A comparative study of game theoretic and evolutionary models for software agents

Most of the existing work in the study of bargaining behaviour uses techniques from game theory. Game theoretic models for bargaining assume that players are perfectly rational and that this rationality in common knowledge. However, the perfect rationality assumption does not hold for real-life bargaining scenarios with humans as players, since results from experimental economics show that humans find their way to the best strategy through trial and error, and not typically by means of rational deliberation. Such players are said to be boundedly rational. In playing a game against an opponent with bounded rationality, the most effective strategy of a player is not the equilibrium strategy but the one that is the best reply to the opponent's strategy. The evolutionary model provides a means for studying the bargaining behaviour of boundedly rational players. This paper provides a comprehensive comparison of the game theoretic and evolutionary approaches to bargaining by examining their assumptions, goals, and limitations. We then study the implications of these differences from the perspective of the software agent developer

Mechanisms for Automated Negotiation in State Oriented Domains

This paper lays part of the groundwork for a domain theory of negotiation, that is, a way of classifying interactions so that it is clear, given a domain, which negotiation mechanisms and strategies are appropriate. We define State Oriented Domains, a general category of interaction. Necessary and sufficient conditions for cooperation are outlined. We use the notion of worth in an altered definition of utility, thus enabling agreements in a wider class of joint-goal reachable situations. An approach is offered for conflict resolution, and it is shown that even in a conflict situation, partial cooperative steps can be taken by interacting agents (that is, agents in fundamental conflict might still agree to cooperate up to a certain point). A Unified Negotiation Protocol (UNP) is developed that can be used in all types of encounters. It is shown that in certain borderline cooperative situations, a partial cooperative agreement (i.e., one that does not achieve all agents' goals) might be preferred by all agents, even though there exists a rational agreement that would achieve all their goals. Finally, we analyze cases where agents have incomplete information on the goals and worth of other agents. First we consider the case where agents' goals are private information, and we analyze what goal declaration strategies the agents might adopt to increase their utility. Then, we consider the situation where the agents' goals (and therefore stand-alone costs) are common knowledge, but the worth they attach to their goals is private information. We introduce two mechanisms, one 'strict', the other 'tolerant', and analyze their affects on the stability and efficiency of negotiation outcomes.Comment: See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying file

Towards a quantitative concession-based classification method of negotiation strategies

In order to successfully reach an agreement in a negotiation, both parties rely on each other to make concessions. The willingness to concede also depends in large part on the opponent. A concession by the opponent may be reciprocated, but the negotiation process may also be frustrated if the opponent does not concede at all.This process of concession making is a central theme in many of the classic and current automated negotiation strategies. In this paper, we present a quantitative classification method of negotiation strategies that measures the willingness of an agent to concede against different types of opponents. The method is then applied to classify some well-known negotiating strategies, including the agents of ANAC 2010. It is shown that the technique makes it easy to identify the main characteristics of negotiation agents, and can be used to group negotiation strategies into categories with common negotiation characteristics. We also observe, among other things, that different kinds of opponents call for a different approach in making concession

Knowledge and Information Economy, Welfare and governance: the economic nature of Intellectual Property Rights

В даній статті аналізуються підходи до оцінки економічної природи інтелектуальної власності та її використання з урахуванням економічної категорії благополуччя. Зокрема в статті доведено, що транзакційні витрати використання нематеріальних активів, зокрема прав інтелектуальної вартості значно перевищують витрати пов’язні на їх державне регулювання. Ефективність державного регулювання (ліцензування, обмеження, контроль, власність держави) значно перевищує витрати на переговори між контрагентами по впровадженню інтелектуальних прав власності. В дослідженнях «неокласиків» по просуванню інтелектуальних прав власності враховуються лише витрати на виробництво, проте транзакційні витрати ринкових механізмів не беруться до уваги. В роботі доведено, що підходи неокласичної економічної школи не можуть використовуватися для оцінки таких комплексних товарів як нематеріальні активи. Теоретичні результати дослідження полягають в тому, що приватні переговори та ринкова ефективність використання прав інтелектуальної власності не можуть бути досягнуті без інституціонального втручання, тобто без державного регулювання, необхідного для підтримки умов соціальної справедливості. Проблема забезпечення ефективності функціонування інтелектуальних прав власності полягає не лише в урахуванні виробничих витрат, а навпаки, необхідно брати до уваги транзакційні та колективні витрати. Враховуючи всю комплексність нематеріального капіталу в роботі показано обмеження теорії Коуза та обґрунтовано її відмінності з теорією Вільямсона для нематеріальних активів. Зокрема, що стосується теорії Коуза, доведено необхідність використання інституціонального посередника та регулятора для досягнення соціальної та ринкової ефективності. Ринкові механізми довели свою низьку ефективність при регулюванні та функціонуванні такої категорії благ як нематеріальні активи. В висновках можна стверджувати, що для інтелектуальних прав власності приватні переговори та ринкові механізми просування зазначених категорій товарів не забезпечують бажаний соціальний ефект, основною причиною ринкових провалів можна назвати специфіку та комплексність нематеріальних активів, неповноту та асиметричність інформації. Проведений аналіз може бути використаний в різних сферах пов’язаних з нематеріальними активами: просування товарів екологічної спрямованості, культурні товари, освітні послуги, виробництво інформації, економіка Інтернету. При цитуванні документа, використовуйте посилання http://essuir.sumdu.edu.ua/handle/123456789/9144This paper will study the different conceptions about economic nature of (Intelectual) Property Rights, and the implications in regard to Welfare. This analysis may be applied in various fields concerned with intangible components: ecology, cultural goods, knowledge and information production, internet economics, for example. In regard to the complexity of these types of intangible capital, I will show the limits of the private negotiation inspired in Coase´s approach, and underline the opposition between this approach and the Williamson´s one. При цитировании документа, используйте ссылку http://essuir.sumdu.edu.ua/handle/123456789/914

Acceptance conditions in automated negotiation

In every negotiation with a deadline, one of the negotiating parties has to accept an offer to avoid a break off. A break off is usually an undesirable outcome for both parties, therefore it is important that a negotiator employs a proficient mechanism to decide under which conditions to accept. When designing such conditions one is faced with the acceptance dilemma: accepting the current offer may be suboptimal, as better offers may still be presented. On the other hand, accepting too late may prevent an agreement from being reached, resulting in a break off with no gain for either party. Motivated by the challenges of bilateral negotiations between automated agents and by the results and insights of the automated negotiating agents competition (ANAC), we classify and compare state-of-the-art generic acceptance conditions. We focus on decoupled acceptance conditions, i.e. conditions that do not depend on the bidding strategy that is used. We performed extensive experiments to compare the performance of acceptance conditions in combination with a broad range of bidding strategies and negotiation domains. Furthermore we propose new acceptance conditions and we demonstrate that they outperform the other conditions that we study. In particular, it is shown that they outperform the standard acceptance condition of comparing the current offer with the offer the agent is ready to send out. We also provide insight in to why some conditions work better than others and investigate correlations between the properties of the negotiation environment and the efficacy of acceptance condition

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

Advances in Negotiation Theory: Bargaining, Coalitions and Fairness

Bargaining is ubiquitous in real-life. It is a major dimension of political and business activities. It appears at the international level, when governments negotiate on matters ranging from economic issues (such as the removal of trade barriers), to global security (such as fighting against terrorism) to environmental and related issues (e.g. climate change control). What factors determine the outcome of negotiations such as those mentioned above? What strategies can help reach an agreement? How should the parties involved divide the gains from cooperation? With whom will one make alliances? This paper addresses these questions by focusing on a non-cooperative approach to negotiations, which is particularly relevant for the study of international negotiations. By reviewing noncooperative bargaining theory, non-cooperative coalition theory, and the theory of fair division, this paper will try to identify the connection among these different facets of the same problem in an attempt to facilitate the progress towards a unified framework.Negotiation theory, Bragaining, Coalitions, Fairness, Agreements

Advances in negotiation theory : bargaining, coalitions, and fairness

Bargaining is ubiquitous in real life. It is a major dimension of political and business activities. It appears at the international level, when governments negotiate on matters ranging from economic issues (such as the removal of trade barriers), to global security (such as fighting against terrorism) to environmental and related issues (such as climate change control). What factors determinethe outcomes of such negotiations? What strategies can help reach an agreement? How should the parties involved divide the gains from cooperation? With whom will one make alliances? The authors address these questions by focusing on a noncooperative approach to negotiations, which is particularly relevant for the study of international negotiations. By reviewing noncooperative bargaining theory, noncooperative coalition theory, and the theory of fair division, they try to identify the connections among these different facets of the same problem in an attempt to facilitate progress toward a unified framework.Economic Theory&Research,Social Protections&Assistance,Environmental Economics&Policies,Scientific Research&Science Parks,Science Education

An Evolutionary Learning Approach for Adaptive Negotiation Agents

Developing effective and efficient negotiation mechanisms for real-world applications such as e-Business is challenging since negotiations in such a context are characterised by combinatorially complex negotiation spaces, tough deadlines, very limited information about the opponents, and volatile negotiator preferences. Accordingly, practical negotiation systems should be empowered by effective learning mechanisms to acquire dynamic domain knowledge from the possibly changing negotiation contexts. This paper illustrates our adaptive negotiation agents which are underpinned by robust evolutionary learning mechanisms to deal with complex and dynamic negotiation contexts. Our experimental results show that GA-based adaptive negotiation agents outperform a theoretically optimal negotiation mechanism which guarantees Pareto optimal. Our research work opens the door to the development of practical negotiation systems for real-world applications