Research

The Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) Group carries out fundamental research on how to model and design intelligent systems that emerge from the interaction of different agents, human and/or artificial. Our research focuses on:

• Logical and computational models of higher-order social cognition to enhance the development of intelligent interaction between people and computer systems, by supporting their abilities to reason about one another. This has applications to among others systems that help to detect deception and understand the spread of fake news in social networks.

• Formal and computational models of argument and their application in AI and in law. An important aim is to investigate responsible hybrid systems that connect knowledge representation and reasoning techniques with the powers of machine learning.

• Computational models of group decision-making processes, such as voting and deliberation, to support the development of more effective decision-making mechanisms with applications to, among others, Blockchain and eDemocracy.

The MAS group strongly contributes to the Bernoulli Institute theme Computing and Cognition by its use of computational and formal models of intelligent interaction. This research is embedded in several collaborations on the local level, including CogniGron and DSSC, within which presently two PhD projects are funded. At the national level, we are very much involved in the Gravitation project ‘Hybrid Intelligence: Augmenting Human Intellect’, in which we currently have three PhD students as well as three principal investigators, namely, Verbrugge (co-applicant), Verheij, and Grossi. Another national projects on this theme is Grossi’s current AI Humaine project 'Collective Decisions in Law and Economics: A Computational Perspective’ and Verbrugge’s finished NWO Vici-project ‘Cognitive systems in interaction: logical and computational models of higher-order social cognition'.Moreover, the MAS group also contributes to the Bernoulli Institute’s theme Systems, Data and Society. A recent national project on this theme is Verheij’s NWO Forensic Science project 'Designing and Understanding Forensic Bayesian Networks with Arguments and Scenarios’."