Agents in decentralised information ecosystems:the diet approach

Abstract

The complexity of the current global information infrastructure requires novel means of understanding and exploiting the dynamics of information. One means may be through the concept of an information ecosystem. An information ecosystem is analo gous to a natural ecosystem in which there are flo ws of materials and energy analo gous to information flow between many interacting individuals. This paper describes a multi-agent platform, DIET (Decentralised Information Ecosystem Technologies) that can be used to implement open, robust, adaptive and scalable ecosystem-inspired systems. We describe the design principles of the DIET software architecture, and present a simple example application based upon it. We go on to consider how the DIET system can be used to develop information brokering agents, and how these can contribute to the implementation of economic interactions between agents, as well as identifying some open questions relating to research in these areas. In this way we show the capacity of the DIET system to support applications using information agents.Future and Emerging Technologies arm of the IST Programme of the European Union, under the FET Proactive Initiative – Universal Information Ecosystems (FET, 1999), through project DIET (IST -1999-10088), BTexaCT Intelligent Systems Laboratory for stimulating discussion and comment