Autonomy is a characterizing notion of agents, and intuitively it is rather unambiguous. The quality of autonomy is recognized when it is perceived or experienced, yet it is difficult to limit autonomy in a definition. The desire to build agents that exhibit a satisfactory quality of autonomy includes agents that have a long life, are highly independent, can harmonize their goals and actions with humans and other agents, and are generally socially adept. Agent Autonomy is a collection of papers from leading international researchers that approximate human intuition, dispel false...

Based on two international workshops on trust in agent societies, held at AAMAS 2003 and AAMAS 2004, this book draws together carefully revised papers on trust, reputation, and security in agent society. Besides workshop papers, several contributions from leading researchers in this interdisciplinary field were solicited to complete coverage of all relevant topics.

The 13 papers presented take into account issues from multiagent systems, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, game theory, and social and organizational science. Theoretical topics are addressed as well as...