In multi-agent systems, norm enforcement is a mechanism for steering the behavior of individual agents in order to achieve desired system-level objectives. Due to the dynamics of multi-agent systems, however, it is hard to design norms that guarantee the achievement of the objectives in every operating context. Also, these objectives may change over time, thereby making previously defined norms ineffective. In this paper, we investigate the use of system execution data to automatically synthesise and revise conditional prohibitions with deadlines, a type of norms aimed at preventing agents from exhibiting certain patterns of behaviors. We propose DDNR (Data-Driven Norm Revision), a data-driven approach to norm revision that synthesises revised norms with respect to a data set of traces describing the behavior of the agents in the system. We evaluate DDNR using a state-of-the-art, off-the-shelf urban traffic simulator. The results show that DDNR synthesises revised norms that are significantly more accurate than the original norms in distinguishing adequate and inadequate behaviors for the achievement of the system-level objectives.

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In multi-agent systems, norm enforcement is a mechanism for steering the behavior of individual agents in order to achieve desired system-level objectives. Due to the dynamics of multi-agent systems, however, it is hard to design norms that guarantee the achievement of the objectives in every operating context. Also, these objectives may change over time, thereby making previously defined norms ineffective. In this paper, we investigate the use of system execution data to automatically synthesise and revise conditional prohibitions with deadlines, a type of norms aimed at prohibiting agents from exhibiting certain patterns of behaviors. We propose DDNR (Data-Driven Norm Revision), a data-driven approach to norm revision that synthesises revised norms with respect to a data set of traces describing the behavior of the agents in the system. We evaluate DDNR using a state-of-the-art, off-the-shelf urban traffic simulator. The results show that DDNR synthesises revised norms that are significantly more accurate than the original norms in distinguishing adequate and inadequate behaviors for the achievement of the system-level objectives. @en

Norms have been widely proposed as a way of coordinating and controlling the activities of agents in a multi-agent system (MAS). A norm specifies the behaviour an agent should follow in order to achieve the objective of the MAS. However, designing norms to achieve a particular system objective can be difficult, particularly when there is no direct link between the language in which the system objective is stated and the language in which the norms can be expressed. In this paper, we consider the problem of synthesising a norm from traces of agent behaviour, where each trace is labelled with whether the behaviour satisfies the system objective. We show that the norm synthesis problem and several related problems are NP-complete.

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Ensuring the trustworthiness of autonomous systems and artificial intelligence is an important interdisciplinary endeavour. In this position paper, we argue that this endeavour will benefit from technical advancements in capturing various forms of responsibility, and we present a comprehensive research agenda to achieve this. In particular, we argue that ensuring the reliability of autonomous system can take advantage of technical approaches for quantifying degrees of responsibility and for coordinating tasks based on that. Moreover, we deem that, in certifying the legality of an AI system, formal and computationally implementable notions of responsibility, blame, accountability, and liability are applicable for addressing potential responsibility gaps (i.e. situations in which a group is responsible, but individuals’ responsibility may be unclear). This is a call to enable AI systems themselves, as well as those involved in the design, monitoring, and governance of AI systems, to represent and reason about who can be seen as responsible in prospect (e.g. for completing a task in future) and who can be seen as responsible retrospectively (e.g. for a failure that has already occurred). To that end, in this work, we show that across all stages of the design, development, and deployment of trustworthy autonomous systems (TAS), responsibility reasoning should play a key role. This position paper is the first step towards establishing a road map and research agenda on how the notion of responsibility can provide novel solution concepts for ensuring the reliability and legality of TAS and, as a result, enables an effective embedding of AI technologies into society.

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Simulation is a useful tool for evaluating behavioral interventions when the adoption rate among a population is uncertain. Individual agent models are often prohibitively expensive, but, unlike stochastic models, allow studying compliance heterogeneity. In this paper we demonstrate the feasibility of evaluating behavioral intervention policies using large-scale data-driven agent-based simulations. We explain how the simulation is calibrated with respect to real-world data, and demonstrate the utility of our approach by studying the effectiveness of interventions used in Virginia in early 2020 through counterfactual simulations.

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To develop and effectively deploy Trustworthy Autonomous Systems (TAS), we face various social, technological, legal, and ethical challenges in which different notions of responsibility can play a key role. In this work, we elaborate on these challenges, discuss research gaps, and show how the multidimensional notion of responsibility can play a role to bridge them. We argue that TAS requires operational tools to represent and reason about responsibilities of humans as well as AI agents. We review major challenges to which responsibility reasoning can contribute, highlight open research problems, and argue for the application of multiagent responsibility models in a variety of TAS domains.

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The concept of a norm is found widely across fields including artificial intelligence, biology, computer security, cultural studies, economics, law, organizational behaviour and psychology. The concept is studied with different terminology and perspectives, including individual, social, legal and philosophical. If a norm is an expected behaviour in a social setting, then this article considers how it can be determined whether an individual is adhering to this expected behaviour. We call this process monitoring, and again it is a concept known with different terminology in different fields. Monitoring of norms is foundational for processes of accountability, enforcement, regulation and sanctioning. Starting with a broad focus and narrowing to the multi-agent systems literature, this survey addresses four key questions: what is monitoring, what is monitored, who does the monitoring and how the monitoring is accomplished.@en

In an organisational setting such as an online marketplace, an entity called the 'organisation' or 'institution' defines interaction protocols, monitors agent interaction, and may intervene to enforce the interaction protocols. This extended abstract summarises our JAAMAS article [10] . In the article we generalise over application-specific protocols and consider commitment lifecycles as generic interaction protocols. We model interaction protocols by explicitly-represented norms, operationalise the enforcement of protocols by means of norm enforcement, and analyse the protocols by a logical analysis of the norms. We adopt insights and methods from commitment-based approaches to agent interaction as well as from norm-based approaches to agent behaviour governance. First, we show how to use explicitly-represented norms to model commitment dynamics (lifecycles). Second, we introduce an operational semantics to operationalise norm enforcement. Third, we show how to logically analyse interaction protocols by means of commitment dynamics and norm enforcement. The model, operational semantics, and logical analysis are illustrated by a running example from a vehicle insurance domain.@en