TY - GEN

T1 - The Internet of Things and Multiagent Systems

T2 - Decentralized Intelligence in Distributed Computing

AU - Singh, Munindar P.

AU - Chopra, Amit K.

N1 - ©2017 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE. Blue Sky Thinking Track

PY - 2017/7/17

Y1 - 2017/7/17

N2 - Traditionally, distributed computing concentrates on computation understood at the level of information exchange and sets aside human and organizational concerns as largely to be handled in an ad hoc manner. Increasingly, however, distributed applications involve multiple loci of autonomy. Research in multiagent systems (MAS) addresses autonomy by drawing on concepts and techniques from artificial intelligence. However, MAS research generally lacks an adequate understanding of modern distributed computing. In this Blue Sky paper, we envision decentralized multiagent systems as a way to place decentralized intelligence in distributed computing, specifically, by supporting computation at the level of social meanings. We motivate our proposals for research in the context of the Internet of Things (IoT), which has become a major thrust in distributed computing. From the IoT's representative applications, we abstract out the major challenges of relevance to decentralized intelligence. These include the heterogeneity of IoT components; asynchronous and delay-tolerant communication and decoupled enactment; and multiple stakeholders with subtle requirements for governance, incorporating resource usage, cooperation, and privacy. The IoT yields high-impact problems that require solutions that go beyond traditional ways of thinking. We conclude with highlights of some possible research directions in decentralized MAS, including programming models; interaction-oriented software engineering; and what we term enlightened governance.

AB - Traditionally, distributed computing concentrates on computation understood at the level of information exchange and sets aside human and organizational concerns as largely to be handled in an ad hoc manner. Increasingly, however, distributed applications involve multiple loci of autonomy. Research in multiagent systems (MAS) addresses autonomy by drawing on concepts and techniques from artificial intelligence. However, MAS research generally lacks an adequate understanding of modern distributed computing. In this Blue Sky paper, we envision decentralized multiagent systems as a way to place decentralized intelligence in distributed computing, specifically, by supporting computation at the level of social meanings. We motivate our proposals for research in the context of the Internet of Things (IoT), which has become a major thrust in distributed computing. From the IoT's representative applications, we abstract out the major challenges of relevance to decentralized intelligence. These include the heterogeneity of IoT components; asynchronous and delay-tolerant communication and decoupled enactment; and multiple stakeholders with subtle requirements for governance, incorporating resource usage, cooperation, and privacy. The IoT yields high-impact problems that require solutions that go beyond traditional ways of thinking. We conclude with highlights of some possible research directions in decentralized MAS, including programming models; interaction-oriented software engineering; and what we term enlightened governance.

U2 - 10.1109/ICDCS.2017.304

DO - 10.1109/ICDCS.2017.304

M3 - Conference contribution/Paper

SN - 9781538617939

SP - 1738

EP - 1747

BT - Proceedings of the 37th IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS)

PB - IEEE

CY - Atlanta

ER -