Abstract

Many important and useful applications for software agents require multiple agents on a network that communicate with each other. Such agents must find each other and perform a useful joint computation without having to know about every other such agent on the network. As an example, this paper describes a matchmaker system, designed to find people with similar interests and introduce them to each other. The matchmaker is designed to introduce everyone, unlike conventional Internet media which only allow those who take the time to speak in public to be known. The paper details how the agents that make up the matchmaking system can function in a decentralized fashion, yet group themselves into clusters which reflect their users ’ interests; these clusters are then used to make introductions or allow users to send messages to others who share their interests. The algorithm uses referrals from one agent to another in the same fashion that word-of-mouth is used when people are looking for an expert. Several prototypes of various parts of the system have been implemented, and the most recent results, including simulations of up to 1000 such agents, are presented.

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