A Framework for Agent Communication based on Goals and Argumentation

This paper proposes a formal framework for agent communication where agents can reason about their goals using strategic reasoning. This reasoning is argumentation-based and enables agents to generate a set of strategic goals depending on a set of constraints. Sub-goals are generated using this reasoning and they can be cancelled or substituted for alternatives during the dialogue progress. An original characteristic of this framework is that agents can use this strategic reasoning together with a tactic reasoning to persist in the achievement of their goals by considering alternatives depending on a set of constraints. Tactic reasoning is responsible of selecting the communicative acts to perform in order to realize the strategic goals. Some constraints are fixed when the conversation starts and others during the dialogue progress. The paper also discusses the computational complexity of such a reasoning.