scholarly journals Modelling Bounded Rationality in Multi-Agent Interactions by Generalized Recursive Reasoning

Author(s):  
Ying Wen ◽  
Yaodong Yang ◽  
Jun Wang

Though limited in real-world decision making, most multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) models assume perfectly rational agents -- a property hardly met due to individual's cognitive limitation and/or the tractability of the decision problem. In this paper, we introduce generalized recursive reasoning (GR2) as a novel framework to model agents with different \emph{hierarchical} levels of rationality; our framework enables agents to exhibit varying levels of ``thinking'' ability thereby allowing higher-level agents to best respond to various less sophisticated learners. We contribute both theoretically and empirically. On the theory side, we devise the hierarchical framework of GR2 through probabilistic graphical models and prove the existence of a perfect Bayesian equilibrium. Within the GR2, we propose a practical actor-critic solver, and demonstrate its convergent property to a stationary point in two-player games through Lyapunov analysis. On the empirical side, we validate our findings on a variety of MARL benchmarks. Precisely, we first illustrate the hierarchical thinking process on the Keynes Beauty Contest, and then demonstrate significant improvements compared to state-of-the-art opponent modeling baselines on the normal-form games and the cooperative navigation benchmark.

Author(s):  
Chenghu Ma ◽  
Wing-Keung Wong

This paper provides a theoretical foundation for complete/incomplete contracts to extend game theory for multi-agent interactions. We explain why rational agents may agree to sign incomplete contracts even though signing a complete contract incurs no cost. Some arguments claim that an incomplete contract creates strategic uncertainty. Under common assumptions of rationality, an incomplete contract can be the final solution if the agents’ attitudes toward uncertainty are not neutral. Assuming that agents can form coalitions by participating in the game and they are uncertainty averse, we develop equilibrium solutions for complete/incomplete contracts in an extensive game of multi-agent interactions.


2002 ◽  
Vol 01 (03) ◽  
pp. 457-471 ◽  
Author(s):  
JEAN-LUC KONING

While there are already literature surveys upon agent-mediated electronic commerce applications, none have specifically tackled the issue from an interaction perspective or looked at how the control is distributed among the agents. This state-of-the-art survey focuses on how agent interactions are handled. First, it deeply looks at how methods for enforcing the actions taken by agents have been dealt with, namely protocols, negotiation and auction. Second, it defines the various types of communication languages used in multi-agent market architectures. The three main alternatives are KQML, ACL and FLBC. A comparison is then made between them and shows how much they suite their purpose. Third, this paper highlights how the current electronic commerce applications provide explicit and integrated support for complex agent interactions and present several virtual institutions where agents are engaged in multiple bilateral negotiations. Finally, it discusses some related research perspectives and identify some limitations.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-41
Author(s):  
Dr. S. Sarika ◽  

Phishing is a malicious and deliberate act of sending counterfeit messages or mimicking a webpage. The goal is either to steal sensitive credentials like login information and credit card details or to install malware on a victim’s machine. Browser-based cyber threats have become one of the biggest concerns in networked architectures. The most prolific form of browser attack is tabnabbing which happens in inactive browser tabs. In a tabnabbing attack, a fake page disguises itself as a genuine page to steal data. This paper presents a multi agent based tabnabbing detection technique. The method detects heuristic changes in a webpage when a tabnabbing attack happens and give a warning to the user. Experimental results show that the method performs better when compared with state of the art tabnabbing detection techniques.


2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (1-4) ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Vincenzo Agate ◽  
Alessandra De Paola ◽  
Giuseppe Lo Re ◽  
Marco Morana

Multi-agent distributed systems are characterized by autonomous entities that interact with each other to provide, and/or request, different kinds of services. In several contexts, especially when a reward is offered according to the quality of service, individual agents (or coordinated groups) may act in a selfish way. To prevent such behaviours, distributed Reputation Management Systems (RMSs) provide every agent with the capability of computing the reputation of the others according to direct past interactions, as well as indirect opinions reported by their neighbourhood. This last point introduces a weakness on gossiped information that makes RMSs vulnerable to malicious agents’ intent on disseminating false reputation values. Given the variety of application scenarios in which RMSs can be adopted, as well as the multitude of behaviours that agents can implement, designers need RMS evaluation tools that allow them to predict the robustness of the system to security attacks, before its actual deployment. To this aim, we present a simulation software for the vulnerability evaluation of RMSs and illustrate three case studies in which this tool was effectively used to model and assess state-of-the-art RMSs.


Energies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 1928 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfonso González-Briones ◽  
Fernando De La Prieta ◽  
Mohd Mohamad ◽  
Sigeru Omatu ◽  
Juan Corchado

This article reviews the state-of-the-art developments in Multi-Agent Systems (MASs) and their application to energy optimization problems. This methodology and related tools have contributed to changes in various paradigms used in energy optimization. Behavior and interactions between agents are key elements that must be understood in order to model energy optimization solutions that are robust, scalable and context-aware. The concept of MAS is introduced in this paper and it is compared with traditional approaches in the development of energy optimization solutions. The different types of agent-based architectures are described, the role played by the environment is analysed and we look at how MAS recognizes the characteristics of the environment to adapt to it. Moreover, it is discussed how MAS can be used as tools that simulate the results of different actions aimed at reducing energy consumption. Then, we look at MAS as a tool that makes it easy to model and simulate certain behaviors. This modeling and simulation is easily extrapolated to the energy field, and can even evolve further within this field by using the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm. Therefore, we can argue that MAS is a widespread approach in the field of energy optimization and that it is commonly used due to its capacity for the communication, coordination, cooperation of agents and the robustness that this methodology gives in assigning different tasks to agents. Finally, this article considers how MASs can be used for various purposes, from capturing sensor data to decision-making. We propose some research perspectives on the development of electrical optimization solutions through their development using MASs. In conclusion, we argue that researchers in the field of energy optimization should use multi-agent systems at those junctures where it is necessary to model energy efficiency solutions that involve a wide range of factors, as well as context independence that they can achieve through the addition of new agents or agent organizations, enabling the development of energy-efficient solutions for smart cities and intelligent buildings.


Author(s):  
Yanlin Han ◽  
Piotr Gmytrasiewicz

This paper introduces the IPOMDP-net, a neural network architecture for multi-agent planning under partial observability. It embeds an interactive partially observable Markov decision process (I-POMDP) model and a QMDP planning algorithm that solves the model in a neural network architecture. The IPOMDP-net is fully differentiable and allows for end-to-end training. In the learning phase, we train an IPOMDP-net on various fixed and randomly generated environments in a reinforcement learning setting, assuming observable reinforcements and unknown (randomly initialized) model functions. In the planning phase, we test the trained network on new, unseen variants of the environments under the planning setting, using the trained model to plan without reinforcements. Empirical results show that our model-based IPOMDP-net outperforms the other state-of-the-art modelfree network and generalizes better to larger, unseen environments. Our approach provides a general neural computing architecture for multi-agent planning using I-POMDPs. It suggests that, in a multi-agent setting, having a model of other agents benefits our decision-making, resulting in a policy of higher quality and better generalizability.


Author(s):  
Kaixuan Chen ◽  
Lina Yao ◽  
Dalin Zhang ◽  
Bin Guo ◽  
Zhiwen Yu

Multi-modality is an important feature of sensor based activity recognition. In this work, we consider two inherent characteristics of human activities, the spatially-temporally varying salience of features and the relations between activities and corresponding body part motions. Based on these, we propose a multi-agent spatial-temporal attention model. The spatial-temporal attention mechanism helps intelligently select informative modalities and their active periods. And the multiple agents in the proposed model represent activities with collective motions across body parts by independently selecting modalities associated with single motions. With a joint recognition goal, the agents share gained information and coordinate their selection policies to learn the optimal recognition model. The experimental results on four real-world datasets demonstrate that the proposed model outperforms the state-of-the-art methods.


2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (05) ◽  
pp. 7277-7284
Author(s):  
Thayne T. Walker ◽  
Nathan R. Sturtevant ◽  
Ariel Felner

The main idea of conflict-based search (CBS), a popular, state-of-the-art algorithm for multi-agent pathfinding is to resolve conflicts between agents by systematically adding constraints to agents. Recently, CBS has been adapted for new domains and variants, including non-unit costs and continuous time settings. These adaptations require new types of constraints. This paper introduces a new automatic constraint generation technique called bipartite reduction (BR). BR converts the constraint generation step of CBS to a surrogate bipartite graph problem. The properties of BR guarantee completeness and optimality for CBS. Also, BR's properties may be relaxed to obtain suboptimal solutions. Empirical results show that BR yields significant speedups in 2k connected grids over the previous state-of-the-art for both optimal and suboptimal search.


2004 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
SARVAPALI D. RAMCHURN ◽  
DONG HUYNH ◽  
NICHOLAS R. JENNINGS

Trust is a fundamental concern in large-scale open distributed systems. It lies at the core of all interactions between the entities that have to operate in such uncertain and constantly changing environments. Given this complexity, these components, and the ensuing system, are increasingly being conceptualised, designed, and built using agent-based techniques and, to this end, this paper examines the specific role of trust in multi-agent systems. In particular, we survey the state of the art and provide an account of the main directions along which research efforts are being focused. In so doing, we critically evaluate the relative strengths and weaknesses of the main models that have been proposed and show how, fundamentally, they all seek to minimise the uncertainty in interactions. Finally, we outline the areas that require further research in order to develop a comprehensive treatment of trust in complex computational settings.


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