Joaquim Filipe School of Technology Polytechnic Institute of Setúbal Portugal This work has been supported in part by the Croatian Science Foundation under the project no

 Information Systems modeling  Organizational Semiotics  Norms and Social Psychology  Information Fields  Agent Paradigms  Individual vs. Social focus  EDA vs. BDI Agent Models  Agency Theory  Multi-Agent Systems  Conclusions Overview Joaquim Filipe (c) 2014 MMORPG Project 2 October 14

 This presentation intends to introduce a theoretical framework that integrates several theories/well known areas of knowledge:  Organizational Semiotics  Social Psychology  Agency Theory  No MMORG tools or software will be referred in this presentation Metatheoretical Focus October 14Joaquim Filipe (c) 2014 MMORPG Project 3

 MMORPGs facilitate communication between players and involve some degree of teamwork for parts of the game.  Sometimes there is a hierarchical structure (organization).  Need to represent knowledge about  The player herself/himself/itself  The other players  Available roles  Communication / Action rules  Social norms MMORPGs are Social Systems October 14Joaquim Filipe (c) 2014 MMORPG Project 4

Social Systems ARE Information Systems 5 INFORMAL Inf.System: a sub-culture where meanings are established, intentions are understood, beliefs are formed and commitments with responsibilities are made, altered and discharged FORMAL Inf.System: 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) October 14 Joaquim Filipe (c) 2014 MMORPG Project

 The science of signs  Information is made of signs (the atoms of information)  ‘A sign … is something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity.’  (Peirce, ) Information and Semiotics Joaquim Filipe (c) 2014 MMORPG Project 6 October 14

 Information is a complex concept. Social issues are relevant: information is constructed by people (constructivism).  Semiotics studies all aspects related to the creation, use and termination of signs.  Different aspects of signs must be studied as social constructs:  the (interpreted/negotiated) meaning of signs (semantics),  the way they are used (pragmatics) and  how they affect social power systems (social world)  Information Systems  Information is carried by signs and used for semantic, pragmatic and social purposes. Semiotics, Information and Social Systems Joaquim Filipe (c) 2014 MMORPG Project 7 October 14

Semiotics Ladder 8 Joaquim Filipe (c) 2014 MMORPG Project SOCIAL WORLD - Commitments, Human Informationcontracts, law, culture,... FunctionsPRAGMATICS - intentions, communication, conversations, negotiations, … SEMANTICS - meanings, propositions, validity, truth, signification, denotations,… TheITSYNTACTICS - formal structure, language, logic, PlatformData, records, deduction, software, files, … EMPIRICS - pattern, variety, noise, entropy, channel capacity, redundancy, efficiency, codes, … PHYSICAL WORLD - signals, traces, physical distinctions, hardware, component density, speed, economics, … The Semiotics ladder (Stamper, 1973) October 14

 Norms are deontic entities (obligations/responsibilities) Wright (1963) defines ‘Norm’ as partial synonyms which includes, ‘pattern’, ‘standard’ and ‘type’. So are ‘regulation’, ‘rule’, and ‘law’. Deontic Logic is a higher-order modal logic based on the Obligation operator.  Norms are determined by society or collective agents, and serve as a standard for the members to coordinate their actions.  These social constructs may represent: Common (shared) knowledge Patterns of behaviour which are acceptable within the social context. Power relations and other social structures  Group members are responsible for adopting and using these norms. The prime social entity: Norm Joaquim Filipe (c) 2014 MMORPG Project 9 October 14

 Norms can be:  Perceptual  Cognitive  Behavioral  Evaluative Social Psychology Classification of Norms Joaquim Filipe (c) 2014 MMORPG Project 10 October 14  Corresponding intentional attitudes:  Ontological: to acknowledge the existence of something  Epistemic: to know or 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

 Sets of norms adopted and used by all the group members.  An agent who comes into the group is influenced by the group’s norms and either adopts them or becomes an “outsider”.  Coallition formation requires merging different information fields (a common problem in emergent organizational structures e.g. VOs)  An organization may need to split up due to information field clashes (e.g. Departments in Universities) Information Fields Joaquim Filipe (c) 2014 MMORPG Project 11 October 14

 Several interests may be at stake simultaneously. Example: Interest Alignment Joaquim Filipe (c) 2014 MMORPG Project 12 - Ind.2 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 Social Group 1 Ind.1 Ind.2 Social Group 2 October 14

Social Systems and Information Fields Joaquim Filipe (c) 2014 MMORPG Project 13  Information Field:  System of norms accepted by a community  Semantics,  Pragmatics,  Social  Shared ontology:  Information Fields may overlap  Information Fields can be populated by  Individual agents,  Collective agents (=>nested IFs),  Abstract agents (roles – reflecting organizational norms). October 14

 ::=  Normative (shared) commitments can be about any type of norms: Perceptual, Cognitive, Behavioral or Evaluative.  Commitments involve Obligations and Authorisations  Roles are Social “Contracts”  A commitment is:  ::= O | P | F : : Roles as Abstract Agents Joaquim Filipe (c) 2014 MMORPG Project 14 October 14

 Useful for social modeling because:  Social Systems are (Distributed) Information Systems  Multiple agents and resources  Systemic properties (boundaries, control, internal components, input/output, etc.)  Each individual plays one or more roles but it  Has a degree of autonomy  Is situated in a social normative and communicative environment  Exhibits a goal-directed behavior  Uses knowledge and different forms of reasoning (inspired in Wooldridge and Jennings definition of agent) Multi-Agent System Metaphor Joaquim Filipe (c) 2014 MMORPG Project 15 October 14

 Internal Model: BDI (Beliefs, Desires and Intentions) Beliefs = set of true propositions about the world Desires = set of objectives (not necessarily coherent) Intentions = set of plans Agent is permanently in an observe-reason-act cycle and adjusts its internal model according to logical rules Traditional Agent Models Joaquim Filipe (c) 2014 MMORPG Project 16 October 14

 BDI primitives are meant mainly for creating mental models.  Social context is not critical for mental models.  Desires and Intentions belong to the same norm type (behavioral).  No primitives for perceptual or evaluative norm types.  No concern with the duality individual/social responsibility Shortcomings of BDI October 14Joaquim Filipe (c) 2014 MMORPG Project 17

 The organizational semiotic stance ties every item of knowledge to an agent, who is, in a sense, responsible for it. Formally: ::=  Instead of an objective truth, there is a concept of truth that corresponds to the set of agents’ beliefs. Agents are responsible for the consequences of the beliefs they choose to adopt (epistemic component) wff ::= B A (P)  Agents are responsible for their behaviour (deontic component) wff ::= O A (P)  Agents are responsible for their values (axiomatic component) wff ::= V A (P) Formal Responsibility Joaquim Filipe (c) 2014 MMORPG Project 18 October 14

EDA Model Epistemic-Deontic-Axiologic Joaquim Filipe (c) 2014 MMORPG Project 19  is a pragmatic function that filters perceptions, according to the agent ontology, using perceptual and axiological norms, and updates one or more model components.  is an axiological function, that is used mainly in two circumstances: to help decide which signs to perceive and to help decide which goals to put in the agenda and execute  is a knowledge based component, where the agent stores his beliefs both explicitly and implicitly, in the form of potential deductions based on logical reasoning.  is a set of plans, either explicit or implicit, the agent is interested in and may choose to execute October 14

 EDA Agent Model Semiotics + Social Psychology + Agency Theory How to Formalise? October 14Joaquim Filipe (c) 2014 MMORPG Project 20

 There are several agency logics, based on the work of several philosophers.  Belnap’s STIT (See to it that)  Inspired in Austin (theory of speech acts) Belnap proposes a new class of sentences: agentives  Agentive wff:  sees to it that Q  To refrain from acting is an action; not acting is not an action [α stit: ¬Q] ≠ ¬[α stit: Q] Agency Theory Joaquim Filipe (c) 2014 MMORPG Project 21 October 14

 An action is always performed by an agente who is responsible for it.  In situations where an agent delegates an action to another agent, who is responsible for the action?  [α stit: [β stit: Q]] is meaningless because an agent is, by definition, autonomous.  All α can do, when it delegates on β, is to create an obligation: [α stit: O[β stit: Q]] This is a Deontic Action-Logic statement. Delegation and Responsibility Joaquim Filipe (c) 2014 MMORPG Project 22 October 14

Knowledge Representation Joaquim Filipe (c) 2014 MMORPG Project 23  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 October 14

EDA Agents Joaquim Filipe (c) 2014 MMORPG Project 24 This structure applies to - Individual agents - Collective agents (a collective agent is an agent) - Abstract agents (roles) October 14

Multi-Agent EDA Systems Joaquim Filipe (c) 2014 MMORPG Project 25 Communicative Agents Normative Agents Social Agents Goal-Directed Agents Are Dynamic/Open Distributed Systems October 14

Social vs. Individual Goals or why agents act: Joaquim Filipe (c) 2014 MMORPG Project 26 October 14

 Is a model with sound theoretical support: The model is based in social psychology theory, philosophy and logic.  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 organizational models, where individual models inherit norms from collective models. Advantages of the EDA Model Joaquim Filipe (c) 2014 MMORPG Project 27 October 14

 Not widespread  Since it is based on higher order modal logic it is difficult to compute, in general.  No software development tools Disadvantages of the EDA Model October 14Joaquim Filipe (c) 2014 MMORPG Project 28

 Social Groups can be seen as multi-agent systems composed by individual agents in social settings.  EDA agents can be individual or collective.  A collective agent defines a (shared) information field.  A role can be modeled as na abstract agente.  Organizational Semiotics, Social Psychology and Agency Theory provide the basis for a normative agent model.  The EDA model provides an adequate formal support (logic) for each model component: agent implementation can be based on a sound theory instead of ad-hoc mental models. Conclusions Joaquim Filipe (c) 2014 MMORPG Project 29 October 14

“There’s nothing as practical as a good theory” (Ludwig Boltzman) Thank you for your attention This work has been supported in part by the Croatian Science Foundation under the project no Joaquim Filipe (c) 2014 MMORPG Project 30 October 14