CMSC 477/677 Agent Architectures and Multi-Agent Systems

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CMSC 477/677Agent Architectures andMulti-Agent
Systems

• UMBCProf. Marie desJardins
• Spring 2005

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Course information

• Prof desJardins
• ITE 337, x53967, mariedj_at_cs.umbc.edu
• Class mailing list
• agents-class_at_listproc.umbc.edu
• To subscribe, send email to listproc_at_listproc.umbc
  .edu with the line
• subscribe agents-class Your Name

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Todays overview

• Class structure and policies
• Whats an agent?
• Agent exercise
• Next class

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Class structure Syllabus

• Course page http//www.cs.umbc.edu/courses/gradu
  ate/677/spring05/http//www.cs.umbc.edu/courses/u
  ndergraduate/477/spring05/

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Class structure 477 vs. 677

• Slightly different weights for assignments
• Two problem sets for graduate students
• Agent architectures project Graduate students
  must do a more in-depth analysis, relating their
  findings to the research literature
• MAS project Graduate students must include an
  experimental research component, and submit a
  research design
• In general, graduate students are expected to
  show greater depth in their analysis and
  synthesis of ideas

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Class structure Participation

• This is a discussion class
• Reading must be done in advance
• Participation countsa lot
• 40/35 of grade is related to class participation
• Class discussion (30/25)
• Do you attend class?
• Are you prepared? Have you done the reading?
  Have you thought about the discussion questions?
• Do you contribute to the discussion with
  insightful questions and comments?
• Paper summaries (5)
• Discussion leaders (5)

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Class structure Agent architecture project

• Agent architecture project 20/15 of grade
• Download one of the architectures we learn about
• Apply the architecture to a domain of your choice
• Deadlines
• Proposal due Feb. 17 (5 of project grade)
• Report due Mar. 17 (70 of grade)
• Demonstration week of Mar. 14 (25 of grade)

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Class structure MAS paper/presentation

• MAS paper/presentation 25 of grade
• Students will select a topic to study in greater
  depth, write a paper, and give a presentation on
  that topic.
• 477 can focus primarily on one or two recent
  research papers
• 677 can focus on one or two main papers, but
  should also include a bibliography of 5-10 (more
  is OK) papers on the topic, and a significant
  discussion/analysis of the work in that area.
• Proposal and bibliography due Apr. 12 (10 of
  project grade)
• Draft report due May 5 (5)
• Presentation on May 3, 5, 10, 12(?), or 19 (20)
• additional days if needed May 13 and/or May 6
• Final report due May 19 (65)
• Paper review (of another students paper) 5 of
  grade

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MAS competition

• Multi-agent game (trading agents?) project 10
  of grade
• In-class competition probably May 12
• Short report describing design and performance of
  agent

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Policies

• Grading and academic honesty
• Plagiarism, citations

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Plagiarism exercise

• Original passage
• I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United
  States of America, and to the republic for which
  it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty
  and justice for all.
• Unacceptable summary
• I promise loyalty to the United States flag, and
  to the country for which it stands, one nation,
  with freedom and fairness for all.

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Plagiarism exercise II

• Original passage
• I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United
  States of America, and to the republic for which
  it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty
  and justice for all.
• Acceptable summary
• I promise to be loyal to the United States flag
  and to the USA itself One united country that
  provides basic rights such as liberty and justice
  to all citizens.

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Whats 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.

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Whats an agent? II

• Ferber, p. 9
• An agent is a physical or virtual entity
• Which is capable of acting in an environment,
• Which can communicate directly with other agents,
• Which is driven by a set of tendencies,
• Which possesses resources of its own,
• Which is capable of perceiving its environment,
• Which has only a partial representation of this
  environment,
• Which possesses skills and can offer services,
• Which may be able to reproduce itself,
• 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.

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OK, so whats an environment?

• Isnt any system that has inputs and outputs
  situated in an environment of sorts?

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Whats 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?

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So now what?

• If those definitions arent useful, is there a
  useful definition? Should we bother trying to
  create agents at all?

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Next class

• Reading Wooldridge Chapter 1 Wooldridge
  Jennings 1995
• Overview by Dr. dJ
• Tuesday reading Wooldridge Chapter 3 Levesque
  et al. 1997
• Discussion leaders!

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Multi-agent exercise

• Getting to know you... getting to know all about
  you... (or at least your capabilities...)

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After-action reviewor post-mortem, as the case
may be

• What was the task completion rate?
• How many agents participated in successful teams?
• Who was more successful agents who led teams,
  or agents who participated on teams?
• Any particularly successful (or unsuccessful)
  strategies for forming teams?
• Whats hard about this problem?