--- name: AAMAS Topic Selection slug: aamas-topic-selection category: Writing description: Assesses whether a research project is a strong fit for the AAMAS conference versus alternatives like AAAI, NeurIPS, or ICML. Helps identify the core interaction primitive and sharpen multiagent framing before writing begins. github: "https://github.com/brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills/tree/main/AAMAS-Skills/skills/aamas-topic-selection" language: Stata stars: 880 forks: 106 install: "git clone https://github.com/brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills" added: 2026-07-20T06:49:40.687Z last_synced: 2026-07-29T06:37:41.142Z canonical_url: "https://dirskills.com/skills/aamas-topic-selection" --- # AAMAS Topic Selection Assesses whether a research project is a strong fit for the AAMAS conference versus alternatives like AAAI, NeurIPS, or ICML. Helps identify the core interaction primitive and sharpen multiagent framing before writing begins. **Install:** `git clone https://github.com/brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills` ## README # AAMAS Topic Selection Use this before writing. AAMAS is strongest when the *agents* are the research object - when the result exists because multiple self-interested or cooperating agents interact - not when a single-agent method is dressed in multiagent vocabulary. ## Fit test - Prefer AAMAS when the contribution advances game-theoretic reasoning, multiagent learning, mechanism design, auctions, negotiation, argumentation, coordination and teamwork, agent-based simulation, or social choice, with the interaction as the object. - Route to NeurIPS or ICML if the core is a single-agent or general ML method and the multiagent setting is only a testbed. - Route to AAAI or IJCAI if the contribution is broad AI - planning, knowledge representation, reasoning - without an interaction result at its center. - Route to EC (Economics and Computation) if the contribution is primarily equilibrium computation, market design, or auction theory with the economics framing dominant. - Route to the JAAMAS journal (or its AAMAS presentation track) when the work needs journal-length exposition and a full-length archival treatment. - Check early whether the interaction result can be made convincing in an 8-page body. ## Fit signal table | Signal in the project | AAMAS reading | |---|---| | A solution concept, mechanism, or coordination result paired with multiagent experiments | Core fit - the house genre | | Emergent behavior that only appears because agents co-adapt | Core fit | | Strong single-agent method benchmarked in a multiagent environment | Better served at NeurIPS or ICML | | Pure market/auction theory with economics as the point | EC or an econ-CS journal | | Broad AI reasoning with no interaction at its center | AAAI or IJCAI | ## Vignette: where a communication-learning project goes A project trains agents to communicate and shows higher cooperation in a mixed-motive game. AAMAS reading: strong fit if the analysis is about the *interaction* - what the emergent protocol signals, whether it is incentive-compatible, how it changes the equilibrium. Strip the incentive and coordination analysis and keep only a reward curve, and the same project reads as a general MARL paper better suited to NeurIPS or ICML; grow it into a full theory of the signaling equilibrium, and EC or JAAMAS becomes the better home. ## Sharpening moves before committing - Name the interaction primitive: solution concept, mechanism, protocol, negotiation strategy, or coordination guarantee. If none exists, the AAMAS framing does not exist either. - Apply the frozen-agent test: if the result survives with the other agents replaced by a static environment, it is single-agent and belongs elsewhere. - Confirm the experiments can probe the interaction (deviation tests, held-out opponents), not merely accompany it. - Topic emphasis and track structure drift between cycles; scan the current CFP and track list before final routing. ## Output format ```text [Fit] strong AAMAS / possible AAMAS / better elsewhere [Best venue] AAMAS / AAAI / IJCAI / NeurIPS / ICML / EC / JAAMAS / other [Interaction primitive] [Contribution sentence] [Top rejection risk] [Next action] ```