter

A computational model for organizations of cooperating intelligent agents

Bond, Alan H.

Abstract

A computational model is developed, which captures properties of relationship and organization in sets of distributed intelligent agents. The model is inspired by sociological theory, and uses centrally a concept of commitment. Symbolic interactionist concepts in sociology are reviewed from the perspective of Distributed Artificial Intelligence. This includes the work of Anselm Strauss and Elihu Gerson. A formulation of the concept of commitment is proposed. The concept is propagated into notions of agent and organization. A formulation and computational model of the basic notion of commitment is given, which represents commitments as mutually agreed constraints on action, belief and world state. The issues of agent integrity, plans and resources, and their representation, are then discussed, and computational mechanisms defined. An organization is defined as a set of agents with consistent mutual commitments. A mechanism is defined to check and enforce the consistency of these commitments.

Additional Information

© 1990 ACM. I am very grateful to my colleague and friend, Professor Les Gasser of University of Southern California, for continuing discussions and collaboration on DA1 issues, and for introducing me to the concept of commitment, and for pointing out Eli Gerson's paper. This research was supported by the Caltech Concurrent Computation Program, directed by Professor Geoffrey Fox, to whom I am also very grateful.

Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 20, 2023