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Automated Negotiation from Declarative Contract Descriptions
Author(s) -
Reeves Daniel M.,
Wellman Michael P.,
Grosof Benjamin N.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
computational intelligence
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.353
H-Index - 52
eISSN - 1467-8640
pISSN - 0824-7935
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8640.00199
Subject(s) - negotiation , computer science , domain (mathematical analysis) , flexibility (engineering) , common value auction , process (computing) , artificial intelligence , programming language , microeconomics , mathematics , mathematical analysis , statistics , political science , law , economics
Our approach for automating the negotiation of business contracts proceeds in three broad steps. First, determine the structure of the negotiation process by applying general knowledge about auctions and domain–specific knowledge about the contract subject along with preferences from potential buyers and sellers. Second, translate the determined negotiation structure into an operational specification for an auction platform. Third, after the negotiation has completed, map the negotiation results to a final contract. We have implemented a prototype which supports these steps by employing a declarative specification (in courteous logic programs) of (1) high–level knowledge about alternative negotiation structures, (2) general–case rules about auction parameters, (3) rules to map the auction parameters to a specific auction platform, and (4) special–case rules for subject domains. We demonstrate the flexibility of this approach by automatically generating several alternative negotiation structures for the domain of travel shopping in a trading agent competition.