Contracting Tasks in Multi-Agent Environments
Contracting Tasks in Multi-Agent Environments
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Date
1998-10-15
Authors
Kraus, Sarit
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Abstract
Agents may contract some of their tasks to other agent
even when they do not share a common goal. An agent may try to
contract some of the tasks that it cannot perform by itself, or that
may be performed more efficiently by other agents. One self-motivated
agent may convince another self-motivated agent to help it with its
task, by promises of rewards, even if the agents are not assumed to be
benevolent. We propose techniques that provide efficient ways to
reach contracting in varied situations: the agents have full
information about the environment and each other or subcontracting
when the agents do not know the exact state of the world. We consider
situations of repeated encounters, cases of asymmetric information,
situations where the agents lack information about each other, and
cases where an agent subcontracts a task to a group of agents.
Situations where there is competition among possible contracted agents
or possible contracting agents are also considered. In all situations
we would like the contracted agent to carry out the task efficiently
without the need of close supervision by the contracting agent.
(Also cross-referenced as UMIACS-TR-94-44)