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CT: The study of multiagent systems (MAS) focuses on systems in which many intelligent agents interact with each other. The agents are considered to be autonomous entities, such as software programs or robots. Their interactions can be either cooperative or selfish. That is, the agents can share a common goal (e.g. an ant colony), or they can pursue their own interests (as in the free market economy).
MAS researchers develop communications languages, interaction protocols, and agent architectures that facilitate the development of multiagent systems. For example, a MAS researcher can tell you how to program each ant in a colony in order to get them all to bring food to the nest in the most efficient manner, or how to set up rules so that a group of selfish agents will work together to accomplish a given task. MAS researchers draw on ideas from many disciplines outside of AI, including biology, sociology, economics, organization and management science, complex systems, and philosophy.

S: http://aitopics.org/topic/multi-agent-systems (last access: 28 December 2014)

N: 1. Multiagent systems are a new paradigm for understanding and building distributed systems, where it is assumed that the computational components are autonomous: able to control their own behaviour in the furtherance of their own goals.
2. Multiagent systems are made up of multiple interacting intelligent agents—computational entities to some degree autonomous and able to cooperate, compete, communicate, act flexibly, and exercise control over their behavior within the frame of their objectives. They are the enabling technology for a wide range of advanced applications relying on distributed and parallel processing of data, information, and knowledge relevant in domains ranging from industrial manufacturing to e-commerce to health care. This book offers a state-of-the-art introduction to multiagent systems, covering the field in both breadth and depth, and treating both theory and practice. It is suitable for classroom use or independent study.

S: 1. http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/people/michael.wooldridge/pubs/imas/IMAS2e.html (last access: 28 December 2014). 2. http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/multiagent-systems-1 (last access: 28 December 2014).

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CR: artificial intelligence, computer science, cybernetics, robotics.