Trust and Cooperation in a Trading Society of Objective- Trust Based Agents

In this paper we develop a notion of “objective trust” for Software Agents, that is trust of, or between, Agents based on actual experiences between those Agents. Experiential objective trust allows Agents to make decisions about how to select other Agents when a choice has to be made. We define a mechanism for such an “objective Trust-Based Agent” (oTB-Agent), and present experimental results in a simulated trading environment based on an Intelligent Networks (IN) scenario. The trust one Agent places in another is dynamic, updated on the basis of each experience. We use this to investigate three questions related to trust in Multi-Agent Systems (MAS), first how trust affects the formation of trading partnerships, second, whether trust developed over a period can equate to “loyalty” and third whether a less than scrupulous Agent can exploit the individual nature of trust to its advantage.