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Jamal Alam
Multiagent Systems Group
DFKI, Geb. 43.8
Stuhlsatzenhausweg 3
66123 Saarbrücken

E-mail: jamal@dfki.de
          
 
  

Ramifications of Gift Exchange in Multiagent Systems

Keywords: Gift exchange, multiagent systems, Habitus-Field Theory, social simulation

Supervisor: Michael Schillo


This thesis explores the implications of applying the idea of gift exchange mechanism inspired from Pierre Bourdieuâs sociological theories, into a market-based multiagent system. Our work is directed in the continuation of investigations by Knabe, who addressed the formation of different organizations structures between providers in a profit-oriented market (Knabe, 2002). We scrutinize various hypotheses centered to gift exchange in which an agent sacrifices its profit for a long-term binding relationship. The idea is to aim a larger profit through alliances that are formed as an effect of gift exchange. Our suggestion is that a multiagent system based on the social mechanism of gift exchange performs a high level of robustness and durability.

The market in our case comprises of customers and providers agents; the former place calls for proposal for tasks in the market, while the latter proceed with the execution of tasks based on their abilities and other circumstances. In well defined cases, the providers are able to delegate tasks to other providers. This allows them to give presents to other providers so that the gift exchange mechanism becomes possible. The agents are either profit-oriented or the ones who prefer exchanging gifts and are in pursuit of others who also practice this mechanism. A number of interesting scenarios are examined that include preservation or repetition of a hierarchical structure in the market where less powerful agents use gift exchange as means of their survival, situations when two providers decide to form an alliance and share their abilities and profits, and hypothesize the split of profit-oriented and gift-giving agents.

The outcome of our experiments show that gift exchange as a sociological concept is important for the emergence of inter-relationships among the agents and can provide the synergy for the agents to remain committed to each other on a long-term basis.

Reference:
Knabe, T. (2002, Business Organizational Forms in Self-organizing Multiagent Systems, Diplomarbeit, Department of Computer Science, Saarland University.

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