Multi Agent systems are systems where more than one intelligent agents are situated in the same environment;
they do not have to be owned by the same user, and they may be adversarial to each other.
Likewise, the whole system may be owned by the same user and the agents may cooperate to achieve the same collective delegated goal.
You are required to select an application that does not use a multi agent systems approach, and consider what a MAS approach would look like. You can use your professional setting, your desired future job, your life experiences or your general interests to help select the application.
For example, a car sharing application that helps people pool their commute journey, but is currently a manual process where users have to select the matches themselves, could use a multi agent systems approach utilising the contract net protocol.
To prepare for this assignment:
Review the module’s resources, references, and lecturecasts.
To complete this discussion:
Your contribution to the discussion is expected over a three-week period as follows:
Week One – Post your initial response to the discussion prompt (400-600 words).
Include references to your sources of information so that other students can find them easily.
In this discussion forum, it is not strictly required to use academic sources, but sources from other domains such as news, reviews, and industry press releases (amongst others) are encouraged.
Your initial post should:
Focus on a specific application that does not use an MAS approach, but you believe has potential to exploit this technology.
Discuss how an MAS approach could work for this application, including how feasible this may be.
Would there be any significant changes in functionality?
Would there be any significant changes in usability?
Are there any potential advantages to an MAS approach over the conventional approach?
Are there any potential downsides to an MAS approach over the conventional approach?
You should include any relevant points on legal, ethical or social issues.
You are NOT required to design or implement any solution – you are required to simply discuss a potential solution.