NegoChat: A chat-based negotiation agent

Avi Rosenfeld, Inon Zuckerman, Erel Segal-Halevi, Osnat Drein, Sarit Kraus

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

52 Scopus citations

Abstract

To date, a variety of automated negotiation agents have been created. While each of these agents has been shown to be effective in negotiating with people in specific environments, they lack natural language processing support required to enable real-world types of interactions. In this paper we present NegoChat, the first negotiation agent that successfully addresses this limitation. NegoChat contains several significant research contributions. First, we found that simply modifying existing agents to include an NLP module is insufficient to create these agents. Instead, the agents' strategies must be modified to address partial agreements and issue-by-issue interactions. Second, we present NegoChat's negotiation algorithm. This algorithm is based on bounded rationality, and specifically Aspiration Adaptation Theory (AAT). As per AAT, issues are addressed based on people's typical urgency, or order of importance. If an agreement cannot be reached based on the value the human partner demands, the agent retreats, or downwardly lowers the value of previously agreed upon issues so that a "good enough" agreement can be reached on all issues. This incremental approach is fundamentally different from all other negotiation agents, including the state-of-the-art KBAgent. Finally, we present a rigorous evaluation of NegoChat, showing its effectiveness.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication13th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, AAMAS 2014
Pages525-532
Number of pages8
ISBN (Electronic)9781634391313
StatePublished - 2014
Event13th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, AAMAS 2014 - Paris, France
Duration: 5 May 20149 May 2014

Publication series

Name13th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, AAMAS 2014
Volume1

Conference

Conference13th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, AAMAS 2014
Country/TerritoryFrance
CityParis
Period5/05/149/05/14

Keywords

  • Chat agent
  • Human-agent systems
  • Negotiation

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