Self-organizing referral networks: A process view of trust and authority

Abstract

We are developing a decentralized approach to trust based on referral systems, where agents adaptively give referrals to one another to find other trustworthy agents. Interestingly, referral systems provide us with a useful and intuitive model of how links may be generated: a referral corresponds to a customized link generated on demand by one agent for another. This gives us a basis for studying the processes underlying trust and authority, especially as they affect the structure of the evolving social network of agents. We explore key relationships between the policies and representations of the individual agents on the one hand and the aggregate structure of their social network on the other. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2004.