Reasoning about manipulation in multi-agent systems

Abstract

In many applications, selfish, dishonest or malicious agents may find an interest in manipulating others. While many works deal with designing robust systems or designing manipulative strategies, few works are interested in defining in a broad sense what is a manipulation and how we can reason with such a notion. In this article, based on a social science literature, we give at first a general definition of manipulation that can be applied in multi-agent systems. A manipulation is a deliberate effect of an agent (called a manipulator ) to instrumentalize another agent (called a victim), while making sure to conceal that effect. Secondly, we show how this definition is related with different fields in computer science where the concept of manipulation is studied. Finally, we present a logical framework, called KBE, to express and reason about manipulations. Since manipulation relies on deliberate effects, KBE introduces a deliberate BIAT operator which abstracts deliberate consequences of actions. We prove that this logic is sound and complete and, we formally define manipulation. Furthermore, based on KBE, we express related notions such as coercion, persuasion, or deception and we show that these notions are different from manipulation.

Agents and Multi-agent Systems in the Management of Electric Energy Systems

“…Multi-agent systems are aimed at implementing those functions, which makes this technology a strong competitor for the implementation of the capabilities of intelligent networks. Interoperability through compliance with standards, additional ability through the implementation of new agents into the system, and reliability due to operator usage, which grants reserve capabilities, are recognized positive aspects of an agent-oriented system (Leturc and Bonnet, 2022). Currently, a large number of developers are work-ing on the development of multiagent systems for the necessary intellectual network issues resolving, which is confirmed by recent widespread publications.…”