A Normative and Intentional Agent Model for Organisation Modelling Joaquim Filipe (jfilipe@est.ips.pt) School of Technology Polytechnic Institute of Setúbal Portugal September 16-17, 2002 ESAW-2002 : Engineering Societies in the Agents World 2002

Introduction Organisations are multi-agent systems composed by individual agents in social settings. Organisational agents can be individual or collective. A collective agent defines a (shared) information field. Social psychology provides a normative agent model. There is an adequate formal support (logic) for each model component. Agent implementation is supported on theory. September 16-17, 2002 ESAW-2002 Engineering Societies in the Agents World

Organisations are Information Systems INFORMAL IS: a sub-culture where meanings are established, intentions are understood, beliefs are formed and commitments with responsibilities are made, altered and discharged FORMAL IS: bureaucracy where form and rule replace meaning and intention IT System: Mechanisms to automate part of the formal system Three main layers of the real information system (Stamper 1996) September 16-17, 2002 ESAW-2002 Engineering Societies in the Agents World

Information Fields Information Field: System of norms accepted by a community Shared ontology Information Fields may overlap Information Fields can be populated by Individual agents, Collective agents (=>nested IFs). Abstract agents (roles) September 16-17, 2002 ESAW-2002 Engineering Societies in the Agents World

Interest Alignment Several interests may be at stake simultaneously. Example: Org.1 Ind.1 Ind.2 Org.2 - Org.1 may have interest in situation A while Ind.1 may be interested in situation B If A  B it’s ok, otherwise there is a clash of interests - Ind.2 may be subject to contradictory norms September 16-17, 2002 ESAW-2002 Engineering Societies in the Agents World

Social Psychology Classification of Norms Norms can be: Perceptual Cognitive Behavioral Evaluative Corresponding intentional attitudes: Ontological: to acknowledge the existence of something Epistemic: to adopt a degree of belief Deontic: to be disposed to act in some way Axiological: to be disposed in favor or against something in value terms September 16-17, 2002 ESAW-2002 Engineering Societies in the Agents World

EDA Agent Model This structure applies to Individual agents Collective agents Abstract agents (roles) September 16-17, 2002 ESAW-2002 Engineering Societies in the Agents World

Knowledge Representation Epistemic component (Beliefs) Non-monotonic Logic; belief revision. Belief operator Deontic component (Obligations) Deontic Agency Logic Agentive Obligation operator Axiologic component (Values) Prioritised Default Logic (norms as default rules) Preference defined by a partial order on norms September 16-17, 2002 ESAW-2002 Engineering Societies in the Agents World

Why does an Agent Act? Individual Goals (intentional) or Social Obligations (normative) ? September 16-17, 2002 ESAW-2002 Engineering Societies in the Agents World

Individual Interests, Social Interests and Goals The individual and the social motivations of agent behaviour are unified under the notion of obligation, based on the assumptions that both individual and collective agents have interests, and individual duties are collective interests on information fields the individual agent belongs to. Agenda Achievement Goals are: agent interests (self or “inherited”), which the agent is aware of and which the agent prefers (values as positive in rational terms). September 16-17, 2002 ESAW-2002 Engineering Societies in the Agents World

Advantages of the EDA Model Is a social model with sound theoretical support: The model is based in social psychology theory. The Deontic component provides, directly, the means for representing social connections, instead of creating new concepts such as commitments, conventions, etc. Unifies individual and social motivations under the concept of obligation This reduces the number of needed concepts, when compared to other agent models such as BDI (which uses two “motivational” operators). The same model structure (EDA) can be used for individual and collective agents, This enables a simple recursive structure for organisational models, where individual models inherit norms from collective models. September 16-17, 2002 ESAW-2002 Engineering Societies in the Agents World

Conclusions and Further Work The EDA model structure is based upon known building blocks (social psychology theories, knowledge representation paradigms,...) Model accomodates social relationships directly, The interaction of the model components seems to be intuitive but remains to be formalised, Current implementations must be developed and applied to real-world problems. September 16-17, 2002 ESAW-2002 Engineering Societies in the Agents World