Using Gaussian processes to optimise concession in complex negotiations against unknown opponents
Colin R. Williams, Valentin Robu, Enrico Gerding, Nicholas R. Jennings · ePrints Soton (University of Southampton) · 2011
In multi-issue automated negotiation against unknown opponents, a key part of effective negotiation is the choice of concession strategy. In this paper, we develop a principled concession strategy, based on Gaussian processes predicting the opponent's future behaviour. We then use this to set the agent's concession rate dynamically during a single negotiation session. We analyse the performance of our strategy and show that it outperforms the state-of-the-art negotiating agents from the 2010 Automated Negotiating Agents Competition, in both a tournament setting and in self-play, across a variety of negotiation domains.