normative electronic partners

03-05-2023

Challenge the future

DelftUniversity ofTechnology

Normative Electronic PartnersAlex Kayal

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Overview

• What makes an application an electronic partner? Examples involving various software.

• One way of achieving this level of “e-partnership”, using norms.

• Human values and Value Sensitive Design (VSD), one of the motivations behind the concept of electronic partners.

• An example of the development of a real e-partner application

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1. What is an electronic partner?An application that moves from merely extending human capabilitiesto forming a partnership with a human.

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ePartner vs. non ePartner Siri

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ePartner vs. non ePartner Siri

Non ePartner siri: do I call Bob’s office or mobile number?

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ePartner vs. non ePartner Siri

Non ePartner siri: do I call Bob’s office or mobile number?ePartner siri: directly calls Bob’s mobile number.

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An ePartner is a broad concept

Henryk F. R. Arciszewski, Tjerk de Greef, J. H. van Delft: Adaptive Automation in a Naval Combat Management System. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Part A 39(6): 1188-1199 (2009)

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2. Achieving electronic partnership

• Last lecture: agents are autonomous, thus the need for organization to achieve an optimal level of performance in a MAS.

• This can be achieved through an Organizational Framework

• One of the elements of an organizational framework is the normative dimension.

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What are norms?

• The majority of norms are regulatory statements aimed towards regulating the behavior of people in society.

• This type of norms can be divided into three categories:

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Norm types/examples

• Obligations:• You are obliged to pay the price of items you buy from the

supermarket.• You obliged of making way for a faster automobile when

you’re driving on the left lane.

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Norm types/examples

• Obligations:• You are obliged to pay the price of items you buy from the

supermarket.• You obliged of making way for a faster automobile when

you’re driving on the left lane.• Prohibitions:

• You are prohibited from entering your boss’s room when it’s closed.

• You are prohibited from painting graffiti on public buildings.

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Norm types/examples

• Obligations:• You are obliged to pay the price of items you buy from the

supermarket.• You obliged of making way for a faster automobile when

you’re driving on the left lane.• Prohibitions:

• You are prohibited from entering your boss’s room when it’s closed.

• You are prohibited from painting graffiti on public buildings.• Permissions:

• You are permitted to use the library for 24 hours during exam period.

• You are permitted to use the printer down the hall.

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Norms in multi-agent systems

• Similarly, norms can be used in agent societies to regulate the behavior of agents, just like they are used in human socieities to regulate human behavior.

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How do norms regulate agent behavior?

• Agents are autonomous, driven by goals. Organizational structures (such as norms) aim to regulate agents to prevent chaos and achieve an optimal performance.

• Since agents are autonomous, they still have the choice to comply or violate the norms of the organization.

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How do norms regulate agent behavior?

• Example #1: through rewarding and sanctioning agents:

• Agents that comply with norms are rewarded• Agents that violate norms are sanctioned

• Example #2: through aiming to promote user values.

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3. User values• To hold a value: is to believe that something, to a certain

degree, is good for you.

• Prominent value surveys: Rokeach (1973) and Schwartz (1994).

• Value Sensitive Design (VSD): accounting for user values during software design process.

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4. ePartner for families and children

• A mobile app designed for families with children in “Basisschool” or primary school.

• The goal is to help children stay safe, find new friends, organize playdates, and so on.

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User values in our app• Examples of values in our application, using terms from

Rokeach’s survey:

• Family security• Friendship• Independence• Social recognition• Responsibility• …and many more

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How do you obtain user values?Stages of the process

• User studies: for example, cultural probes, and focus groups.

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How do you obtain user values?Stages of the process

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VSD issues

• Often software designs, while trying to fulfill a user value, harm other values in the process.

• Consider a camera surveillance system in an elderly home: it certainly fulfills the value of safety.

• But while it does so, it severely harms the users (elderly) value of privacy and even independence.

• ePartners need to fulfill the intended values of their users while posing minimal risks to others as a side effect.

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VSD issues in the domain of our app

• Current apps and gadgets cause value tensions: what are they?

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Basic features

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Basic features

Can we avoid values tension using only basic features?

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Norms and values

• ePartners can solve these issues through using norms.

• Norms offer a flexible, rich way for users to specify their requirements, leading to a better support for intended values (i.e. without posing risk to others). ePartners can reason on whether to comply or violate norms in every occasion, leading to a better support for the values of a group.

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Norms and values

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Norm-based features

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Norm-based features

How does this reflect on user values?

Can we now support intended values without posing risks to others?

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Social commitments model

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Summary

• ePartners differ from ordinary software in being team-mates to their human users.

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Summary

• ePartners differ from ordinary software in being team-mates to their human users.

• Norms (obligations, prohibitions, permissions) can be used to regulate the behavior of systems of ePartners.

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Summary

• ePartners differ from ordinary software in being team-mates to their human users.

• Norms (obligations, prohibitions, permissions) can be used to regulate the behavior of systems of ePartners.

• Value-sensitive design aims to account for human values in designing software. But while designs try to promote important user values, they can also harm other values in the process.

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Summary

• ePartners differ from ordinary software in being team-mates to their human users.

• Norms (obligations, prohibitions, permissions) can be used to regulate the behavior of systems of ePartners.

• Value-sensitive design aims to account for human values in designing software. But while designs try to promote important user values, they can also harm other values in the process.

• ePartners, through subscribing to norms, can support human values better than traditional software.