Introduction to multi-agent systems.docVIP

Introduction to Multi-Agent Systems International Summer School on Multi-Agent Systems, Bucharest, 1998 Adina Magda Florea “Politehnica” University of Bucharest Email: adina@cs.pub.ro 1 A Definition and Classification Attempt In computer science, as in any other science, several new ideas, concepts and paradigms emerged over time and became the “Big idea” or “Big excitement” of the discipline. The ‘90s brought the concept of agents in computer science and this term is now as fashionable as object-oriented was in the ‘80s or artificial intelligence in the ‘70s. Being fashionable means that anyone who wants to be “en vogue” will use it, that maybe more expectation than needed will be put in the new concept and that there is the great risk of having an overused word. Then why agents in computer science and do they bring us anything new in modeling and constructing our applications? The answer is definitively YES and the papers in this volume contribute to justify this answer. It would certainly not be an original thing to say that the notion of agent or agency is difficult to define. There is an important number of papers on the subject of agent and multi-agent system definition and a tremendous number of definitions for agents, ranging from one line definitions to pages of agent attribute descriptions. The situation is somehow comparable with the one encountered when defining artificial intelligence. Why was it so difficult to define artificial intelligence (and we still doubt that we have succeeded in giving a proper definition) and why is it so difficult to define agents and multi-agents systems, when some other concepts in computer science, as object-oriented, distributed computing, etc., were not so resistant to be properly defined. The answer that I see is that the concept of agent, as the one of artificial intelligence, steams from people, from the human society. Trying to emulate or simulate human specific concepts in computer programs is obviously extremely di