An organizational semiotics model for multi-agent systems design

Abstract

This paper describes how the organizational semiotics field can provide a conceptual infrastructure for designing normative multi-agent information systems. Since ‘information’ is an ill-defined word we prefer to adopt the semiotics framework, which uses the ‘sign’ as the elementary concept. Information as a composition of signs is then analyzed at different levels, including syntax, semantics, pragmatics and the social level. Based on different properties of signs, found at different semiotic levels, we propose here a new agent model, designated by EDA (an acronym for its three component modules: Epistemic-Deontic-Axiological), to represent agent informational states and simultaneously define its conceptual communication framework. The norm-based and communication-based multi-agent social architecture defined in this paper is flexible enough to accommodate changes in social structure, including changes in role specification, role instantiation and even the dynamics of institutional relationships, including role removal or creation. Communication is supported by a technical infrastructure (JINI) that enables both direct message exchange and blackboard protocols. Agents are enabled with logical reasoning for a flexible implementation of conversations, which are conceptually described by finite state machines.