Social Utility Functions—Part II: Applications

Abstract

Social utilities account for agent preferences and, thus, can characterize complex interrelationships, such as cooperation, compromise, negotiation, and altruism, that can exist between agents. Satisficing game theory, which is based on social utilities, offers a framework within which to design sophisticated multiagent systems. Key features of this approach are: a) an-agent system may be represented by a 2-dimensional Bayesian network, called a praxeic network; b) the theory accommodates a notion of situational altruism (a willingness to defer to others in a controlled way if so doing would actually benefit others under the condition that others wish to take advantage of such largesse); and c) satisficing games admits a protocol for effective negotiation between agents who, though interested in their own welfare, are also willing to give some deference to others. Three applications are presented. The first two involve well-known two-person games: the Prisoner's Dilemma and the Battle of the Sexes, and the third is a simulated uninhabited aerial vehicle scenario.

Cooperative Multi-agent Approach for Computational Systems of Systems Architecting

“…To model collaboration between component systems, this methodology uses a global social utility function for the SoS. Based on satisficing game theory (Stirling and Frost, 2005), this function enables to calculate the best options for the SoS from component system preferences and interdependencies between them. To calculate its preferences, each component system has two 'personas' or 'roles': one based on selectability (i.e.…”

“…This approach is limited by the complexity of the praxeic network construction. Indeed, designers have to define all interdependencies between component systems which are statics, problem dependents and difficult to define in case of numerous systems (Stirling and Frost, 2005).…”

Behavioral learning game for socio-physical IoT connections

“…According to the social utility theory, game players can be assumed to have two personas [8]. The non-cooperative persona views the strategies exclusively in terms of maximizing his payoff, while the cooperative persona views the strategies exclusively by considering the social relationship and public interests.…”

“…Therefore, players must be able to negotiate effectively and maintain their own interests while yielding some considerations to others in the decisionmaking mechanism. Such behavior requires each individual to seek a social balance between its individual interests and the interests of others [8].…”

“…However, the game players' group interest is generally not optimized and perhaps not even well served if each individual player optimizes his own behavior. This is because optimization is an individual activity that is based on the doctrine that each individual is committed to maximizing its own satisfaction without concern for the welfare of others [8].…”