Using testimonies to enforce the behavior of agents

Abstract

Governance copes with the heterogeneity, autonomy and diversity of interests among different agents in multi-agent systems (MAS) by establishing norms. Although norms can be used to regulate dialogical and non-dialogical actions, the majority of governance systems only governs the interaction between agents. Some mechanisms that intend to regulate other agent actions concentrate on messages that are public to the governance system and on actions that are visible by it. But in open MAS with heterogeneous and independently designed agents, there will be private messages that can only be perceived by senders and receivers and execution of actions that can only be noticed by the agents that are executing them or by a group of agents that suffers from their consequences. This paper presents a governance mechanism based on testimonies provided by agents that witness facts that are violating norms. The mechanism points out if agents really violated norms. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.