Abstract
In the paper we introduce a quantitative measure of autonomy in multiagent interactions. We quantify and analyse different types of agent autonomy: (a) decision autonomy versus action autonomy, (b) autonomy with respect to an agent’s user, (c) autonomy with respect to other agents and groups of agents, and (d) a measure of group autonomy that accounts for the degree with which one group depends on another group. We analyse the problem of composing multiagent group with maximum overall autonomy and we prove that this problem is NP-complete. Therefore, finding the optimal group or agent with whom to share a task (or to whom to delegate a task) is in general computationally hard.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Reference
Banzhaf, J. 1965. Weighted Voting Doesn’t Work: A Mathematical Analysis. Rutgers Law Review 19:317–343.
Barber, S., Martin, C. 1999. Agent Autonomy: Specification, Measurement, and Dynamic Adjustment. In Proceedings of the Autonomy Control Software Workshop, Agents ′99, pp. 8–15. May 1-5,1999, Seattle, WA.
Brainov S., Sandholm T. 1999. Power, Dependence and Stability in Multiagent Plans. In Proceedings of AAA1 ′99, pp. 11–16, Orlando, Florida.
Castelfranchi, C. 1990. Social Power. In Demazeau Y. and Mller J.-P. eds. Decentralized AI Proceedings of the First European Workshop on Modeling Autonomous Agents in a Multi-Agent World, pp. 49–62. Elsevier Science Publishers.
Castelfranchi, C, 1995 Guaranties for Autonomy in Cognitive Agent Architecture. In N. Big SkyJennings and M. Wooldridge (eds.) Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages, pp. 56–70, Spinger-Verlag.
Castelfranchi, C. 2000. Founding Agent’s Autonomy on Dependence Theory, In proceedings of ECAI’01, pp. 353–357, Berlin.
Cormen, T., Leiserson, C, Rivest, R. 1990. Introduction to Algorithms. MIT Press.
Dworkin, G. 1988. The Theory and Practice of Autonomy. Cambridge.
Fishburn, P. 1970. Decision Theory for Decision Making. John Wiley and Sons.
Hexmoor, H. 2000a. A Cognitive Model of Situated Autonomy. In Proceedings of PR1CA1-2000 Workshop on Teams with Adjustable Autonomy, Australia.
Hexmoor, H. 2000b. Towards Empirical Evaluation of Tradeoffs between Agent Qualities, In PRJMA-2000, (C.Big SkyZhang and V. Woo, eds), LNAI Volume 1881, Australia.
Hexmoor, H., Duchscherer, H. 2001. Efficiency as Motivation for Teaming, In Proceedings of FLAIRS 2001, AAAI press.
Hexmoor, H., Kortenkamp, D. 2000. Autonomy Control Software, An introductory article of the special issue of Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence, Kluwer.
Jennings, N., Sycara, K., Wooldridge, M. 1998. A Roadmap of Agent Research and Development. Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, 1:7–38.
Meyers, D. Self, Society and Personal Choice. Columbia University Press, 1989.
Mele, A. 1995. Autonomous Agents: From Self-Control to Autonomy. Oxford University Press.
Sandholm, T., Larson, K., Anderson, M., Schehory, O., Tohme, F. 1999. Coalition Structure Generation with Worst Case Guarantees. Artificial Intelligence, 111: 209–238.
Schneewind, J. B., 1997. The Invention of Autonomy: A History of Modern Moral Philosophy, Cambridge Univ. Press.
Shapley, L., Shubik, M. 1954. A Method for Evaluating the Distribution of Power in a Committee System. American Political Science Review, 48:787–792.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2003 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Braynov, S., Hexmoor, H. (2003). Quantifying Relative Autonomy in Multiagent Interaction. In: Hexmoor, H., Castelfranchi, C., Falcone, R. (eds) Agent Autonomy. Multiagent Systems, Artificial Societies, and Simulated Organizations, vol 7. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9198-0_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9198-0_4
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4613-4833-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-9198-0
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive