Contributions to an Anthropological Approach to the Cultural Adaptation of Migrant Agents Rafael Heitor Bordini A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the University of London. Department of Computer Science University College London 1999 Abstract This thesis proposes the use of Cultural Anthropology as a source of inspiration for solutions to the problem of adaptation of autonomous, intelligent, computational agents that migrate to societies of agents with distinctive features from the ones of the society where those agents were originally conceived. This has implications for interoperation of disparate Multi-Agent Systems. In particular, the cognitive approach to anthropology is argued to be a suitable theoretical foun­ dation for this topic. Fieldwork practice in social anthropology is also indicated as an useful source of ideas. A pragmatic theory of intensionality is incorporated in this anthropological approach, resulting in a mechanism that allows agents to ascribe intensional ontologies of terms to societies that use unfamiliar means of communication; also, taxonomical relations among the terms in such ontologies can be retrieved, by means of a process inspired by the counterpart activity of ethnographers. This is presented using the Z notation for formal specification of systems, and illustrated on a set of terms from the game of cricket. Subsequently, a simulation of a game of cricket is described where one of the players is unfamiliar with the game, and therefore needs to learn the game by observing the other players. A reasonable behaviour for such a player is obtained, and the simulation offers grounds for further anthropologically-based studies. Further, a study of theories of moral sentiments is presented, and the Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma is used in simulations based on those ideas. The results of the simulations show clearly the positive impact, on groups of agents, of altruistic behaviour; this can only be coherently obtained in autonomous agents by modelling emotions, which are relevant for this project as anthropologists recognise them as an essential cross-cultural link. Finally, the consequences of this project to conceptions of Distributed Artificial Intelligence are discussed. © Edition de la Reunion des T he Migrant Angel Musee Gustave Moreau Musees Nationaux, see (Mathieu by Gustave Moreau 14 rue de la Rochefoucauld, and Lacarnbe 1997). Reproduced Water-colour, 30 x ‘23 cm. 75009, Paris. by kind permission of the Agence (cat. 441) Musee Gustave Moreau. Photographique RA W. D edication I dedicate this thesis to my grandmother, Adelina M azzini (in memoriam), who assisted in my upbring­ ing (thefundamental cultural adaptation,); and to my great-aunt Iris (Lina) Stendardi M azzini (in memo- riam), a brave and truly altruistic migrant agent as well as a delightful soul, fo r her always uplifting smile and the sweetest memories she left. This thesis was typeset in Monotype Baskerville 10.95 on 20.4 using DTe X. Acknowledgements If only there was an adequate way of acknowledging Prof. John A. Campbell, my supervisor. I cannot think of a way of expressing all that he has done for this thesis to be in its present state; all the amazingly careful corrections to the texts, the comments, suggestions, discussions, etc. And even if there was such a way, how could one possibly acknowledge with words all the lessons about academia and life in general, as well as scientific matters (in particular, but not at all only, on DAI), that only a supervisor of the stature of Prof. John Campbell can provide. And why not thank him for “simple” things like being always kind, understanding and encouraging. Eliseo Reategui in his thesis already mentioned the delightful stories we have the privilege of hearing during the meetings, in what is a brilliant didactic style; he also referred to Prof. Campbell as “a remarkable man.” I cannot find better words. Many researchers have helped with this work, and I acknowledge their help here as well as I express my gratefulness for their inspiring collaboration. I am indebted to Renata Vieira and Ana L. C. Bazzan for their support on two of the areas we have drawn from: formal pragmatics (Chapter 5) and game theory (Chapter 7), respectively. I also acknowledge: Dr. Rosa M. Viccari, Dr. Antonio Carlos da Rocha Costa, my previous supervisors (also Renata Vieira and Jomi F. Hiibner, main collaborators at the time); Prof. Yves Demazeu for the opportunity to present part of my work for his group and Dr. Jaime S. Sichman for some hints given at the time; Dr. Philip C. Burnham, from the Department of Anthropology at UCL, who gave some advice on sources in anthropology (as did Prof. Les Gasser, mentioned next); to Prof. Philip Cohen and Prof. Les Gasser, for the encouragement in my poster presentation at ICMAS’95; to Mark d’lnverno and Michael Luck for repeated support in my using of their Z-based framework; and finally to Ricardo C. Krug, Gerson G.H. Cavalheiro, Luciana P. Nedel, Soraia R. Musse, Giannis Koufakis and Jon Davidson for various help with the implementation of the cricket simulator. Thanks also to the some anonymous referees to our papers for many interesting comments. I also thank my brother Ricardo Mazzini Bordini for coining the term artificial culture and for suggesting the Moiras for association with the parts of my thesis. And Evangelos Grammenidis, a research student in the Classics Department at UCL (and thanks to Giannis Koufakis for the contact with him) for the meticulous suggestions and corrections to the form of the Greek citation. To the Agence Photographique RMJV for the kind permission (and providing the computer Acknowledgements 6 file) for the illustration on Page 3. I am very grateful to CAPES, a Brazilian government agency for postgraduate studies, for the grant for my PhD. Thanks a lot to my brother Rubens Salvador Bordini, who has been my proxy in Brazil, for all the troubles he had to deal with. Further, I acknowledge some colleagues who helped with daily life in this department: Eliseo Reategui (the “compatriot agent”); Paul Pal and Arif Iqbal (the “sympathetic agents”); Alberto Souza (to whom I functioned as compatriot agent), Jose Luis C.M. Borges, Antonio Liotta, Jorge Ortega-Arjona and Tom Quick, recent office-mates; and my office-mates for many years: Alfarez Abdul-Rahman, Giannis Koufakis and Jon Davidson. It is not possible to name them all, but thanks too all office-mates in the (many) rooms in which I have lived during these four years at UCL-CS: 208, 209, 227, 401; some other research students at UCL-CS have been very nice too, and again I mention only as representative Hugh Mallinson, a charming English gentleman who has recently done a great deal to socialise the department. Thanks to my second supervisor, Prof. Philip Treleaven. Thanks to Russel Winder, and later Mel Slater, who were the Research Student Tutors for the department; thanks also to Susan Pike who helped a lot since she started as PhD Student Administrator. To Russel Winder also for all I learnt about with him (and Julia Schnabel, among the few in the department to be as fond of DTJ^X as I was). Thanks to some administrative and (the very competent and sympathetic!) systems-group staff (as I cannot mention them all, I take Marion Sutcliffe and Barry Stein, respectively, as representatives); thanks are due even to the nice security guard who I met so many times when working late. Finally, the most important type of acknowledgement is actually that of a personal nature. No one accomplishes a PhD programme (particularly abroad) without a lot of emotional support. Therefore, to acknowledge all of my family and friends is fundamental. However, I adore my parents (Idahyr Salvador Bordini and Maria Celestina Mazzini Bordini), brothers and sisters (Ricardo, Lizete, Roberto, Renato, Rubens, Liliane), sisters-in-law (Andrea, Sandra, Mai and Cristina), and my niece (Thays, Roberto and Sandra’s daughter) so much that again I am left with no words. But I must at least acknowledge that, besides all emotional support, my parents also partly supported (particularly towards the end of the PhD) the heavy expenses of my living in London (and also some luxuries like the M T Baskerville fonts for typesetting this thesis). Also, I have some very good friends, and friends for me are (I dare say) even more important than they really are to everybody. They are: Arthur G.S. Bloise, Nara M. Bigolin, Denise B. da Silva, Renata Vieira, Alvaro F. Moreira, Debora A. Santos, Eliseo B. Reategui, Luciana P. Nedel, Otilia Werner-Kytola, Ricardo C. Krug and Gerson G.H. Cavalheiro. Thanks to all of them and all others that I have failed to mention here. Contents Abstract 2 Acknowledgements 5 Preface 13 I The Past ( When it Was Found that Autonomous Agents Were Fated to M igrate ) 14 1 Introduction 15 1.1 Definition of the Problem and Basic Concepts: Migration of Agents and Their Process of Adaptation .................................................................................................. 15 1.2 Overview of the Approach ......................................................................................... 18 1.3 Structure of the Thesis ............................................................................ 19 2 Background 21 2.1 Papers of Historical Im portance ............................................................................... 23 2.2 A Collection of Relevant W ork .................................................................................