Guest Editorial: Argumentation in Multi-Agent Systems

Abstract

The theory of argumentation [52] is a rich, interdisciplinary area of research lying across philosophy, communication studies, linguistics, and psychology. Its techniques and results have found a wide range of applications in both theoretical and practical branches of artificial intelligence and computer science [9, 45]. These applications range from specifying semantics for logic programs [13], to natural language text generation [14], to supporting legal reasoning [7], to decision-support for multi-party human decision-making [22] and conflict resolution [51]. In recent years, argumentation theory has been gaining increasing interest in the multi-agent systems (MAS) research community. On one hand, argumentation-based techniques can be used to specify autonomous agent reasoning, such as belief revision and decision-making under uncertainty and non-standard preference policies. On the other hand, argumentation can also be used as a vehicle for facilitatingmulti-agent interaction, because argumentation naturally provides tools for designing, implementing and analysing sophisticated forms of interaction among rational agents. Argumentation has made solid contributions to the theory and practice of multi-agent dialogues. In this introduction to the special issue, I first briefly introduce some key notions in argumentation theory. I then outline two major applications of argumentation in MAS, namely in autonomous agent reasoning (Section 3) and multi-agent communication (Section 4). Throughout the discussion, I introduce the four papers in this special issue, which are revised and expanded versions of papers selected from the proceedings of the First International Workshop on Argumentation in Multi-Agent Systems (ArgMAS), which was held in New York during July 2004 in conjunction with the International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS).