scholarly journals Incentive-Compatible Mechanisms for Norm Monitoring in Open Multi-Agent Systems (Extended Abstract)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natasha Alechina ◽  
Joseph Y. Halpern ◽  
Ian A. Kash ◽  
Brian Logan
Keyword(s):  
Multi Agent Systems ◽  
Agent Systems ◽  
Norm Violations ◽  
Incentive Compatible ◽  
Multi Agent

We consider the problem of detecting norm violations in open multi-agent systems (MAS). In this extended abstract, we outline the approach of [Alechina et al., 2018], and show how, using ideas from scrip systems, we can design mechanisms where the agents comprising the MAS are incentivised to monitor the actions of other agents for norm violations.

scholarly journals Incentive-Compatible Mechanisms for Norm Monitoring in Open Multi-Agent Systems

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 ◽  
pp. 433-458
Author(s):  
Natasha Alechina ◽  
Joseph Y. Halpern ◽  
Ian A. Kash ◽  
Brian Logan
Keyword(s):  
Steady State ◽  
Multi Agent Systems ◽  
Agent Systems ◽  
Norm Violations ◽  
Incentive Compatible ◽  
Norm Violation ◽  
Multi Agent ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Perfect Monitoring ◽  
Theoretical Results

We consider the problem of detecting norm violations in open multi-agent systems (MAS). We show how, using ideas from scrip systems, we can design mechanisms where the agents comprising the MAS are incentivised to monitor the actions of other agents for norm violations. The cost of providing the incentives is not borne by the MAS and does not come from fines charged for norm violations (fines may be impossible to levy in a system where agents are free to leave and rejoin again under a different identity). Instead, monitoring incentives come from (scrip) fees for accessing the services provided by the MAS. In some cases, perfect monitoring (and hence enforcement) can be achieved: no norms will be violated in equilibrium. In other cases, we show that, while it is impossible to achieve perfect enforcement, we can get arbitrarily close; we can make the probability of a norm violation in equilibrium arbitrarily small. We show using simulations that our theoretical results, which apply to systems with a large number of agents, hold for multi-agent systems with as few as 1000 agents–the system rapidly converges to the steady-state distribution of scrip tokens necessary to ensure monitoring and then remains close to the steady state.

scholarly journals Resource-bounded Norm Monitoring In Multi-agent Systems

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 ◽  
pp. 153-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia Criado
Keyword(s):  
Incomplete Information ◽  
Multi Agent Systems ◽  
Sociotechnical System ◽  
Agent Systems ◽  
Norm Violations ◽  
Norm Compliance ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Multi Agent ◽  
Bounded Norm

Norms allow system designers to specify the desired behaviour of a sociotechnical system. In this way, norms regulate what the social and technical agents in a sociotechnical system should (not) do. In this context, a vitally important question is the development of mechanisms for monitoring whether these agents comply with norms. Proposals on norm monitoring often assume that monitoring has no costs and/or that monitors have unlimited resources to observe the environment and the actions performed by agents. In this paper, we challenge this assumption and propose the first practical resource-bounded norm monitor. Our monitor is capable of selecting the resources to be deployed and use them to check norm compliance with incomplete information about the actions performed and the state of the world. We formally demonstrate the correctness and soundness of our norm monitor and study its complexity. We also demonstrate in randomised simulations and benchmark experiments that our monitor can select monitored resources effectively and efficiently, detecting more norm violations and fulfilments than other tractable optimization approaches and obtaining slightly worse results than intractable optimal approaches.

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