Operational specification of a commitment-based agent communication language

Abstract

In this paper we propose an operational method to express the meaning of the messages exchanged among agents that interact in open environments. In an open environment, like for example the Internet, agents are usually designed by different constructors, so it is very important to define the meaning of a standard, widely accepted Agent Communication Language. We express the meaning of messages using the social notion of commitment. Commitments are defined operationally within an object-oriented paradigm. We give an operational specification of the commitment class that includes the concepts of conditional commitment and precommitment. Then we use commitment objects to define the meaning of some interesting speech acts, and give an example of their use in negotiation.