Research on agent communication languages has typically taken the
speech acts paradigm as its starting point. Despite their manifest
attractions, speech-act models of communication have several serious
disadvantages as a foundation for communication in artificial agent
systems. In particular, it has proved to be extremely difficult to
give a satisfactory semantics to speech-act based agent communication
languages. In part, the problem is that speech-act semantics typically
make reference to the “mental states� of agents (their beliefs, desires,
and intentions), and there is in general no way to attribute such
attitudes to arbitrary computational agents. In addition, agent programming
languages have only had their semantics formalised for abstract,
stand-alone versions, neglecting aspects such as communication primitives.
With respect to communication, implemented agent programming languages
have tended to be rather ad hoc. This paper addresses both of these
problems, by giving semantics to speech-act based messages received
by an AgentSpeak agent. AgentSpeak is a logic-based agent programming
language which incorporates the main features of the PRS model of
reactive planning systems. The paper builds upon a structural operational
semantics to AgentSpeak that we developed in previous work. The main
contributions of this paper are as follows: an extension of our earlier
work on the theoretical foundations of AgentSpeak interpreters; a
computationally grounded semantics for (the core) performatives used
in speech-act based agent communication languages; and a well-defined
extension of AgentSpeak that supports agent communication.
%0 Journal Article
%1 Vieira:2007:jair
%A Vieira, Renata
%A Moreira, Álvaro
%A Wooldridge, Michael
%A Bordini, Rafael H.
%D 2007
%J J. of Artificial Intelligence Research
%K imported thesis
%P 221--267
%T On the Formal Semantics of Speech-Act Based Communication in an Agent-Oriented
Programming Language
%U http://www.aaai.org/Papers/JAIR/Vol29/JAIR-2908.pdf
%V 29
%X Research on agent communication languages has typically taken the
speech acts paradigm as its starting point. Despite their manifest
attractions, speech-act models of communication have several serious
disadvantages as a foundation for communication in artificial agent
systems. In particular, it has proved to be extremely difficult to
give a satisfactory semantics to speech-act based agent communication
languages. In part, the problem is that speech-act semantics typically
make reference to the “mental states� of agents (their beliefs, desires,
and intentions), and there is in general no way to attribute such
attitudes to arbitrary computational agents. In addition, agent programming
languages have only had their semantics formalised for abstract,
stand-alone versions, neglecting aspects such as communication primitives.
With respect to communication, implemented agent programming languages
have tended to be rather ad hoc. This paper addresses both of these
problems, by giving semantics to speech-act based messages received
by an AgentSpeak agent. AgentSpeak is a logic-based agent programming
language which incorporates the main features of the PRS model of
reactive planning systems. The paper builds upon a structural operational
semantics to AgentSpeak that we developed in previous work. The main
contributions of this paper are as follows: an extension of our earlier
work on the theoretical foundations of AgentSpeak interpreters; a
computationally grounded semantics for (the core) performatives used
in speech-act based agent communication languages; and a well-defined
extension of AgentSpeak that supports agent communication.
@article{Vieira:2007:jair,
abstract = {Research on agent communication languages has typically taken the
speech acts paradigm as its starting point. Despite their manifest
attractions, speech-act models of communication have several serious
disadvantages as a foundation for communication in artificial agent
systems. In particular, it has proved to be extremely difficult to
give a satisfactory semantics to speech-act based agent communication
languages. In part, the problem is that speech-act semantics typically
make reference to the “mental states� of agents (their beliefs, desires,
and intentions), and there is in general no way to attribute such
attitudes to arbitrary computational agents. In addition, agent programming
languages have only had their semantics formalised for abstract,
stand-alone versions, neglecting aspects such as communication primitives.
With respect to communication, implemented agent programming languages
have tended to be rather ad hoc. This paper addresses both of these
problems, by giving semantics to speech-act based messages received
by an AgentSpeak agent. AgentSpeak is a logic-based agent programming
language which incorporates the main features of the PRS model of
reactive planning systems. The paper builds upon a structural operational
semantics to AgentSpeak that we developed in previous work. The main
contributions of this paper are as follows: an extension of our earlier
work on the theoretical foundations of AgentSpeak interpreters; a
computationally grounded semantics for (the core) performatives used
in speech-act based agent communication languages; and a well-defined
extension of AgentSpeak that supports agent communication.},
added-at = {2017-03-16T11:50:55.000+0100},
author = {Vieira, Renata and Moreira, \'Alvaro and Wooldridge, Michael and Bordini, Rafael H.},
biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/26731291d542ea7a63b3175b01383fc45/krevelen},
interhash = {1ef7d2e8a88060014fcab34b737ad2c2},
intrahash = {6731291d542ea7a63b3175b01383fc45},
journal = {J. of Artificial Intelligence Research},
keywords = {imported thesis},
month = jun,
owner = {Rick},
pages = {221--267},
timestamp = {2017-03-16T11:54:14.000+0100},
title = {On the Formal Semantics of Speech-Act Based Communication in an Agent-Oriented
Programming Language},
url = {http://www.aaai.org/Papers/JAIR/Vol29/JAIR-2908.pdf},
volume = 29,
year = 2007
}