Opponent modelling in automated multi-issue negotiation using Bayesian learning

Abstract

The efficiency of automated multi-issue negotiation depends on the availability and quality of knowledge about an opponent. We present a generic framework based on Bayesian learning to learn an opponent model, i.e. the issue preferences as well as the issue priorities of an opponent. The algorithm proposed is able to effectively learn opponent preferences from bid exchanges by making some assumptions about the preference structure and rationality of the bidding process. The assumptions used are general and consist among others of assumptions about the independency of issue preferences and the topology of functions that are used to model such preferences. Additionally, a rationality assumption is introduced that assumes that agents use a concession-based strategy. It thus extends and generalizes previous work on learning in negotiation by introducing a technique to learn an opponent model for multi-issue negotiations. We present experimental results demonstrating the effectiveness of our approach and discuss an approximation algorithm to ensure scalability of the learning algorithm.