Mechanism Design for Argumentation-Based Information-Seeking and Inquiry

Abstract

Formal argumentation-based dialogue systems have attracted considerable research interest in the past. Most research in this area introduce “dialectical wrappers” over argumentation formalisms to model verbal interactions amongst agents, resulting in different dialogue models for different types of dialogues, e.g. inquiry or persuasion. In this work, we take a different approach by deploying a single dialogue model for different types of dialogues, focusing in particular on information-seeking and inquiry, yet equipping agents with different (game-theoretic) strategies and different utility functions in different dialogue types. We prove that the resulting dialogue-based mechanisms implement, in dominant strategies, appropriate social choice functions for the two types of dialogues we consider. Thus, we show the feasibility of studying agents in argumentation-based dialogues in game-theoretic, mechanism design terms.