Group Ability And Structure

Groups of intelligent agents are the object of study in several subareas of AI, notably, autonomous agents, multiagent planning and action, discourse understanding, and cooperative work. I present a formal theory of the ability of a group of agents that analyzes ability directly in terms of the individual skills of the group's members, and its internal structure or organization. Since this theory does not reduce \know-how," the knowledge of skills, to \know-that," the knowledge of facts, it avoids many of the problems that plague traditional theories of knowledge and action. In using the notion of \strategies" (as described in the paper), this theory presents a realistic two-layered view of action by, and interaction among, groups of agents. This theory has important ramiications in the study of the intentions and beliefs of groups of agents, and of the combination of their expertise.