We propose 10 challenges for making automation components into effective "team players" when they interact with people in significant ways. Our analysis is based on some of the principles of human-centered computing that we have developed individually and jointly over the years, and is adapted from a more comprehensive examination of common ground and coordination.

Ten challenges for making automation a "team player" in joint human-agent activity

Common Ground and Coordination in Joint Activity

This paper presents some of the key techniques for reaching agreements in multi-agent environments. It discusses game-theory and economics based techniques: strategic negotiation, auctions, coalition formation, market-oriented programming and contracting. It also presents logical based mechanisms for argumentations. The focus of the survey is on negotiation of self-interested agents, but several mechanisms for cooperative agents who need to resolve conflicts that arise from conflicting beliefs about different aspects of their environment are also mentioned. For space reasons, we couldn't cover all the relevant works, and the papers that are mentioned only demonstrate the possible approaches. We present some of the properties of the approaches using our own previous work.

/pdf/automated-negotiation-and-decision-making-in-multiagent-1enu51okxr.pdf

Automated Negotiation and Decision Making in Multiagent Environments

We give a preliminary perspective on the basic principles and pitfalls of adjustable autonomy and human-centered teamwork. We then summarize the interim results of our study on the problem of work practice modeling and human-agent collaboration in space applications, the development of a broad model of human-agent teamwork grounded in practice, and the integration of the Brahms, KAoS, and NOMADS agent frameworks We hope our work will benefit those who plan and participate in work activities in a wide variety of space applications, as well as those who are interested in design and execution tools for teams of robots that can function as effective assistants to humans.

http://wifo5-03.informatik.uni-mannheim.de/bizer/SWTSGuide/KAoS/020911-Hexmoor_Teamwork_C.pdf

Adjustable Autonomy and Human-Agent Teamwork in Practice: An Interim Report on Space Applications

Because ever more powerful intelligent agents will interact with people in increasingly sophisticated and important ways, greater attention must be given to the technical and social aspects of how to make agents acceptable to people [4], p. 51]. The technical challenge is to devise a computational structure that guarantees that from the technical standpoint all is under control. We want to be able to help ensure the protection of agent state, the viability of agent communities, and the reliability of the resources on which they depend. To accomplish this, we must guarantee, insofar as is possible, that the autonomy of agents can always be bounded by explicit enforceable policy that can be continually adjusted to maximize the agents. effectiveness and safety in both human and computational environments. The social challenge is to ensure that agents and people interact gracefully and to provide reassurance to people that all is working according to plan. We want agents to be designed to fit well with how people actually work together. Explicit policies governing human-agent interaction, based on careful observation of work practice and an understanding of current social science research, can help assure that effective and natural coordination, appropriate levels and modalities of feedback, and adequate predictability and responsiveness to human control are maintained. These factors are key to providing the reassurance and trust that are the prerequisites to the widespread acceptance of agent technology for non-trivial applications.

/pdf/making-agents-acceptable-to-people-556okx5lto.pdf

Making Agents Acceptable to People

In complex, dynamic and uncertain environments extending from disaster rescue missions, to future battlefields, to monitoring and surveillance tasks, to virtual training environments, to future robotic space missions, intelligent agents will play a key role in information gathering and filtering, as well as in task planning and execution. Although physically distributed on a variety of platforms, these agents will interact with information sources, network facilities, and other agents via cyberspace, in the form of the Internet, Intranet, the secure defense communication network, or other forms of cyberspace. Indeed, it now appears well accepted that cyberspace will be (if it is not already) populated by a vast number of such distributed, individual agents.

/pdf/teamwork-in-cyberspace-using-teamcore-to-make-agents-team-6s6m97ujah.pdf

Teamwork in Cyberspace: Using TEAMCORE to Make Agents Team-Ready

The RoboCup research initiative has established synthetic and robotic soccer as testbeds for pursuing research challenges in Articial Intelligence and robotics. This extended abstract focuses on teamwork and learning, two of the multi- agent research challenges highlighted in RoboCup. To address the challenge of teamwork, we discuss the use of a domain-independent explicit model of team- work, and an explicit representation of team plans and goals. We also discuss the application of agent learning in RoboCup.

/pdf/using-an-explicit-teamwork-model-and-learning-in-robocup-an-4awopv201r.pdf

Using an Explicit Teamwork Model and Learning in RoboCup: An Extended Abstract

In a complex, dynamic multi -agent setting, coherent team actions are often jeopardized by agents' conflicting beliefs about different aspects of their environment, about resource availabilit y, and about their own or teammates' capabiliti es and performance. Team members thus need to communicate and negotiate to restore team coherence. This paper focuses on the problem of negotiations in teamwork to resolve such conflicts. The basis of such negotiations is inter-agent argumentation based on Toulmin's argumentation pattern. There are several novel aspects in our approach. First, our approach to argumentation exploits recently developed general, explicit teamwork models, which make it possible to provide a generalized and reusable argumentation facilit y based on teamwork constraints. Second, an emphasis on collaboration in argumentation leads to novel argumentation strategies geared towards benefiting the team rather than the individual. Third, our goal, to realize argumentation in practice in an agent team, has led to decision theoretic and pruning techniques to reduce argumentation overhead. Our approach is implemented in a system called CONSA.

Zhun Qiu

Papers

Teamwork in Cyberspace: Using TEAMCORE to Make Agents Team-Ready

Using an Explicit Teamwork Model and Learning in RoboCup: An Extended Abstract

Towards flexible negotiation in teamwork