A Social Semantics for Agent Communication Languages

The ability to communicate is one of the salient properties of agents. Although a number of agent communication languages (ACLs) have been developed, obtaining a suitable formal semantics for ACLs remains one of the greatest challenges of multiagent systems theory. Previous semantics have largely been mentalistic in their orientation and are based solely on the beliefs and intentions of the participating agents. Such semantics are not suitable for most multiagent applications, which involve autonomous and heterogeneous agents, whose beliefs and intentions cannot be uniformly determined. Accordingly, we present a social semantics for ACLs that gives primacy to the interactions among the agents. Our semantics is based on social commitments and is developed in temporal logic. This semantics, because of its public orientation, is essential to providing a rigorous basis for multiagent protocols.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2000
• Where: AGENTCL
• Authors: Munindar P. Singh
• Keywords: AGENTCL 2000, Intelligent Agents, Multiagent, Semantics, Suitable Formal Semantics