These foundational papers (published in 1988) lay out the concept of software agents creating and participating in a market for digital assets and computational resources.
They examine markets as a model for computation and proposes a framework for applying the power of market mechanisms to the software domain, describes algorithms (including algorithms for auctions and negotiation) for the allocation of processor time and storage space, and compares different evolutionary models to produce systems of greater competence than those we can directly design.
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