Jump to the assignments page.
Jump to the resources page.
Jump to the future discussion leaders page.
Please complete the midterm course evaluation survey.
office hours: by appointment
office: TAY 4.122
phone: 471-9796
fax: 471-8885
email: pstone@cs.utexas.edu
David Pardoe
office hours: by appointment
office: TAY 5.144
email: dpardoe@cs.utexas.edu
Have you ever dreamt of creating an autonomous intelligent agent to
plan your vacation for you? One that would choose your flights, make
your hotel reservation, and even buy entertainment tickets, all in an
effort to match your stated preferences as closely as possible while
minimizing cost? That was the challenge addressed by entrants in the
first Trading Agent
Competition, introduced in 2000 by researchers at the University
of Michigan.
This course will enable you to program agents that address such
challenges. It will focus on topics at the intersection of Computer
Science (including multiagent systems and machine learning),
Economics, and Game Theory. In particular, it will explore economic
mechanisms of exchange suitable for use by automated intelligent
agents. It will begin with the relatively traditional approaches in
game theory and mechanism design in which economic mechanisms are
evaluated and analyzed with simple, straightforward agent bidding
strategies. Extensive attention will then be paid to the
comparatively new emphasis on the creation of sophisticated bidding
strategies given a fixed mechanism.
The course will cover:
There will be a programming component to the course in the form of a
trading agent competition using one of the frameworks linked
below. Students will be expected to be proficient in C, C++, and/or
Java (depending on the platform we use).
Some background in artificial intelligence and strong programming
skills are recommended.
There is no course textbook.
Assignments
Reading, written, and programming assignments will be updated on the
assignments page. A tentative schedule for the entire semester is posted. But the readings and exercises may change up until the Tuesday of the week before they are due (1 week in advance).
Resources
Slides from class and other relevant links and information are on the
resources page. If you find
something that should be added there, please email it to me.
Mailing List
Please subscribe to
the class mailing list. The listname is "cs395t-pstone-fall06".
Once you have subscribed to the list, you can send mail to the class
at cs395t-pstone-fall06@lists.cc.utexas.edu.
Important class
information may be sent to this list. It is the student's
responsibility to be subscribed.
Course Requirements
Grades will be based on:
- Written responses to the readings (20%):
-
By 10pm on the night before class, everyone must submit a brief
question or comment about the readings as an email in plain ascii
text to Peter and David (pstone@cs and dpardoe@cs). I prefer
that is be sent in the body of the email, rather than as an
attachment. Please use the subject line "class readings for [due
date]". In some cases, specific questions may be posted along with
the readings. But in general, it is free form. Credit will be
based on evidence that you have done the readings carefully.
Acceptable responses include (but are not limited to):
- Class participation (30%):
-
Students are expected to be present in class having completed the
readings and participate actively in the discussions.
- Oral presentation/discussion moderation (10%):
-
Each student will be expected to lead a 15-minute discussion on one of
the readings. The discussion can begin with a brief summary/overview
of the important points in the readings, but the assumption is to be
that everyone has already completed the readings. The student may
either present material related to the readings (perhaps from an
outside source) or moderate a class discussion about the readings. In
the latter case, the student must be prepared to keep the conversation
flowing. Here are some tips on leading
a discussion. If you would like feedback on your discussion
topic, please contact Peter and David (pstone@cs and dpardoe@cs) by
10pm two nights before the discussion (Sunday or Tuesday).
- Programming project (20%):
-
About halfway through the semester, we will choose, as a class, one or
more domains for an end-of-class trading agent tournament. Each
student will be required to implement an agent for this tournament.
Depending on the domain and the interests of the students, pair
programming may be allowed. In rare instances, students may be
permitted to propose alternative programming projects as their based
on particular interests/questions that have arisen from the readings.
Details of the programming project will be announced by about week 6
of the class. The project will be due before the last week of class.
- Final report (20%):
-
To accompany the programming project, a written report will be due on
the last day of class describing the approach taken and relating it to
the readings from the class. The report should be roughly equivalent
to a conference paper in format, length, and style.
Empirical results should be included to evaluate the
approach.
Trading Agent Competitions
Related Courses Elsewhere
[Back to Department Homepage]
Page maintained by
Peter Stone
Questions? Send me
mail