Towards Agent-Oriented Blockchains: Autonomous Smart Contracts

Features of blockchain technology (BCT) such as decentralisation, trust, fault tolerance, and accountability, are of paramount importance for multi-agent systems (MAS). In this paper we argue that a principled approach to MAS-BCT integration cannot overlook the foundational character of agency\u2014that is, autonomy. Accordingly, we present a custom BCT implementation where autonomy is placed in smart contracts (SC) interpreted as software agents. We show how agency can enhance SC expressiveness with autonomy, situatedness, sociality, and intelligence, and highlight the limitations of state-of-art BCT in supporting MAS design and implementation

Injecting (Micro)Intelligence in the IoT: Logic-Based Approaches for (M)MAS

Pervasiveness of ICT resources along with the promise of ubiquitous intelligence is pushing hard both our demand and our fears of AI: demand mandates for the ability to inject (micro) intelligence ubiquitously, fears compel the behaviour of intelligent systems to be observable, explainable, and accountable. Whereas the first wave of the new \u201cAI Era\u201d was mostly heralded by sub-symbolic approaches, features like explainability are better provided by symbolic techniques. In this paper we focus on logic-based approaches, and discuss their potential in pervasive scenarios like the IoT and open (M)MAS along with our latest results in the field