Hypermedia Communities of People and Autonomous Agents

The HyperAgents project aims to enable the deployment of world-wide hybrid communities of people and autonomous agents on the Web. For this purpose, HyperAgents defines a new class of multi-agent systems (MAS) that use hypermedia as a general mechanism for uniform interaction such that they are: (i) aligned with the Web architecture to inherit the properties of the Web as a world-wide, open, and long-lived system, and (ii) transparent and accountable to support acceptance by people. We refer to this new envisioned class of Web-based MAS as Hypermedia MAS. The HyperAgents project proposes: (1) to define an architectural style for Hypermedia MAS that induces the above-mentioned properties, (2) to define declarative languages and mechanisms for specifying, enacting, and regulating interactions among people and autonomous agents in Hypermedia MAS, (3) to develop an open-source software infrastructure for Hypermedia MAS that enables the deployment of hybrid communities on the Web, and (4) to demonstrate the deployment of prototypical hybrid communities in two application areas: (i) Industry 4.0 and (ii) tackling online disinformation. To undertake this investigation, the project consortium brings together internationally recognized researchers actively contributing to research on autonomous agents and MAS, the Web architecture, Semantic Web, and to the standardization of the Web. Being able to harness the collective power of Web-scale hybrid communities and to focus it on specific problems would have extensive implications in a broad range of domains: for manufacturers, it could enable distributed intelligent manufacturing at global scale; for citizens, it could enable access to transparent and trustworthy online information. We expect that the work conducted in this project will break new ground in AI and Web research and that its applications will cut across society.