A Principled Modular Approach to Construct Flexible Conversation Protocols

Abstract

Building conversation protocols has traditionally been an art more than a science, as their construction is often guided by designers’ intuition rather than by a principled approach. In this paper we present a model for building conversation protocols using inference principles that allow the computational specification and verification of message sequencing and turn-taking. This model, which is based on the negotiation of social commitments, results in highly flexible protocols that support agent heterogeneity while abiding by software engineering practices. We exemplify the specification of protocols using the contract net protocol, a common interaction protocol from the multiagent literature.