Skip to main content

Evolving Mechanisms in Boolean Games

  • Conference paper
Multiagent System Technologies (MATES 2013)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 8076))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

A Boolean game models situations in which each agent of a game holds a distinct set of Boolean variables, and has a goal it attempts to satisfy. However, at system level, there may be either constraints or a global goal to be fulfilled. Therefore, it is necessary to design a mechanism that provides incentives to the agents to align their individual goals with the global goal. It has been proven that designing such a mechanism is hard. Therefore, in this paper we propose the use of an evolutionary approach to mechanism design so that the system reward is optimized. This has a potential impact in distributed as well as multiagent systems, where agents often face binary decisions. Examples are minority and congestion games in general, as, e.g., the El Farol Bar Problem. Our results show that using a genetic algorithm one can evolve a configuration in which agents have Boolean functions that make them act in a way that is aligned with a global goal.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Arthur, W.B.: Inductive reasoning and bounded rationality. The American Economic Review 84(2), 406–411 (1994)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Bonzon, E., Lagasquie-Schiex, M.-C., Lang, J., Zanuttini, B.: Boolean games revisited. In: ECAI, pp. 265–269 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Challet, D., Zhang, Y.C.: Emergence of cooperation and organization in an evolutionary game. Physica A 246, 407–418 (1997)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Challet, D., Zhang, Y.C.: On the minority game: Analytical and numerical studies. Physica A 256, 514–532 (1998)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Conitzer, V., Sandholm, T.: Complexity of mechanism design. In: Proceedings of the Eighteenth Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence, UAI 2002, pp. 103–110. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc., San Francisco (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Bazzan, A.L.C., Epstein, D., Machado, A.M.: Break with agents who listen to too many others (at least when making Boolean decisions!). In: Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2012), pp. 1389–1390 (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Dunne, P.E., Wooldridge, M.: Towards tractable Boolean games. In: AAMAS, pp. 939–946 (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Endriss, U., Kraus, S., Lang, J., Wooldridge, M.: Designing incentives for Boolean games. In: AAMAS, pp. 79–86 (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Endriss, U., Kraus, S., Lang, J., Wooldridge, M.: Incentive engineering for Boolean games. In: IJCAI, pp. 2602–2607 (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Galstyan, A., Kolar, S., Lerman, K.: Resource allocation games with changing resource capacities. In: Proceedings of the Second International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, pp. 145–152. ACM Press (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Harrenstein, P., van der Hoek, W., Meyer, J.-J., Witteveen, C.: Boolean games. In: Proceedings of the Eighth Conference on Theoretical Aspects of Rationality and Knowledge, pp. 287–298. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, San Mateo (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Johnson, N.F., Jarvis, S., Jonson, R., Cheung, P., Kwong, Y.R., Hui, P.M.: Volatility and agent adaptability in a selforganizing market. Physica A (258), 230–236 (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Kauffman, S.A.: Metabolic stability and epigenesis in randomly constructed genetic nets. J. Theor. Biol. 22(3), 437–467 (1969)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Kauffman, S.A.: The Origins of Order. Oxford University Press, Oxford (1993)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Phelps, S., Mcburney, P., Parsons, S.: Evolutionary mechanism design: a review. Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems 21(2), 237–264 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Tumer, K., Wolpert, D.: A survey of collectives. In: Tumer, K., Wolpert, D. (eds.) Collectives and the Design of Complex Systems, pp. 1–42. Springer (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Wolpert, D.H., Wheeler, K., Tumer, K.: Collective intelligence for control of distributed dynamical systems. Europhysics Letters 49(6) (March 2000)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Galafassi, C., Bazzan, A.L.C. (2013). Evolving Mechanisms in Boolean Games. In: Klusch, M., Thimm, M., Paprzycki, M. (eds) Multiagent System Technologies. MATES 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 8076. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40776-5_9

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40776-5_9

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-40775-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-40776-5

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics