Negotiation as Interactive Exchange of Constraints about Agent Behavior 1 an Architecture for Negotiation

What does it take for two agents A and B in an organization tòwork together' to achieve their goals? A ubiquitous way in which agents can work together is having both A and B request various things from each other and execute each other's requests. A straightforward way for A (say) to request something from B is by formulating the request as a set of things A either wants B to do or wants B to refrain from doing. These do-s and don't-s represent constraints about behavior that can be described as obligations and interdictions A places upon B's behavior. The organization roles of the agents must be such that they are entitled by the laws of the organization to make these requests. Suppose we quantify the strength of an obligation or interdiction as a cost the obliged (prohibited) agent has to pay if it chooses to violate the obligation (interdic-tion). Assume B receives a message from A containing a set of obligations and interdictions constraining its behavior. Figure 1 shows what happens inside B when such a request arrives. First, the constraints in the request are translated from the external interlingua to their internal counterpart, veriied for consistency and locally represented as requested behavior. Second, the consequences of the requested constraints are determined, especially in relation with B's own (local) obligations and interdictions and with other obligations and interdictions it may be committed to. This process, called deontic propagation for reasons that will become clear later on, determines which of the requested constraints can be satissed and which can not. In this process, if B encounters connicting obligations (interdictions), it decides which to violate based on some notion of minimizing the violation cost associated with the violated constraints. If none of the constraints imposed by A is violated, it means that B can consistently integrate A's request into its own behavior and normally B will continue with scheduling the requested actions and then with executing them. If however some of A's constraints have to be violated, (and as shown in gure 1 this may 1