Extending speech-act based communication to enable argumentation in cognitive agents

Abstract

Now days, there is an increasing level of interest in the application of argumentation within the artificial agent societies. This paper extends the operational semantics to speech-act based communication messages received by an AgentSpeak(L) agent in order to enable argumentation in cognitive agents. The aim is to give semantics and implementation as logic-based plans for some key illocutionary forces, used for argumentation in the Belief-Desire-Intention (BDI) agent communication language 'AgentSpeak(L)'. The extension allows agents engaged in a dialogue to put forward their arguments, question beliefs of other agents more expressively. Therefore, using extended speech-act based communication; an agent can share its internal state with other agents and influence other agents' states. This work also provides a new dimension to argumentation based negotiation in BDI agents as this would enable the agents to negotiate using argumentation. Argumentation based negotiation can provide a powerful tool for the agents communicating to fix a deal using the electronic commerce services. © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.