Decentralized A.I

Book excerpt: Much research in Artificial Intelligence deals with a single agent having complete control over the world. A variation of this is Distributed AI (DAI), which is concerned with the collaborative solution of global problems by a distributed group of entities. This book deals with Decentralized AI (DzAI), which is concerned with the activity of an autonomous agent in a multi-agent world. The word ``agent'' is used in a broad sense, to designate an intelligent entity acting rationally and intentionally with respect to its goals and the current state of its knowledge. A number of these agents coexist and may collaborate with other agents in a common world; each agent may accomplish its own tasks, or cooperate with other agents to perform a personal or global task. The agents have imperfect knowledge about each other and about their common world, which they can update either through perception of the world, or by communication with each other.The papers were originally presented at a workshop held at King's College, Cambridge, and have been revised for this book.