Multi-agent explanation strategies in real-time domains

Abstract

We examine the benefits of using multiple agents to produce explanations. In particular, we identify the ability to construct prior plans as a key issue constraining the effectiveness of a single-agent approach. We describe an implemented system that uses multiple agents to tackle a problem for which prior planning is particularly impractical: realtime soccer commentary. Our commentary system demonstrates a number of the advantages of decomposing an explanation task among several agents. Most notably, it shows how individual agents can benefit from following different discourse strategies. Further, it illustrates that discourse issues such as controlling interruption, abbreviation, and maintaining consistency can also be decomposed: rather than considering them at the single level of one linear explanation they can also be tackled separately within each individual agent. We evaluate our system's output, and show that it closely compares to the speaking patterns of a human commentary team.