An Abductive Interpretation for Open Agent Societies

The focus of this work is on the interactions among (possibly heterogeneous) agents that form an open society, and on the definition of a computational logic-based architecture for agent interaction. We propose a model where the society defines the allowed interaction protocols, which determine the ``socially'' allowed agent interaction patterns. The semantics of protocols can be defined by means of social integrity constraints. The main advantages of this approach are in the design of societies of agents, and in the possibility to detect undesirable behavior. In the paper, we present the model for societies ruled by protocols expressed as integrity constraints, and its declarative semantics. A sketch of the operational counterpart is also given.