Human-Agent Decision-making: Combining Theory and Practice

Extensive work has been conducted both in game theory and logic to model strategic interaction. An important question is whether we can use these theories to design agents for interacting with people? On the one hand, they provide a formal design specification for agent strategies. On the other hand, people do not necessarily adhere to playing in accordance with these strategies, and their behavior is affected by a multitude of social and psychological factors. In this paper we will consider the question of whether strategies implied by theories of strategic behavior can be used by automated agents that interact proficiently with people. We will focus on automated agents that we built that need to interact with people in two negotiation settings: bargaining and deliberation. For bargaining we will study game-theory based equilibrium agents and for argumentation we will discuss logic-based argumentation theory. We will also consider security games and persuasion games and will discuss the benefits of using equilibrium based agents.Comment: In Proceedings TARK 2015, arXiv:1606.0729

"Hegelian Buddhist Hypertextual Media Inhabitation, or, Criticism in the Age of Electronic Immersion"

What can it mean to criticize when you are inside the work itself? In a immersive electronic or digital environment critic is not distanced on a platform based on firm principles. Yet criticism self-awareness and commentary remain possible. This essay examines various techniques for dealing with immersive environments critically

An Agent Architecture for Concurrent Bilateral Negotiations

Abstract. We present an architecture that makes use of symbolic decision-making to support agents participating in concurrent bilateral negotiations. The architecture is a revised version of previous work with the KGP model [23, 12], which we specialise with knowledge about the agent’s self, the negotiation opponents and the environment. Our work combines the specification of domain-independent decision-making with a new protocol for concurrent negotiation that revisits the well-known alternating offers protocol [22]. We show how the decision-making can be specialised to represent the agent’s strategies, utilities and prefer-ences using a Prolog-like meta-program. The work prepares the ground for supporting decision-making in concurrent bilateral negotiations that is more lightweight than previous work and contributes towards a fully developed model of the architecture

Analyzing Exploratory Talk as a Socio-Cognitive Practice: Identity, Group Argumentation, and Class Debate Quality

This paper addresses the appraisal of the quality of student debate about a socio-scientific issue, with a focus on the interactional factor. The “scientific café” pedagogical situation offers an opportunity for observing the circulation of arguments from small group to class-level debate, indicating the quality of group reasoning. We use Mercer and Wegerif’s typology of student talk (exploratory, cumulative, disputational) and study the attitude toward self-identity needed to engage in exploratory talk. Such a positioning is conceptualized as being associated to specific politeness rules and face-preservation system. Three case studies held in an American and a French high schools explore the boundaries between those 3 categories and questions which units of analysis are relevant for assessing students’ argumentation. The paper provides methodological tools to apply this typology to authentic students’ interactions, where students’ engagement in a specific group talk type is both a matter of cognitive skills and perceived relevancy in a given social context. We propose a refinement of the analytical categories that allows studying students’ argumentation at different time scales (interactional phase, sequence, subsequence) and social levels (group talk, individual self-identity footing, and repercussions on class debate)

Social media, protest cultures and political subjectivities of the Arab spring

This article draws on phenomenological perspectives to present a case against resisting the objectification of cultures of protest and dissent. The generative, self-organizing properties of protest cultures, especially as mobilized through social media, are frequently argued to elude both authoritarian political structures and academic discourse, leading to new political subjectivities or ‘imaginaries’. Stemming from a normative commitment not to over-determine such nascent subjectivities, this view has taken on a heightened resonance in relation to the recent popular uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa. The article argues that this view is based on an invalid assumption that authentic political subjectivities and cultures naturally emerge from an absence of constraint, whether political, journalistic or academic. The valorisation of amorphousness in protest cultures and social media enables affective and political projection, but overlooks politics in its institutional, professional and procedural forms

Linguistic Harbingers of Betrayal: A Case Study on an Online Strategy Game

Interpersonal relations are fickle, with close friendships often dissolving into enmity. In this work, we explore linguistic cues that presage such transitions by studying dyadic interactions in an online strategy game where players form alliances and break those alliances through betrayal. We characterize friendships that are unlikely to last and examine temporal patterns that foretell betrayal. We reveal that subtle signs of imminent betrayal are encoded in the conversational patterns of the dyad, even if the victim is not aware of the relationship's fate. In particular, we find that lasting friendships exhibit a form of balance that manifests itself through language. In contrast, sudden changes in the balance of certain conversational attributes---such as positive sentiment, politeness, or focus on future planning---signal impending betrayal.Comment: To appear at ACL 2015. 10pp, 4 fig. Data and other info available at http://vene.ro/betrayal

Recovery and Reconstruction of Principles of Academic Debate as Dialectical Model: An Outline of a Procedural Model of Argumentative Rationality

Academic debate theory has developed over 125 years. According to debate theory, reasonable argumentation satisfies six obligations: (1) self-administration; (2) making prima facie/presumptively adequate moves; (3) clash; (4) meeting the burden of proof; (5) rejoinder/rebuttal; and (6) extension. These obligations define a kind of procedural rationality of argumentation distinct from the kinds of rationality elaborated by logical and rhetorical theories. Those obligations are grounded in the pragmatics of conversation and visible in debate practice

Reasoning in Design: Idea Generation Condition Effects on Reasoning Processes and Evaluation of Ideas

Reasoning is at the core of design activity and thinking. Thus, understanding and explaining reasoning in design is fundamental to understand and support design practice. This paper investigates reasoning in design and its relationship to varying foci at the stage of idea generation and subsequent performance of ideas developed. Understanding reasoning in design and its relationship to the performance of ideas generated is important to understand design activity, which can be used to develop tools or methods that can improve the effectiveness of design teams. Protocol analyses were conducted to investigate idea generation sessions of two industry cases. Reasoning was found to appear in sequences of alternating reasoning types where the initiating reasoning type was decisive. The study found that abductive reasoning led to more radical ideas, whereas deductive reasoning led to ideas being for project requirements, but having a higher proportion being rejected as not valuable. The study sheds light on the conditions that promote these reasoning types. The study is one of the first of its kind and advances an understanding of reasoning in design by empirical means and suggests a relationship between reasoning and idea performance. Findings of the study further allows for a way to analyse and improve the performance of idea generation in design teams