Practical Issues in Detecting Broken Social Commitments

Abstract

An open system should admit agents from many sources and these agents may have conflicting goals. Therefore, some actions that an agent would like to perform could be detrimental to other agents. Such actions can be either acceptable or unacceptable within a given system. Social norms define what actions are acceptable and unacceptable within a given society. There should be a way to limit the actions of agents to enforce these social norms. One way to begin to accomplish this goal is to have the system observe the actions of agents to model their behaviour. Behaviours that do not conform to specified norms could then be detected, and some action could be taken to prevent agents from performing further actions that violate social norms.

In this paper we discuss the use of social commitments to allow a system to define social norms and detect violations of those norms. Social commitments model an agent’s commitments within a society. Some are implied while others are explicitly stated. Our system uses social commitments to define social norms. This paper focusses on the practical requirements that must be met for a system to implement social commitments as a way of defining social norms and detecting violations of those norms. In addition, we give an overview of how our multi-agent system design supports this goal.