Section 3 : Multiagent decision-making and game theory

Commentary

Section Goals

• To introduce basic concepts and principles of game theory, and their use in agent and multiagent design.

Learning Objectives

Learning Objective 1

• Outline game theory, and describe how it can help in agent and multiagent design.
• Define mechanism, and exemplify several types of auction.
• Explain the following concepts or terms:
  • Game theory
  • Mixed strategy
  • Nash equilibrium
  • Zero-sum games
  • Mechanism design
  • Inverse game theory
  • English auction
  • Sealed bid auction
  • Strategy-proof mechanism

Objective Readings

Required readings:

Reading topics:

Decisions with Multiple Agents, Game Theory and Mechanism Design (see Sections 17.5 - 17.6 of AIMA3ed)

Stone, P., Schapire, R. E., Littman, M. L., Csirik, J. A., and McAllester, D. (2003) Decision-theoretic bidding based on learned density models in simultaneous, interacting auctions. Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, 19, 209-242.

Objective Questions

• How can mechanism design be used to construct intelligent multiagent systems?

Objective Activities

• Explore recent papers in game theory based on multiagent design and mechanism design. Report and discuss your findings in the course conference.
• Complete Exercise 17.17 of AIMA3ed.