Modeling user preferences in the design of decision-making agents

本研究的重点是设计代表用户做出决策的智能代理，例如在购买、销售和交易商品、服务和信息的电子市场中。这需要有能力模拟用户的偏好，在面对不完整的信息时做出决策，并与其他竞争代理进行协商。

This research focuses on the design of intelligent agents that make decisions on a user's behalf, such as in electronic markets where goods, services and information are purchased, sold and traded. This requires an ability to model a user's preferences, to make decisions when faced with incomplete information, and to negotiate with other competing agents. Not only can such an agent aid in making certain decisions on behalf of a user, provided that the user has developed sufficient trust in the automated system, but it can also be a valuable tool for helping the user herself to gain a better understanding of problems and of the choices that are available, to ask herself questions, and to ensure that her own beliefs and preferences are consistent. As users struggle with the problem of information overload, it is anticipated that such automated agents will continue to gain in importance. This work involves the development of improved techniques for intelligent agents to use in making decisions on behalf of users and in adapting their behaviour to the preferences and goals of each individual user. This research project will include several subprojects, including work on effective query selection in preference elicitation, on predicting unknown preferences and on opponent modeling in automated negotiation.