Self-Organising Error Detection and Correction in Open Multi-agent Systems

A key feature of open systems is the expectation of non-compliant behaviour, which may be due to accident, necessity, or malice. Therefore, a system requirement for sustainable operation is to deal with non-compliance through error detection and correction according to type and severity. This paper presents a formal model of a self-organising system of `retributive justice' that encapsulates monitoring, enforcement, and conflict-resolution. Multi-agent simulation is used to evaluate the performance of this system, whereby agents play a variant of the linear public good game and use a behaviour observation framework to adapt their decision-making. Experimental results show that although self-organisation of retributive justice alone cannot guarantee sustainability in an open system and there seems to be no `ideal' system, it can improve the utility of the collective and diminish the likelihood of non-compliance.