Levels of Delegation and Levels of Help for Agents with Adjustable Autonomy

Adjustable autonomy means dynamically adjusting the level of autonomy of an agent depending on the situation" [1]. Our claim is that in studying how to adjust the level of autonomy and how to arrive to a dynamic level of control, it could be useful an explicit theory of delegation able to specify different levels of autonomy. In this paper, we present our model of levels of delegation and help. On such a basis, it is possible to analyze the adjustable autonomy of an agent both by considering the level of delegation allowed to the contractor by the client, and the possibility for the contractor itself to adjust its own autonomy by restricting or by expanding the received delegation. We consider also possible conflicts due to the initiative of the delegated agent (contractor) or to an inappropriate delegation by the client: conflicts due to the contractor’s willingness to help the client better and more deeply (collaborative conflicts).