Formalisms for multi-agent systems

As computer scientists, our goals are motivated by the desire to improve computer systems in some way:
making them easier to design and implement, more robust and less prone to error, easier to use, faster,
cheaper, and so on. In the field of multi-agent systems, our goal is to build systems capable of flexible
autonomous decision making, with societies of such systems cooperating with one-another. There is a
lot of formal theory in the area but it is often not obvious what such theories should represent and what
role the theory is intended to play. Theories of agents are often abstract and obtuse and not related to
concrete computational models.
For example, formalisms such as temporal logics and multi-modal logics seem some distance from
agents that have actually been implemented. All too often, a new logic, notation, or formalism is presented,
without any convincing attempt to explain what its purpose is. Clearly, if we claim that theories
expressed in such formalisms are agent specifications, then there must surely be an obligation to establish
a clear link between the formalism and real agent applications.
This panel was concerned with several fundamental issues relating to formalisms for the description
and development of multi-agent systems.