Discussion 2 - Agent Communication Languages

This discussion explored the trade-offs between semantic expressiveness and practical efficiency in agent communication. ACLs like KQML and FIPA-ACL offer rich semantic frameworks grounded in speech-act theory (Labrou and Finin, 1998), but their complexity introduces interoperability and performance challenges (Mayfield, Labrou and Finin, 1996).

Peers noted that newer protocols such as MCP and ACP address tooling and integration issues while preserving ACLs’ communicative depth (Ehtesham et al., 2025). Others emphasised hybrid architectures that combine semantic clarity with lightweight protocols to improve scalability and interoperability (Fielding, 2000; Singh, 1998).

Overall, the future of agent communication likely lies in protocol stacks that balance ACLs' semantic richness with modern implementation needs.

References

• Ehtesham, A., Singh, A., Gupta, G.K. and Kumar, S. (2025) ‘A survey of agent interoperability protocols: Model Context Protocol (MCP), Agent Communication Protocol (ACP), Agent-to-Agent Protocol (A2A), and Agent Network Protocol (ANP)’. arXiv preprint arXiv:2505.02279. Available at: https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.02279v1.
• Fielding, R. (2000) Architectural styles and the design of network-based software architectures. Doctoral dissertation. University of California, Irvine.
• Labrou, Y. and Finin, T. (1998) ‘Semantics and conversations for an agent communication language’, arXiv preprint cs/9809034. Available at: https://arxiv.org/abs/cs/9809034.
• Mayfield, J., Labrou, Y. and Finin, T. (1996) ‘Evaluation of KQML as an agent communication language’, in Wooldridge, M.J., Müller, J.P. and Tambe, M. (eds.) Intelligent Agents II: Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages. Berlin: Springer, pp.347–360.
• Singh, M.P. (1998) ‘Agent communication languages: Rethinking the principles’. Computer, 31(12), pp.40–47. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1109/2.735849.