A Decision-Theoretic Approach to Coordinating Multi-agent Interactions

We describe a decision-theoretic method that an autonomous agent can use to model multiagent situations and behave rationally based on its model. Our approach, which we call the Recursive Modeling Method, explicitly accounts for the recursive nature of multiagent reasoning. Our method lets an agent recursively model another agent's decisions based on probabilistic views of how that agent perceives the multiagent situation, which in turn are derived from hypothesizing how that other agent perceives the initial agent's possible decisions, and so on. Further , we show how the possibility of multiple interactions can affect the decisions of agents, allowing cooperative behavior to emerge as a rational choice of selfish agents that otherwise might behave uncooperatively .