Determining the Envelope of Emergent Agent Behaviour via Architectural Transformation

In this paper we propose a methodology to help analyse tendencies in MAS to complement those of simple inspection, Monte Carlo and syntactic proof. We suggest an architecture that allows an exhaustive model-based search of possible system trajectories in significant fragments of a MAS using forward inference. The idea is to identify tendencies, especially emergent tendencies, by automating the search through possible parameterisations of the model and the choices made by the agents. Subsequently, a proof of these tendencies could be attempted over all possible conditions using syntactic proof procedures. Additionally, we propose and exemplify a computational procedure to help implement this. The strategy consists of: ‘‘un-encapsulating’’ the MAS so as to reveal and then exploit the maximum information about logical dependencies in the system. The idea is to make possible the complete exploration of model behaviour over a range of parameterisations and agent choices.