AI Glossary
The complete dictionary of Artificial Intelligence
Consensus Algorithm
Set of rules and procedures allowing autonomous agents to reach unanimous agreement on a decision or shared state despite asynchronous communications and potential failures.
Proof of Work (PoW)
Consensus mechanism where agents must solve a computationally difficult problem to validate transactions, thus ensuring security through investment in computational resources.
Proof of Stake (PoS)
Consensus protocol where agents validate blocks proportionally to their participation or stake in the system, replacing computational power with economic investment as guarantee.
Paxos Algorithm
Family of fault-tolerant consensus algorithms that allow a set of agents to agree on a single value in an asynchronous environment with possible failures.
Raft Algorithm
Consensus algorithm designed to be more understandable than Paxos, using a leader-follower system with election terms to guarantee consistency of shared states between agents.
Gossip Protocol
Decentralized communication mechanism where agents periodically exchange information with their neighbors, enabling rapid and resilient data propagation to achieve consensus.
Asynchronous Consensus
Type of consensus where no assumptions are made about communication delays between agents, making the system robust but requiring more complex solutions to guarantee agreement.
Synchronous Consensus
Agreement mechanism where communications between agents are guaranteed within bounded delays, simplifying consensus achievement but being less resilient to network variations.
Partition Tolerance
Ability of a multi-agent system to maintain consensus and operationality despite network divisions into isolated sub-networks that cannot communicate with each other.
Distributed Agreement
Fundamental problem in distributed systems where agents must agree on a single decision despite asynchronous communications and potential failures of some agents.
Multi-agent Convergence
Process by which individual agents' opinions, decisions, or states gradually evolve toward a common value or stable agreement through local interactions.
Agent Synchronization
Process ensuring that agents maintain a consistent and temporally aligned view of shared information, essential for achieving reliable consensus.
Approval Consensus
Collective decision-making process where agents express their agreement on multiple options simultaneously, with the final decision based on the global approval level received by each option.
Probabilistic Consensus Protocol
Consensus approach where agreement is reached with high probability but not guaranteed, trading absolute certainty for better performance and scalability in large systems.
Quorum Agreement
Consensus mechanism where a decision is validated when it receives approval from a minimum number of agents (quorum), ensuring sufficient majority to avoid divisions.