Download - Normative Electronic Partners
03-05-2023
Challenge the future
DelftUniversity ofTechnology
Normative Electronic PartnersAlex Kayal
2Electronic partners
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
3Electronic partners
1. What is an electronic partner?An application that moves from merely extending human capabilitiesto forming a partnership with a human.
4Electronic partners
ePartner vs. non ePartner Siri
5Electronic partners
ePartner vs. non ePartner Siri
Non ePartner siri: do I call Bob’s office or mobile number?
6Electronic partners
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.
7Electronic partners
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)
8Electronic partners
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.
9Electronic partners
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:
10Electronic partners
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.
11Electronic partners
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.
12Electronic partners
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.
13Electronic partners
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.
14Electronic partners
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.
15Electronic partners
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.
16Electronic partners
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.
17Electronic partners
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.
18Electronic partners
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
19Electronic partners
How do you obtain user values?Stages of the process
• User studies: for example, cultural probes, and focus groups.
20Electronic partners
How do you obtain user values?Stages of the process
21Electronic partners
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.
22Electronic partners
VSD issues in the domain of our app
• Current apps and gadgets cause value tensions: what are they?
23Electronic partners
Basic features
24Electronic partners
Basic features
Can we avoid values tension using only basic features?
25Electronic partners
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.
26Electronic partners
Norms and values
27Electronic partners
Norm-based features
28Electronic partners
Norm-based features
How does this reflect on user values?
Can we now support intended values without posing risks to others?
29Electronic partners
Social commitments model
30Electronic partners
Summary
• ePartners differ from ordinary software in being team-mates to their human users.
31Electronic partners
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.
32Electronic partners
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.
33Electronic partners
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.