SICS MarketSpace An agent-based market infrastructure

1. SICS MarketSpaceAn agent-based market infrastructure Sverker Janson, Joakim Eriksson, Niclas Finne Intelligent Systems LaboratorySwedish Institute of Computer Science sverker, joakime, nfi@sics.se

2. Agent-based markets

3. Agents for Internet commerce • Users, buyers and sellers, describe deals that would interest them • Agents help find matching interests, negotiate, and close deals

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

5. Agent-based markets desiderata • Decentralization • my interests • my software • my computer • Openness • new participants • new rôles • new concepts • new mechanisms • Integration • the web

6. 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

7. 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

8. THE SICSMARKETSPACEFRAMEWORK - Information- Interaction

9. 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

10. 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

11. Interests are symmetrical John’s interests common interests Mary’s interests “what” brokering seller/buyer “with whom” brokering seller/buyer goods/services buyers/sellers buyer/seller broker

12. Dynamic (indirect) interests • Trustworthy - ask a BBB • Environmentally friendly - ask Greenpeace • What Joe (Jill) likes - ask Joe/Jill cleancars Green-peace cars

13. Contract-3 Contract-3 Contract-3 Trade object Seller Seller Seller Joakim Eriksson Joakim Eriksson Joakim Eriksson Buyer Buyer Buyer Niclas Finne Niclas Finne Niclas Finne Price Price Price 300 USD 300 USD 200-300 USD Goods Kitchenware Goods Goods Refrigerator Kitchenware Refrigerator Refrigerator Make Electrolux Make Make AEG Electrolux Model ER3117B Model Model ER3117B Santo 1702 Color Color White White Color Color White White Date Date Date Aug 10 1998 Aug 10 1998 Aug 10 1998 Refrigerator Dish washer Expressiveness of interest language Ranges Generalization Alternatives

14. 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*) Market Interest Format (MIF)

15. 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”)))))

16. Operations on interests • intersection(x, y)  z • empty(x) • subsumes(x, y) • types(x)  [t1, ..., tn] • attributes(x)  [a1, ..., an] • attribute(a, x)  y

17. Services generate interests The ConceptCatalog Build YourOwn Car candlecandycanecanoecanopy Find aNew Home my job wife’s job

18. Global concepts • http://contracts.com/basic.ont#contract-3 • contract-3 : seller : http://…#person buyer : http://…#person price : http://…#amount goods : http://…#trade-object date : date • Associated information

19. Car1 Car1orCar2 Concept brokering • Car1 and Car2 are independently introduced Conceptbroker Buyer

20. 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

21. 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 ”…” ) Market Interaction Language (MIL)

22. 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)

23. 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

24. Integration with the web web browser (2 windows) http map service agent user agent

25. 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 Summary and future work