Hermes: Supporting Argumentative Discourse in Multi-Agent Decision Making

Abstract

This paper describes Hermes, a system that enhances group decision making by providing an argumentation framework to the agents involved. The system organizes the existing knowledge in a discussion graph, which consists of issues, alternatives, positions and preference relations. Argumentation is performed through a set of discourse acts which trigger appropriate procedures for the propagation of information in the graph. Hermes is able to handle incomplete, qualitative and inconsistent information, and provides mechanisms for weighing arguments. Introduction Group Decision Support Systems (GDSSs) have been defined as interactive computer-based systems which facilitate the solution of ill-structured problems by a set of decision makers, working together as a team (Kreamer and King 1988). The main objective of a GDSS is to augment the effectiveness of decision groups through the interactive sharing of information between group members and the computer. This can be achieved by (i) rem...