CMSC 691M Agent Architectures Multi-Agent Systems

							CMSC 691M
Agent Architectures & Multi-
Agent Systems
    UMBC
    Prof. Marie desJardins
    Spring 2002
Course information

   Prof desJardins
       ECS 216, x53967, mariedj@cs.umbc.edu
   TA – Gunjan Kalra
       gkalra1@cs.umbc.edu
   Class mailing list
       cs691m@listproc.umbc.edu
       To subscribe, send email to
        listproc@listproc.umbc.edu with the line:
           subscribe cs691m Your Name
Today’s overview

   Class structure and policies
   What‘s an agent?
   Agent exercise
   Next class
Class structure: Syllabus

   Course page: cmsc691m.html
   Course syllabus: schedule.html
Class structure: Participation

   This is a discussion class
       Reading must be done in advance
       Participation counts—a lot
   45% of grade is related to class participation
       Reading summaries (15% plus bonus points)
       Class participation (20%)
       Discussion leaders (5%)
       Note takers (5%)
Class structure: Agent architecture project

   Midterm paper/project: 25% of grade
       Compare two architectures
       Investigate in more depth than in class
       Can download software, do extra reading, try
        implementing part of the architecture, …
       Proposal due Feb. 21 (5% of paper)
       Draft due Mar. 14 (40% of paper)
       Review due Apr. 2 (5% of class)
       Final draft due Apr. 11 (55% of paper)
Class structure: MAS project

   Agent to participate in multi-agent
    environment
   Most likely domains: TAC or RoboCup
   Domain presentation will be given on March
    14
   Dry run opportunity on May 7
   Tournament and papers/presentations at time
    final exam is scheduled
Policies

   Grading and academic honesty: grading.ps
   Plagiarism, citations
What’s an agent?

   Weiss, p. 29 [after Wooldridge and Jennings]:
       ―An agent is a computer system that is situated in some
        environment, and that is capable of autonomous action in
        this environment in order to meet its design objectives.‖
   Russell and Norvig, p. 7:
       ―An agent is just something that perceives and acts.‖
   Rosenschein and Zlotkin, p. 4:
       ―The more complex the considerations that [a] machine
        takes into account, the more justified we are in considering
        our computer an ‗agent,‘ who acts as our surrogate in an
        automated encounter.‖
What’s an agent? II

       Ferber, p. 9:
            ―An agent is a physical or virtual entity
        a)     Which is capable of acting in an environment,
        b)     Which can communicate directly with other agents,
        c)     Which is driven by a set of tendencies…,
        d)     Which possesses resources of its own,
        e)     Which is capable of perceiving its environment…,
        f)     Which has only a partial representation of this environment…,
        g)     Which possesses skills and can offer services,
        h)     Which may be able to reproduce itself,
        i)     Whose behavior tends towards satisfying its objectives, taking
               account of the resources and skills available to it and depending
               on its perception, its representations and the communications it
               receives.‖
OK, so what’s an environment?

   Isn‘t any system that has inputs and outputs
    situated in an environment of sorts?
What’s autonomy, anyway?

   Jennings and Wooldridge, p. 4:
       ―[In contrast with objects, we] think of agents as
        encapsulating behavior, in addition to state. An object does
        not encapsulate behavior: it has no control over the
        execution of methods – if an object x invokes a method m
        on an object y, then y has no control over whether m is
        executed or not – it just is. In this sense, object y is not
        autonomous, as it has no control over its own actions….
        Because of this distinction, we do not think of agents as
        invoking methods (actions) on agents – rather, we tend to
        think of them requesting actions to be performed. The
        decision about whether to act upon the request lies with the
        recipient.‖
   Is an if-then-else statement sufficient to create
    autonomy?
So now what?

   If those definitions aren‘t useful, is there a
    useful definition? Should we bother trying to
    create ―agents‖ at all?
Agent exercise

   Pick a card, any card…
After-action review
or post-mortem, as the case may be…

   Did the class (agent community) find a
    consistent solution?
   How many agents had an instantiation?
   How many constraints were violated?
       Why those ones? Any theories?
   What‘s hard about this problem?
Next class

   Reading: Weiss Prologue and Chapter 1
   NO reading summary this time, but you should come
    with some additional questions of your own
   Questions for Day 2:
       Characterize today‘s exercise in terms of the agent
        characteristics on page 4
       When is something an agent, and when is it just a piece of
        software? Is there any difference?
       Is it worth having ―agents‖ that aren‘t ―intelligent agents‖?
       What do you want to get out of this class? What part of the
        syllabus are you most excited about? Least excited?