SICS MarketSpace An agentbased market infrastructure

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SICS MarketSpaceAn agent-based market
infrastructure

• Sverker Janson, Joakim Eriksson, Niclas Finne
• Intelligent Systems LaboratorySwedish Institute
  of Computer Science
• sverker, joakime, nfi_at_sics.se

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Agent-based markets
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Agents for Internet commerce

• Users, buyers and sellers, describe deals that
  would interest them
• Agents help find matching interests, negotiate,
  and close deals

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Agents for workflow automation

• Users, individuals and business units, advertise
  interests in tasks
• Agents help plan, negotiate, and supervise the
  execution of workflows

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Agent-based markets desiderata

• Decentralization
• my interests
• my software
• my computer
• Openness
• new participants
• new rôles
• new concepts
• new mechanisms
• Integration
• the web

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The Electronic Commerce melting pot
web standards
auction theory
marketing
computational economics
matchmaking
information economics
security
evolutionary game theory
negotiation support
metadata
software agents
distributed object platforms
payment
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Scope in terms of commerce model
Sell something
Buy something
Identify potential customers
Identify potential sellers
Identify customers needs
Identify own needs
Inform potential customers
Evaluate alternatives
Obtain order
Place order
Deliver the thing
Receive the thing
Receive payment
Make payment
Provide customer service
Use the thing
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THE SICSMARKETSPACEFRAMEWORK

• - Information- Interaction

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Information - contracts interests

• The goal of participants in a market is to close
  deals.
• Basic information unit is the contract, a
  structured document.
• Interests are sets of possibly interesting
  contracts.
• Encoded in RDF/XML, KIF, FIPA SL, MIF,

Contract-3
Seller
Joakim Eriksson
Buyer
Niclas Finne
Price
300 USD
Goods
Refrigerator
Make
Electrolux
Model
ER3117B
Color
White
Date
Dec 10 1997
signatures
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Interests constrain contracts

• Sell something - seller
• Cheaper than 1 - price range for goods
• Red things - properties of goods
• Pizza within an hour - time range for signing
• These books for sale - alternatives
• CS books for sale - generalization

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Interests are symmetrical
Johns interests
common interests
Marys interests
what brokering seller/buyer with whom
brokering seller/buyer
goods/services buyers/sellers
buyer/seller broker
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Dynamic (indirect) interests

• Trustworthy - ask a BBB
• Environmentally friendly - ask Greenpeace
• What Joe (Jill) likes - ask Joe/Jill

cleancars
Green-peace
cars
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Expressiveness of interest language
Ranges
Alternatives
Generalization
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Market Interest Format (MIF)

• ?def? (def ?name? ?ref? (?name? ?type?))
• ?type? integer float atom string
  date (instance ?ref?) (interval ?val?
  ?val?) (set ?type?) (list ?type?) (oneof
  ?val?)

• ?expr? ?integer? ?float? ?atom?
  ?string? ?date? (set ?expr?) (list
  ?expr ?) (instance ?ref? (?name?
  ?expr?)) (or ?expr ?) (interval ?val?
  ?val?) (subset ?expr?)

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MIF example

• (def car trade-object (color (ref
  pantone-color)) ...)
• (instance contract-3 (date (interval 11/12/97
  23/12/97)) (buyer (instance person (name
  Sverker Janson) (agent-address
  ...))) (goods (instance car (color
  (instance red)))))

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Operations on interests

• intersection(x, y) ? z
• empty(x)
• subsumes(x, y)
• types(x) ? t1, ..., tn
• attributes(x) ? a1, ..., an
• attribute(a, x) ? y

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Services generate interests
Build YourOwn Car
The ConceptCatalog
candlecandycanecanoecanopy
Find aNew Home
my job
wifes job
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Global concepts

• http//contracts.com/basic.ontcontract-3
• contract-3 seller http//person buyer
  http//person price http//amount goo
  ds http//trade-object date date
• Associated information

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Concept brokering

• Car1 and Car2 are independently introduced

Buyer
Conceptbroker
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How make agents communicate?
TELL p(a)

• Popular approach
• High level speech act based protocols
• Expressive logic based content formats
• Cf. KQML/KIF,FIPA ACL/FIPA SL

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Market Interaction Language (MIL)

• Search advertise
• ask(A, B, eoi)
• tell(A, B, eoi)
• negotiate(A, B, eoi)
• Negotiate close
• offer(A, B, eoi)
• accept(A, B)
• decline(A, B)

• (offer
• from A
• to B
• in-reply-to i
• reply-with j
• language MIF 1.0
• content
• )

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Example interaction

• ask(A, D, sell me a refrigerator)
• tell(D, A, B and C)
• negotiate(A, B, sell me a refrigerator)
• negotiate(A, C, sell me a refrigerator)
• offer(B, A, Electrolux 3117B for 350)
• offer(C, A, Electrolux 3117B for 300)
• offer(A, B, C sells for 300)
• offer(B, A, Electrolux 3117B for 300)
• accept(A, B)
• decline(A, C)

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The MarketSpace prototype

• Demo agent-assisted Internet commerce
• SICS JavaBase toolkit misc formats and
  protocols (MIL, MIF, KQML, KIF), agent facilities
• Other examples directories, brokers,
  auctioneers, interfaces to other services

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Integration with the web
web browser (2 windows)
http
map
service agent
user agent
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Summary and future work

• Information
• Interests goals of market participants
• Structured documents simple description logic
• MIF
• Interaction
• Exchange information
• Make commitments
• MIL

• Integration
• Complements augments Internet commerce
• Future work
• Generalize goals from deals to deals protocols
• Plugin protocols