Negotiation and Bargaining

Negotiation
• It is a interaction in which group of agents with
conflicting interests try to come to a mutually
acceptable agreement over an outcome.
• The outcome can be allocation of resources such as
commodities, services, time, money, CPU cycles etc.,
• Agent’s interests are conflicting in the sense that they
cannot be simultaneously satisfied.
• Since there are many possible outcomes, negotiation is
a “distributed search through a space of potential
agreements”.
 Aspects of Negotiation
• Negotiation problem requires:
– The set of possible outcomes
– The agents conducting negotiation
– The protocol according to which agent search for
agreement
– The individual strategies that determine the
agents behavior
• Set of possible outcomes
– Single-issue negotiation e.g. dividing a tank of petrol
– Multi-issue negotiation e.g. deciding time and place of a dinner
• Agents may have allocation of resources before negotiation.
Negotiation reallocates resources which will be more
preferable.
• Conflict deal – agents do not reach an agreement in
negotiation.
• Agents preference relation:
• Agents preference relation using utility function:
• Multi-agent utility function:
 Game theoretic approach for single-issue
negotiation
• E.g: single resource, two agents
• Two models
– Co-operative model: players negotiate outcomes
that are mutually beneficial
– Non co-operative model: focus on individually
beneficial outcomes
 Co-operative models for single-issue
negotiation
• 2 individuals have the opportunity to collaborate for mutual benefit;
• how much an individual benefits depends on actions taken by both
agents.
• E.g. buyer and seller
• Nash analyzed bargaining problem and defined a solution using
axiomatic approach.
• A solution means how much each individual should expect to benefit
from the situation.
• Utility function:
• Bargaining set: utility pair from agreement
• Utility pair from disagreement:
• Bargaining function:
 Non Co-operative models for single-issue
negotiation
• In co-operative model, no protocol was used.
Here, protocols will be used.
• Alternating offers protocol
 Game theoretic approach for multi-issue
negotiation
• A set of issues may be negotiated together or
one by one.
• Procedures for bargaining:
– Global bargaining
– Separate bargaining
– Sequential bargaining with independent
implementation
– Sequential bargaining with simultaneous
implementation
 Heuristic approach for multi-issue
negotiation
• Heuristics for generating counter offers
– Time dependent
– Resource dependent
– Behavior dependent
 Argumentation based negotiation
• It enables agents to exchange additional meta-information
during negotiation. Exchanging this information enables
agents to reach agreements not previously possible.