Norms in Multi Agent Systems. ( What about Norms as Such?)‏ Rosaria Conte LABSS/ISTC Laboratory of Agent Based Social Simulation, Institute of Cognitive Science and Technology, CNR, Rome. Italy MONTREAL, July 2008

Minds & Societies2 Outline SoA In search of unification A social cognitive view The MAgent based approach. Normative agent architectures: BOID EMIL-A Simulation model and results Conclusions and future work.

Minds & Societies3 State of the art

Minds & Societies4 Norms and the social/behavioral sciences Nonetheless (or consequently?), norms break down in too specific notions Archipelago norm includes at least Conventions and social norms Moral norms Legal norms Norms are universally present in all human societies (Roberts, 1979; Brown, 1991; Sober and Wilson, 1998); ancient: highly elaborated in all human groups, including hunter- gatherers and groups that are culturally isolated. ubiquitous. governing all activities, from mate choice to burial Impactful: on welfare and reproductive success.

Minds & Societies5 Conventions and social norms From analytical philosophy (Lewis), social sciences derived a conventionalistic view of norms as spontaneously emerging behavioral regularities based on conditioned preferences enforced by sanctions Open questions How about mandatory force (Gilbert, 1993)? How do norms innovate? Why bother with sanctions, if norms are conditionally preferred? Why do we violate norms? How tell norms from behavioural regularities?

Minds & Societies6 Moral norms From (evolutionary) psychology, social sciences (but also robotics) derive a view of norms as moral motivations independently of any legal or social institution (independent normativity; Sripada & Stich, 2005) based on subjective authority and internalized (intrinsic) motivations compliance is valued even when there is no sanction from external source (Durkheim, 1968 [1912]; Scott, 1971). Questions What about internalization? Do agents keep the normative trace of moral motivations? Why norm violation? What about unfair norms?

Minds & Societies7 Legal norms From philosophy of law and deontic philosophy (Von Wright, Kelsen), logicians and AI scientists derive an imperativistic view of norms as commands Deliberately issued Enforced by explicit sanctions How do prescriptions emerge? How to tell norms from coercion?

Minds & Societies8 How about a general notion of norm? legal moral social religious What is common to them?

Minds & Societies9 A requirement for unification “Despite the vital role of norms in human lives and human behavior, and the central role they play in explanations in the social sciences, there has been very little systematic attention devoted to norms in cognitive science.” (Sripada & Stich, 2005)‏ Only such a systematic attention can contribute to an integrated theory of norms.

Minds & Societies10 Lets try: A social cognitive definition Norms = behaviors spreading in population (P i ) as long as Corresponding prescriptions and mental constructs (Conte and Castelfranchi, 1995;2006) spread over P i N-beliefs: beliefs that for given sets of agents given wss/actions are obliged/forbidden/permitted N-goals: goals to (not) achieve/accomplish obligatory/forbidden/permitted wss/actions.

Minds & Societies11 Cognitive puzzles – What are obligations? – And prescriptions? – Very tentatively – Command is supported by a normative belief, – Source (vector) wants (the prescription) to be obeyed on the grounds of a normative belief – Hence, source (vector) wants recipient to form a normative belief.

Minds & Societies12 Properties of norms Hybrid behaviour mental construct dynamic: undergoing two processes emergence: process by means of which a norm not deliberately issued spreads through a society immergence: process by means of which a normative belief is formed into the agents’ minds (Castelfranchi, 1998; Conte et al., 2007)‏

Minds & Societies13 Implementing norms on agents MAgent based approach. Normative architectures The BOID architecture (Broersen et al., 2001). EMIL-A (from a ICT- funded European project “EMergence In the Loop. The 2-way dynamics of norm-innovation”)‏

Minds & Societies14 B O I D P Obs Act The BOID architecture BDI architecture with obligations: Beliefs, Desires, Intentions, Obligations. Interactions at study: which component is overriden? Realism: B override all others Selfishness: D override obligations Sociality: O override intentions. Why no direct interactions among D, I and O? No trace of the norm in goals Why O is a separate component? Cognitively implausible… How are O acquired? Reproduced from Broersen et al. (2001)‏

Minds & Societies15 OTHERWISE How acquire norms autonomously? How to account for transgression? How to account for conflict resolution? N-action Norm-recognition N-Belief N-Goal N-intention EMIL ARCHITECTUREEMIL ARCHITECTURE Decision making Norm-adoption N- B o ar d

Minds & Societies16 N-action Norm-recognition N-Belief N-Goal N-intention EMIL ARCHITECTUREEMIL ARCHITECTURE Decision making Norm-adoption N- B o ar d What about reactive behaviour? automated conformity? What does it mean? Shortcuts are possible But, “thoughtless” conformity is semi- automatic: Agents can re-gain control over the whole process and Perform decision- making Finally, what about internalization?

Minds & Societies17 Norm Recognition

Minds & Societies18 Input X aTY Each input is presented as an ordered vector Source (x); Action transmitted (a) (potential norm)‏ Type of input: Behaviors Messages: assertions (A), behaviours (B), requests (R), deontics (D), evaluations (V), sanctions (S); Observer (y);