Discussion session about Directions for Agent-Mediated Knowledge Management

1. AAAI Spring Symposium 2003 on Agent-Mediated Knowledge Management (AMKM 2003)San Francisco, 24-26March 2003 Discussion session about Directions for Agent-Mediated Knowledge Management During the discussion there were raised some questions We have tried to answer with some remarks and classifications

2. Directions for Agent-Mediated Knowledge Management AAAI Spring Symposium 2003 on Agent-Mediated Knowledge Management (AMKM 2003)San Francisco, 24-26March 2003 Initial question Are directions for AMKM depending on the characteristics of the domain? 1st classification (distinguishes between different problems or domains) • - Well Defined Domains (WDD) – where we can use formal approaches for knowledge representation and manipulation (like the BDI approach) • - Ill Defined Domains (IDD) – where formal approaches are more difficult to apply; we can get inspiration from non-formal tools used by social and cognitive sciences to represent knowledge example: cognitive, conceptual and topic maps can be useful in this situations Remark in cognitive mapping terms: in WDD there is a correspondence between some concept and its context; in IDD this correspondence is hard to identify

3. Directions for Agent-Mediated Knowledge Management AAAI Spring Symposium 2003 on Agent-Mediated Knowledge Management (AMKM 2003)San Francisco, 24-26March 2003 But... What are the goals of KM? (2rd classification)Goals of KM -to maintain the memory (of an organization) - agents are repositories of knowledge, MAS are repositories of different points of view we have discussed the example of nuclear industry, where culture and expertise is being dissipated - to support individual knowledge acquisition and organizational learning remarks: - simulation of disturbing factors in the organization can lead to knowledge acquisition (can lead to the understanding of how does the organization react) • situations of instability give raise of processes of knowledge acquisition. Knowledge increases when ill defined problems are solved, and this knowledge acquisition processes can be facilitated by agents

4. Directions for Agent-Mediated Knowledge Management AAAI Spring Symposium 2003 on Agent-Mediated Knowledge Management (AMKM 2003)San Francisco, 24-26March 2003 What are the agents roles in an IS? (4th classification) Agent roles 1st order processes – operational tasks that agents can perform 2nd order processes (KM roles) – concerning the use of agent’s potential to support emergent processes (as facilitators of organizational learning). The support of KM can lead to the treatment of conflicts / incoherences . Do we want to give agents the capacity of conflict solving? - KM prepares people - the conflict resolution should be a human decision; KM is as an environment that facilitates decisions, conflict resolution and learning - an important direction is to manage the agreement and disagreement zones in IDD

5. Directions for Agent-Mediated Knowledge Management AAAI Spring Symposium 2003 on Agent-Mediated Knowledge Management (AMKM 2003)San Francisco, 24-26March 2003 (5th classification) Modelling MAS for KM - Top-down approach : model interactions - Bottom-up approach : build the mechanism and see what happens Time is a determinant factor as it influences other factors (time to make decisions, time to learn…) We have concluded noticing that there are very few significant examples of validation of KM systems in industry. Nevertheless we are optimist, as we know that KM is very important to organizations in the near future.