Chapter 25: Challenges and Extensions Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents – Munindar P. Singh and Michael N. Huhns, Wiley, 2005

Chapter 25:Challenges and Extensions

Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents– Munindar P. Singh and Michael N. Huhns, Wiley, 2005

Chapter 25 2Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents - Munindar Singh and

Michael Huhns

Highlights of this Chapter

Trust Ethics Coherence Benevolence Managing Privacy Key Challenges and

Recommendations


Michael Huhns

Systemic Trust

Fundamentally, the information that agents

Retrieve must be accurate, or characterized accurately

Contribute must be used appropriately Requires that

Sources have reliability and reputation, and specify constraints on usage

Dependencies are preserved and maintained

Results: information items have credibility and domains of utility; agents self-organize into service communities


Michael Huhns

Trust

Ultimately, what we would like is to trust Web services. Trust involves services that Are understood in context Have the right capabilities and understanding

of needs Respect legal contracts where specified Be helpful: support one’s organization or

society Obey an understood ethics Failing all else, behave rationally


Michael Huhns

Ethical Abstractions

Agents that are members of a society must have an ethics and a philosophy. This requires the development of components for

Deontological ethics Teleological ethics Consequentialism Duties Obligations Applying ethics


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Motivation

The ethical abstractions help us specify agents who would act appropriately

Intuitively, ethics is just the basic way of distinguishing right from wrong

It is difficult to separate ethics entirely from legal, social, or even economic considerations


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Right and Good

Right: that which is right in itself Good: that which is good or

valuable for someone or for some end


Michael Huhns

Deontological vs. Teleological

Deontological theories Right before good Being good does not mean being right Ends do not justify means

Teleological theories Good before right Something is right only if it maximizes

the good Ends justify means


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Deontological Theories

Constraints Negatively formulated Narrowly framed

E.g., lying is not not-telling-the-truth Narrowly directed at the agent’s

specific action Not its occurrence by other means Not the consequences that are not

explicitly chosen, i.e., only applies on consequences that are explicitly identified


Michael Huhns

Double Effect

Deontological theories distinguish intentional effects from foreseen consequences

An action is not wrong unless the agent explicitly intends for it to do wrong Legitimizes inaction even when inaction

has predictable (but unintended) effects Shut down bank ATM for diagnostics even

if that might leave someone without cash


Michael Huhns

Kant’s Categorical Imperative

Whatever maxim an agent uses must be universalizable, i.e., in the society of agents Respect for others (no lying or

coercion) so they can consent False promising is unacceptable,

because if all did, their society would not function

Agents’ maxims are uncertainly inferred from their actions


Michael Huhns

Teleological Theories

Based on how actions satisfy various goals, not their intrinsic rightness Comparison-based Preference-based


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Consequentialism

An agent should promote whatever values it adopts

Actions are instrumental in the promotion

Honor the values only if doing so promotes them


Michael Huhns

Utilitarianism

This is the view that a moral action is one that is useful

Must be good for someone Good may be interpreted as

Pleasure: hedonism Preference satisfaction: microeconomic

rationalism (assumes each agent knows its preferences)

Interest satisfaction: welfare utilitarianism Aesthetic ideals: ideal utilitarianism


Michael Huhns

Prima Facie Duties

What agents need to decide actions are

Not just universal principles (each can be stretched)

Not just consequences But also a regard for their promises and duties

Agents have prima facie duties to help others, keep promises, repay kindness,...

No ranking among these Highly defeasible conclusions, e.g., steal to

feed kids


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Obligations

In deontological theories, those that are impermissible to omit

In teleological theories, those that most promote good

In contract-based theories, those that an agent accepts


Michael Huhns

Asimov’s Laws of Robotics

0. A robot may not injure humanity or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm. [Added after the following more famous laws]

1. A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.


Michael Huhns

Applying Ethics: 1

The ethical theories are theories Of justification Not of deliberation

An agent can decide what basic “value system” to use under any approach


Michael Huhns

Applying Ethics: 2 The deontological theories

Are narrower Ignore practical consideration But are only meant as incomplete

constraints (out of all the right actions, the agent can choose any)

The teleological theories Are broader Include practical considerations But leave fewer options for the agent, who

must always choose the best available alternative


Michael Huhns

Applying Ethics: 3

The ethical approaches Are single-agent in orientation Implicitly encode other agents

An explicitly multiagent ethics would be an interesting topic for study


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An Agent Should Act

Benevolently Seeking the welfare of others

Rationally, to maximize its utility Consistent with its model of itself, including

its desires and capabilities Predictably

consistent with its model of other agents’ beliefs about itself


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Benevolence: “A Mattress in the Road”

Mattresscars

Who will stop to pick it up?


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Information System Example:A Collective Store

Benevolent agents might contribute information they have retrieved, filtered, and refined to a collective store

Utilitarian variant: Access to the collective store might be predicated on contributions to it

Collective Store World Wide Web...

Query Agents


Michael Huhns

SOC Challenges and Recommendations

Respect autonomy and heterogeneity Design rules for various levels: ontologies,

transactions, protocols, organizations, … Security and trust: a consequence of

openness Scalability Quality of service understood to include

application specifics User-centered requirements analysis and

design to capture key functionality in a manner that works in multiple settings


Michael Huhns

To Probe Further IEEE Internet Computing,

http://computer.org/internet [email protected] (International Joint Conference and Journal)

Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems

Journal of Web Semantics Intl. Semantic Web Conference (ISWC) Intl. Conf. on Service-Oriented Computing

(ICSOC) Intl. Conf. on Web Services (ICWS) World-Wide Web Conference


Michael Huhns

Chapter 25 Summary

SOC improves our effectiveness in building large-scale systems in open environments

Because of openness, SOC systems rely upon trust among components and in dealing with people SOC technologies support aspects of trust:

progressing, but not solved Concepts from human ethics can inspire

abstractions for designing SOC systems Ethics can help make SOC systems manageable

and responsive to human needs

Documents

Chapter 25: Challenges and Extensions Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents – Munindar P. Singh and Michael N. Huhns, Wiley, 2005