Changing neighbours: improving tag-based cooperation

In systems of autonomous self-interested agents, in which agents' neighbourhoods are defined by their connections to others, cooperation can arise through observation of the behaviour of neighbours to determine values of trust and reputation. While there are many techniques for encouraging cooperative behaviour within such systems, they often require a centralised authority or rely on reciprocity that is not always available. In response, this paper presents a decentralised mechanism to supporting cooperation without requiring reciprocity. The mechanism is based on tag-based cooperation, supplemented by assessing neighbourhood context and using simple rewiring to cope with cheaters. In particular, the paper makes two key contributions. First, it provides a technique for increasing resilience in the face of malicious behaviour by enabling individuals to rewire their connections to others and so modify their neighbourhoods. Second, it provides an empirical analysis of several strat...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2010
• Where: ATAL
• Authors: Nathan Griffiths, Michael Luck
• Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, ATAL 2010, Autonomous Self-interested Agents, Intelligent Agents, Simple Rewiring