Tutorial 1: Towards mobile conversational agents: abstract and concrete models

Organizer: Pierre Bonzon, University of Lausanne

Course objectives:

The objective of this tutorial is to expose, both in abstract and concrete terms, a complete approach for defining and implementing mobile conversational agents. This approach is based on recently published results that integrate logical communication primitives within a core model of non-deterministic agents with plans. A block-structured language for agent dialogues will be introduced. This language can be compiled into agent plans and executed on an abstract machine. Using a multithreaded extension of this abstract machine allows agents to engage in multiple conversations. The resulting integrated model could be used as a basis for developments in this relatively new field of research.

Target audience and prerequisites:

This tutorial is targeted at people with no prior exposure on the subject. A short overview on current core and communication agent models will be given as an introduction. The presentation will then focus on defining the various constituents of the proposed integrated model. These definitions will first take the form of procedures and/or functions, and then be implemented as Prolog programs. Although the ability to read Prolog programs will be required in order to understand the details of these implementations, no particular knowledge will be needed in order to follow the conceptual and/or theoretical developments.

Detailed course outline and schedule

9:00 - 10:30 Lectures I + II

10:30-11:00 Break

11:00-12:30 Lectures III + IV

12:30-1:30 Lunch

1:30-3:00 Lectures V + VI

Course length:

As indicated above, this tutorial will be divided into 6 lectures, 45 minutes each.

Presenters' biographical sketch:

The presenter is a professor at the University of Lausanne. In the past, he has been invited professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz (1985-6) and a visiting scientist at the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley, CA (1994-95). He is currently active as a researcher in the field of communicating agents. The proposed tutorial will be primarily based on the following results:

K.V. Hendricks, F.S. de Boer, W.van der Hoek and J.-J. Meyer, Semantics of Communicating Agents Based on Deduction and Abduction, in: F.Dignum & M.Greaves (eds), Issues in Agent Communication, Lectures Notes in Artificial Intelligence, vol. 1916, Springer Verlag (2000)

P. Bonzon, An Abstract Machine for Communicating Agents Based on Deduction, in: J.-J. Meyer & M.Tambe (eds), Intelligent Agents VIII, Lectures Notes in Artificial Intelligence, vol. 2333, Springer Verlag (2002)

P. Bonzon, Compiling Dynamic Agent Conversations, in: M. Jarke, J.Koehler & G. Lakemeyer (eds), Advances in Artificial Intelligence, Lectures Notes in Artificial Intelligence, vol. 2479, Springer Verlag (2002)

Tutorial material/handouts:

Each participant will be provided with a hard copy of the above references, of the presentation's slides and of all the implemented Prolog programs.