On the complexity of rational verification

Rational verification refers to the problem of checking which temporal logic properties hold of a concurrent/multiagent system, under the assumption that agents in the system choose strategies that form a game theoretic equilibrium. Rational verification can be understood as a counterpart to model c...

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Main Authors: Gutierrez, J, Najib, M, Perelli, G, Wooldridge, M
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: Springer 2022
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author Gutierrez, J
Najib, M
Perelli, G
Wooldridge, M
author_facet Gutierrez, J
Najib, M
Perelli, G
Wooldridge, M
author_sort Gutierrez, J
collection OXFORD
description Rational verification refers to the problem of checking which temporal logic properties hold of a concurrent/multiagent system, under the assumption that agents in the system choose strategies that form a game theoretic equilibrium. Rational verification can be understood as a counterpart to model checking for multiagent systems, but while classical model checking can be done in polynomial time for some temporal logic specification languages such as CTL, and polynomial space with LTL specifications, rational verification is much harder: the key decision problems for rational verification are 2EXPTIME-complete with LTL specifications, even when using explicit-state system representations. Against this background, our contributions in this paper are threefold. First, we show that the complexity of rational verification can be greatly reduced by restricting specifications to GR(1), a fragment of LTL that can represent a broad and practically useful class of response properties of reactive systems. In particular, we show that for a number of relevant settings, rational verification can be done in polynomial space and even in polynomial time. Second, we provide improved complexity results for rational verification when considering players’ goals given by mean-payoff utility functions—arguably the most widely used approach for quantitative objectives in concurrent and multiagent systems. Finally, we consider the problem of computing outcomes that satisfy social welfare constraints. To this end, we consider both utilitarian and egalitarian social welfare and show that computing such outcomes is either PSPACE-complete or NP-complete.
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spelling oxford-uuid:b65fd80b-0c1c-4c26-a9e1-6459146d7d3a2023-08-23T07:55:28ZOn the complexity of rational verificationJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:b65fd80b-0c1c-4c26-a9e1-6459146d7d3aEnglishSymplectic ElementsSpringer2022Gutierrez, JNajib, MPerelli, GWooldridge, MRational verification refers to the problem of checking which temporal logic properties hold of a concurrent/multiagent system, under the assumption that agents in the system choose strategies that form a game theoretic equilibrium. Rational verification can be understood as a counterpart to model checking for multiagent systems, but while classical model checking can be done in polynomial time for some temporal logic specification languages such as CTL, and polynomial space with LTL specifications, rational verification is much harder: the key decision problems for rational verification are 2EXPTIME-complete with LTL specifications, even when using explicit-state system representations. Against this background, our contributions in this paper are threefold. First, we show that the complexity of rational verification can be greatly reduced by restricting specifications to GR(1), a fragment of LTL that can represent a broad and practically useful class of response properties of reactive systems. In particular, we show that for a number of relevant settings, rational verification can be done in polynomial space and even in polynomial time. Second, we provide improved complexity results for rational verification when considering players’ goals given by mean-payoff utility functions—arguably the most widely used approach for quantitative objectives in concurrent and multiagent systems. Finally, we consider the problem of computing outcomes that satisfy social welfare constraints. To this end, we consider both utilitarian and egalitarian social welfare and show that computing such outcomes is either PSPACE-complete or NP-complete.
spellingShingle Gutierrez, J
Najib, M
Perelli, G
Wooldridge, M
On the complexity of rational verification
title On the complexity of rational verification
title_full On the complexity of rational verification
title_fullStr On the complexity of rational verification
title_full_unstemmed On the complexity of rational verification
title_short On the complexity of rational verification
title_sort on the complexity of rational verification
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