Stanford Heuristic Programming Project December 1984 Report No. HPP-84-44

Thi3 framework generalizes previous work on cooperation without communication, and shows the ability of communication to resolve conflicts among agents having disparate goals. Using a deal-making mechanism, agents are able to coordinate and cooperate more easily than in the communication-free model. In addition, there are certain types of interactions where communication makes possible mutually beneficial activity that is otherwise impossible to:oordinate.