Acting as a trustee for internet of agents in the absence of explicit feedback

Abstract

The Internet of Agents (IoA) is an emerging field of research that aims to combine the advantages of multi-agent systems and Internet of Things (IoT), by adding autonomy and smartness to, traditionally, naive things used in IoT. IoA can be used to interconnect agents of different multi-agent systems through web-like technologies or using Internet-like architecture. Trust management can be considered an essential component of successful interactions between autonomous agents in IoA, especially when agents cannot assure that potential interaction partners share the same core beliefs, or make accurate statements regarding their competencies and abilities. To date, most research in trust modeling has focused on mechanisms for agents to model the trustworthiness of potential interaction partners, to decide about which of them to interact with. However, slight consideration has been paid for going beyond trust evaluation to outline actions for directing trustees, instead of trustors, to build a higher level of trust and have a greater impact on the results of interactions. Reaching a higher degree of trust can be challenging, especially when explicit feedback is not available. This paper presents a trust establishment model that uses implicit feedback from trustors to modify the behavior of trustees to build a higher level of trust and have a greater impact on the results of interactions. The proposed model is evaluated through simulation, and results indicate that trustees empowered with our proposal have higher chances to be selected as interaction partners when such selection is based on trust.