Skip to main content

Argumentation Strategies for Task Delegation

  • Conference paper
  • 900 Accesses

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 7541))

Abstract

What argument(s) do I put forward in order to persuade another agent to do something for me? This is an important question for an autonomous agent collaborating with others to solve a problem. How effective were similar arguments in convincing similar agents in similar circumstances? What are the risks associated with putting certain arguments forward? Can agents exploit evidence derived from past dialogues to improve the outcome of delegation decisions? In this paper, we present an agent decision-making mechanism where models of other agents are refined through evidence derived from dialogues, and where these models are used to guide future argumentation strategy. We combine argumentation, machine learning and decision theory in a novel way that enables agents to reason about constraints (e.g., policies) that others are operating within, and make informed decisions about whom to delegate a task to. We demonstrate the utility of this novel approach through empirical evaluation in a plan resourcing domain. Our evaluation shows that a combination of decision-theoretic and machine learning techniques can significantly help to improve dialogical outcomes.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Buying options

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   72.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Amgoud, L., Parsons, S., Maudet, N.: Argument, dialogues and negotiation. In: Horn, W. (ed.) Proceedings of European Conference on Artificial Intelligence 2000, pp. 338–342. IOS Press, Amsterdam (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Blum, A.L., Langley, P.: Selection of relevant features and examples in machine learning. Artificial Intelligence 97(1-2), 245–271 (1997)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  3. Emele, C.D., Norman, T.J., Guerin, F., Parsons, S.: On the Benefits of Argumentation-Derived Evidence in Learning Policies. In: McBurney, P., Rahwan, I., Parsons, S. (eds.) ArgMAS 2010. LNCS, vol. 6614, pp. 86–104. Springer, Heidelberg (2011)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  4. Grosz, B., Kraus, S.: Collaborative plans for group activities. In: Proceedings of the 13th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, pp. 367–373 (1993)

    Google Scholar 

  5. McBurney, P., Parsons, S.: Games that agents play: A formal framework for dialogues between autonomous agents. Journal of Logic, Language and Information 12(2), 315–334 (2002)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  6. Mitchell, T.M.: Machine Learning. McGraw Hill (1997)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Možina, M., Žabkar, J., Bratko, I.: Argument based machine learning. Art. Intel. 171(10-15), 922–937 (2007)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  8. Norman, T.J., Reed, C.: A logic of delegation. Art. Intel. 174(1), 51–71 (2010)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  9. Oren, N., Norman, T.J., Preece, A.: Loose lips sink ships: A heuristic for argumentation. In: Proc. of the 3rd Int’l Workshop on ArgMAS, pp. 121–134 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Ren, L., Shakhnarovich, G., Hodgins, J.K., Pfister, H., Viola, P.: Learning silhouette features for control of human motion. ACM Trans. Graph. 24(4), 1303–1331 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Schneier, B.: Applied Cryptography: Protocols, Algorithms, and Source Code in C. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York (1993)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  12. Sensoy, M., Zhang, J., Yolum, P., Cohen, R.: Context-aware service selection under deception. Computational Intelligence 25(4), 335–364 (2009)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  13. Sycara, K., Norman, T.J., Giampapa, J.A., Kollingbaum, M.J., Burnett, C., Masato, D., McCallum, M., Strub, M.H.: Agent support for policy-driven collaborative mission planning. The Computer Journal 53(5), 528–540 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Walton, D.N., Krabbe, E.C.W.: Commitment in Dialogue: Basic Concepts of Interpersonal Reasoning. SUNY Press, USA (1995)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Witten, I.H., Frank, E.: Data Mining: Practical machine learning tools and techniques, 2nd edn. Morgan Kaufmann (2005)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Emele, C.D., Norman, T.J., Parsons, S. (2012). Argumentation Strategies for Task Delegation. In: Cossentino, M., Kaisers, M., Tuyls, K., Weiss, G. (eds) Multi-Agent Systems. EUMAS 2011. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 7541. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-34799-3_6

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-34799-3_6

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-34798-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-34799-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics