DAI-List Digest Monday, 29 July 1991 Issue Number 44 Topics: Query on Trust among Agents Query on Multiagent Systems & Coop. Distr. Problem Solving Please send submissions to DAI-List@mcc.com. Send other requests, such as changes in your e-mail address, to DAI-List-Request@mcc.com. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: steve@canon.co.uk (Steve Marsh) Subject: Trust Keywords: agents trust cooperation Date: 29 Jul 91 12:34:16 GMT Organization: Canon Research Europe, Guildford, UK Hi, I have a request. Does anyone know of any work being done on trust, and the effects it can have on inter-'agent' relationships? Specifically, I'd like to know of any work in the distributed AI area, but anyone's thoughts on the subject would be interesting and useful. I've written a few questions down that may help along the way... How does trust enter into relationships? Is trust an important factor in interagent discussions and communications? How are cliques formed? (What role does trust play in this?) Is a clique more succesful than an individual? Why? Do we have different levels of trust? Do we have different levels of information-secrecy? (And relate this to trust levels?) Thanks for your help. Steve (Sorry if you've read this more than once. I need some feedback...) Steve Marsh. Temporarily in residence at steve@canon.co.uk. (But really I'm spm@cs.stir.ac.uk, honest!) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: Farhad Heidari Date: Mon, 29 Jul 91 09:47:16 BST Subject: MultiAgent Systems & Coop. Distr. Problem Solving PLEASE HELP ME CLARIFY THE CONCEPTUAL DIFFERNCE BETWEEN (MA) AND (CDPS). Referring to papers on Distributed Artificial Intelligence by Edmund H. Durfee, Victor R. Lesser, and Daniel D. Corkill, CDPS is defined as a research on how a loosely coupled network of problem solvers can work together to solve problems that are beyond their individual capabilities. In CDPS, the agents or nodes have not always a global problem to solve or a global goal to achieve as in Distributed Problem Solving (DPS), but the agents may pursue their own set of local goals and the systems' global behaviour may evolve thanks to the interactions between the agents. On the other hand, A.H. Bond and L. Gasser divide the world of DAI into two primary arenas: Distibuted Problem Solving (DPS) and MultiAgent systems (MA). In the second arena, (MA), research is concerned with coordinate intelligent behaviour among a collection of (possibly pre-existing) autonomous intelligent agents how they can cooprdinate their knowledge, goals, skills and plans jointly to take action or to solve problems. The agents may be working toward a single global goal, or toward separte individual goals that interact. Now is there any difference between these two concepts? If yes, please clarify.