Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-8mjnm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-17T12:28:52.691Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Argumentation-based negotiation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 October 2004

IYAD RAHWAN
Affiliation:
Department of Information System, University of Melbourne, Parkville 3010, Australia. E-mail: i.rahwan@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au, l.sonenberg@dis.unimelb.edu.au
SARVAPALI D. RAMCHURN
Affiliation:
School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK. E-mail: sdr01r@ecs.soton.ac.uk, nrj@ecs.soton.ac.uk
NICHOLAS R. JENNINGS
Affiliation:
School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK. E-mail: sdr01r@ecs.soton.ac.uk, nrj@ecs.soton.ac.uk
PETER McBURNEY
Affiliation:
Department of Computer Science, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 7ZF, UK. E-mail: p.j.mcburney@csc.liv.ac.uk
SIMON PARSONS
Affiliation:
Department of Computer and Information Science, Brooklyn College, City University of New York, Brooklyn, NY 11210, USA. E-mail: parsons@sci.brooklyn.cuny.edu
LIZ SONENBERG
Affiliation:
Department of Information System, University of Melbourne, Parkville 3010, Australia. E-mail: i.rahwan@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au, l.sonenberg@dis.unimelb.edu.au

Abstract

Negotiation is essential in settings where autonomous agents have conflicting interests and a desire to cooperate. For this reason, mechanisms in which agents exchange potential agreements according to various rules of interaction have become very popular in recent years as evident, for example, in the auction and mechanism design community. However, a growing body of research is now emerging which points out limitations in such mechanisms and advocates the idea that agents can increase the likelihood and quality of an agreement by exchanging arguments which influence each others' states. This community further argues that argument exchange is sometimes essential when various assumptions about agent rationality cannot be satisfied. To this end, in this article, we identify the main research motivations and ambitions behind work in the field. We then provide a conceptual framework through which we outline the core elements and features required by agents engaged in argumentation-based negotiation, as well as the environment that hosts these agents. For each of these elements, we survey and evaluate existing proposed techniques in the literature and highlight the major challenges that need to be addressed if argument-based negotiation research is to reach its full potential.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2004 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)