The Trust-Based Interactive Partially Observable Markov Decision Process

<p>Cooperative agent systems are designed so that each is working toward the same common good. The problem is that software systems are complex and can be subverted by an adversary to either break the system or potentially worse create sneaky agents who are willing to cooperate when the stakes are low and take selfish greedy actions when the rewards rise. This research focuses on the ability of a group of agents to reason about the trustworthiness of each other and make optimal decisions about whether to cooperate. A TI-POMDP is developed to model the trust interactions between agents enabling the agents to select the best course of action from the current state. The TI-POMDP is a novel approach to multiagent cooperation based on an I-POMDP augmented with trust relationships. Experiments demonstrate the TI-POMDP's ability to accurately track the trust levels of agents with hidden agendas providing the agents the information needed to make decisions based on their level of trust and model of the environment. On average agents achieved rewards 3.8 times higher using the TI-POMDP model compared to a trust vector model.</p><p>This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore you will see the original copyright references library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world) and other notations in the work.</p><p>This work is in the public domain in the United States of America and possibly other nations. Within the United States you may freely copy and distribute this work as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.</p><p>As a reproduction of a historical artifact this work may contain missing or blurred pages poor pictures errant marks etc. Scholars believe and we concur that this work is important enough to be preserved reproduced and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.</p>