CSE team from UoM Honoured with a Merit Award at NBQSA 2025

"Evolution of Cooperation in LLM Agent Societies: Normative Reasoning in Social Dilemmas Using Different Punishment Strategies" is an innovative research project that explores how traditional mathematical theories of cooperation can be applied to advanced, language-driven Multi-Agent Systems (MAS). Using normative reasoning and various punishment strategies, the study examines complex social dilemmas involving multiple agents, such as Diners’ Dilemma, Public Goods Dilemma, and File Sharing Dilemma. Through a novel agent framework for decision-making in multi-player dilemmas, the project demonstrates that punishment mechanisms and peer monitoring are crucial for the emergence of social norms and for promoting cooperative behaviour even across agent populations with diverse behaviour strategies. This approach offers significant potential for practical applications, such as collaborative robotics, AI governance, and decentralised systems, where dynamic policies can ensure fair use and reduce free-riding behaviour, allowing agents to achieve their objectives.

The project was conducted under the supervision of Dr. Surangika Ranathunga (Massey University, New Zealand), Dr. Nisansa de Silva (University of Moratuwa), Prof. Stephen Cranefield and Prof. Tony Bastin Roy Savarimuthu (University of Otago, New Zealand). The preliminary findings of this research are also published at the COINE workshop held in Detroit, USA.

The Department of Computer Science & Engineering congratulate the team on this great achievement and extends its best wishes for a bright future.