1. 1DAML PI meeting, 16-18 October DAML and Agents DAML and Agents Breakout Session DAML PI Meeting 17 October 2002 Tim Finin

2. 2DAML PI meeting, 16-18 October Goals Find out who is doing what Enumerate issues and open problems Suggest potential new infrastructure, e.g., ontologies, software components, tools, … Identify how agents+DAML can help in DOD applications Recommend next steps

3. 3DAML PI meeting, 16-18 October Starting points Current experience: How has DAML been used in what agent frameworks and what is the outcome. Future: How should DAML fit into existing agent infrastructures (DARPA Grid, FIPA, Cougaar, OAA,...) Agent varieties: How is/can DAML be used with mobile agents, interface agents, learning agents, etc. Ontologies: what common ontologies are available or needed for agent-based systems (e.g., agents & their properties, speech acts, user models, trust, policy, …) DAML-S: How well does DAML-S fulfill needs for service description & discovery in MAS (e.g., FIPA DF, Retsina, OAA). Tools: What tools, software components, techniques are available or needed (e.g., DAML to KIF/SL translators) DOD: How can agents+DAML support DOD applications, e.g., by providing needed ontologies (temporal, spatial, geospatial,...) or aiding semantic integration with DOD legacy systems.

4. 4DAML PI meeting, 16-18 October Sharp definition of an agent? … in contrast to traditional web services? Nope. But there are some characteristics… –Agents do things and can be autonomous – focus on decisions and actions (describing and constraining) –Agents are (often) part of a community of peers – focus on communicating knowledge –Agents represent people and organizations – focus on modeling their clients

5. 5DAML PI meeting, 16-18 October Paradigm shift Most agent concepts and technology came from the client server and message passing The web offers new paradigms Shared memory vs. messaging

6. 6DAML PI meeting, 16-18 October No dominant agent framework There is, as yet, no dominant, general agent framework Some standards are –FIPA (http://fipa.org/) standards for agnet languages, protocols and services –Major DOD R&D frameworks: DARPA Grid, Cougaar –Smaller communities: OAA, Retsina, … –Vaguely agent like frameworks: Jini, …

7. 7DAML PI meeting, 16-18 October DAMLs impact on agent systems There is considerable interest and much preliminary in using DAML in existing agent frameworks, such as FIPA. Its being used as a KR language, as an interlingua, for ontologies, to describe policies, for service description and matching, etc. None of this has been codified as part of any standard.

8. 8DAML PI meeting, 16-18 October FIPA Agent Platform AMSDFACC internal platform message transport AA software IIOP Agents belong to one or more agent platforms which provide basic services. DAML-S used in DF in some versions

9. 9DAML PI meeting, 16-18 October FIPA Standards Overview EnvelopeEncodingScheme ACLEncodingScheme CLEncodingScheme Transport Protocol InteractionProtocol Envelope 1 1 1 isTransmittedOver Ontology Message 1 ACL 1 isExpressedIn 1..* 1 1 contains Content Language Symbol 11..*1 belongsTo Content 1 1 1 1 contains 1111 isExpressedIn 0..* 1 1 contains 1 IIOP HTTP ACL SL fipa-agent-management IDL XML bit-eff String XML bit-eff String request, query, request-when contract-net, iterated-contract-net brokering, recruiting subscribe, propose

10. 10DAML PI meeting, 16-18 October Things to do

11. 11DAML PI meeting, 16-18 October Ontologies for core agent services We should develop common ontologies to support core services which facilitate multi- agent systems, such as: –Service registries –Authentication, security policy checker –Trust and reputation server –Etc.

12. 12DAML PI meeting, 16-18 October More ontologies important for agent Speech acts (inform, request, query-if, …) Conversational policies and interactions protocols Policies for behavior norms Security and trust concepts User models/profiles for people, roles, stereotypes, and organizations

13. 13DAML PI meeting, 16-18 October Protocols for agent interactions In developing things like DQL we should use or at least be informed by protocols designed by agent systems These have been explored in several contexts and some reasonably mature protocols have been developed and specified, e.g.: –FIPA IP library

14. 14DAML PI meeting, 16-18 October Tools Some ideas for tools that would be useful in a MAS context were discussed, e.g.: –FIPA DF -> DAML-S translator could enable access to Agentcities services –Well defined and documented reasoning module (in Java) for DAML and RDF to use with an agent.

15. 15DAML PI meeting, 16-18 October Ending point The envisioned grand convergence of Web, Agents and legacy applications Additional possible actions: –Evangelize in agent communities (DARPA Grid, Cougaar, FIPA, OAA, etc) to get DAML used for … content language, ontologies, service descriptions, etc. –Evangelize in W3C community to consider incorporating agent concepts and languages