Eric KokEric Kok
I am a PhD student with the Intelligent Systems group at the
Utrecht University in The Netherlands. Here I work at the AIDA project
'Agents Interacting in Dialogues with Argumentation', which is supervised by
Prof. Dr. Mr. Henry Prakken, Dr. Gerard Vreeswijk and
Prof. Dr. John-Jules Meyer. This project focuses on testing
the applicability of argumentation in multi-agent interactions. Do the apparent benefits hold in a practical
implementation and how and on which points can effectiveness be measured?
I am part of the organising committee of the SIKS Career Day 2012. Targeted (primarily) at SIKS PhD students who recently or will soon graduate, it will provide a complete day to start your career in either industry or research/education. Several interesting speakers will talk about what it is like to work in industry, how to write a research proposal or how to make use of social media in your career. Several companies will present themselves on an information market and there is the opportunity to speed date with them.
The event will take place at the Utrecht University at 30 March 2012. Check out the website for more information: www.sikscareer.nl
Posted on 6 February 2012 at 11:19
Last week at the European Workshop on Multi-agent Systems (EUMAS 2011) I presented my paper ‘A Methodology for the Generation of Multi-Agent Argumentation Dialogue Scenarios‘ written together with John-Jules Meyer, Herre van Oostendorp, Henry Prakken and Gerard Vreeswijk.
Increasingly research into the uses of argumentation in multi-agent dialogues takes an experimental approach. Such studies explore how agents can successfully employ argumentation besides the best and worst case situations of formal analysis. While a vital part in these experiments is influenced by the scenarios from which dialogues are generated, there is very little research on how these can be generated in a meaningful way, respecting the characteristics of the underlying dialogue problem. This paper proposes, by means of an example system for deliberation dialogues, a methodology for the construction and evaluation of a scenario generation process. It is shown how scenarios can accomodate argumentation with structured arguments and how it is tested whether the generated scenarios are interesting for experimentation [full paper] [abstract] [presentation]
I really enjoyed the presentations and informal conversations and thought the organisation was nothing less than excellent. Thanks!
Posted on 28 November 2011 at 06:55
WE HAD A LAF
Last Friday I was at the London Argumentation Forum 2011, where (mostly) students presented their argumentation-related work. Here are the sheets of my presentation, if you’re interested.
Where agents are employed to cooperatively solve tasks, communication becomes a critical factor. Argumentation-based models have been proposed to support the required dialogues. Improved efficiency and effectiveness of these dialogues have been the justification for using argumentation. However, as of yet there is little work done on making the benefits of arguing versus non-arguing models clear. Our current research focusses on empirically evaluating argumentation-based dialogues, specifically for deliberation, by quantifying the desirable properties for such dialogues and comparing arguing and non-arguing strategies in a multi-agent simulation.
Thanks to Sanjay and Francesca for the organisation and COST for the covered travel expenses!
Posted on 29 March 2011 at 01:17
A FORMAL FRAMEWORK FOR DELIBERATION DIALOGUES
Back from ArgMAS in Toronto; a nice and interesting trip! I have put online both my paper and presentation for anyone to download it.
Eric M. Kok, John-Jules Ch. Meyer, Henry Prakken, and Gerard A. W. Vreeswijk. A Formal Argumentation Framework for Deliberation Dialogues. Proceedings of the 7th International Workshop on Argumentation in Multi-Agent Systems. Toronto (Canada), 2010 [Abstract] [Full paper] [Presentation]
Posted on 17 May 2010 at 05:22
ARGMAS 2010: FRAMEWORK FOR DELIBERATION DIALOGUES
On the 10th of May, I will be at the Argumentation in Multi-Agent Systems (ArgMAS) workshop, which is held as part of this year’s Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS) conference. I will present the work from my accepted paper ‘A Formal Argumentation Framework for Deliberation Dialogues’, which was written together with Henry Prakken, Gerard Vreeswijk and John-Jules Meyer.
Agents engage in deliberation dialogues to collectively decide on a course of action. To solve conflicts of opinion that arise, they can question claims and supply arguments. Existing models fail to capture the interplay between the provided arguments as well as successively selecting a winner from the proposals. This paper introduces a general framework for agent deliberation dialogues that uses an explicit reply structure to produce coherent dialogues, guides in outcome selection and provide pointers for agent strategies.
Looking forward to going to Toronto, Canada!
Posted on 22 April 2010 at 02:33
Posted on 28 November 2011 at 05:17