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In this part of the presentation, we extend our discussion of the notion of autonomy to include multi-agent, coordinated, and self-organising systems, by introducing the notion of multi-level autonomy.
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Social Systems and the Multi-level AutonomyThe Autonomy of Automated Systems
Andrea Omicini Giovanni Sartor
European University InstituteAlma Mater Studiorum—Universita di Bologna
Autonomous Weapons Systems – Law, Ethics, PolicyEuropean University Institute in Florence, Italy
24 April 2014
Omicini, Sartor (EUI & Univ. Bologna) Social Systems and the Multi-level Autonomy AWS-LEP – 24/4/2014 1 / 22
Outline
1 Agents & Multi-Agent Systems
2 Multi-level Autonomy
3 Conclusion
Omicini, Sartor (EUI & Univ. Bologna) Social Systems and the Multi-level Autonomy AWS-LEP – 24/4/2014 2 / 22
Agents & Multi-Agent Systems
Outline
1 Agents & Multi-Agent Systems
2 Multi-level Autonomy
3 Conclusion
Omicini, Sartor (EUI & Univ. Bologna) Social Systems and the Multi-level Autonomy AWS-LEP – 24/4/2014 3 / 22
Agents & Multi-Agent Systems
Agents, Coordination, and Societies I
Complex systems as MAS
Nowadays, most of the complex computational systems of interestcan be thought, modelled, and built as multi-agent systems (MAS)[Zambonelli and Omicini, 2004]
In a MAS, many autonomous components (the agents) with theirown individual goal interact in order to achieve the overall designedsystem goal
Omicini, Sartor (EUI & Univ. Bologna) Social Systems and the Multi-level Autonomy AWS-LEP – 24/4/2014 4 / 22
Agents & Multi-Agent Systems
Agents, Coordination, and Societies II
Agent societies & coordination
A group of agents coordinating in order to achieve some (local,non-individual) goal is called an agent society
Agent societies are built around coordination media[Gelernter and Carriero, 1992], encapsulating social (coordination)laws
Agent societies may have collective goals, possibly independent of theindividual agent goals [Ciancarini, 1996]
Examples: norms as coordination mechanisms enforced bycomputational institutions (aka electronic institutions)[Noriega and Sierra, 2002] working as the coordination abstractions
Omicini, Sartor (EUI & Univ. Bologna) Social Systems and the Multi-level Autonomy AWS-LEP – 24/4/2014 5 / 22
Agents & Multi-Agent Systems
A Layered View of MAS I
Layering
From the software engineering viewpoint, agent societies represent alayering mechanism [Molesini et al., 2006]
There, agents, societies, individual and social goals are conceptualtools to be used at the most suitable level of abstraction
Each group of agents could be seen in principle as a single agent at ahigher level of abstraction
Viceversa, each agent could be modelled / built as an agent societyat deeper level of detail – with the global MAS level working as theuppermost layer
Accordingly, individual / social / global goals could in principle belayered in the same way
Omicini, Sartor (EUI & Univ. Bologna) Social Systems and the Multi-level Autonomy AWS-LEP – 24/4/2014 6 / 22
Agents & Multi-Agent Systems
A Layered View of MAS II
Autonomous systems out of autonomous components
As a result, a MAS could be in principle conceived, designed, andbuilt as an autonomous system made of autonomous components
Even more, each agent society could be handled in the same way
So, autonomy could be conceived as a multi-level property ofcomputational systems designed as MAS, associated to each agent, toagent societies, and to the global MAS level as well
Omicini, Sartor (EUI & Univ. Bologna) Social Systems and the Multi-level Autonomy AWS-LEP – 24/4/2014 7 / 22
Multi-level Autonomy
Outline
1 Agents & Multi-Agent Systems
2 Multi-level Autonomy
3 Conclusion
Omicini, Sartor (EUI & Univ. Bologna) Social Systems and the Multi-level Autonomy AWS-LEP – 24/4/2014 8 / 22
Multi-level Autonomy
Diverse Levels of Autonomy I
Independence
The key point here is the fact that conceptually there is no directdependence between the diverse levels of autonomy at the differentlevels of the MAS
In the case of coordinated systems, the coordination media couldembed
the reactive behaviour for an automatic coordinated behaviourthe implicit mechanisms for a teleonomic behaviour of the agent societythe operational plans for a teleologic social behaviour—for instance, byadopting ReSpecT tuple centres [Omicini and Denti, 2001] as thecoordination media
All this, independently of the level of autonomy of the individualagents composing the agent society
Omicini, Sartor (EUI & Univ. Bologna) Social Systems and the Multi-level Autonomy AWS-LEP – 24/4/2014 9 / 22
Multi-level Autonomy
Diverse Levels of Autonomy II
Artefacts: making it more complex
Even more, a more articulated reference model for MAS, such as theagents & artefacts (A&A) meta-model [Omicini et al., 2008] couldmake the picture even more intricate
An A&A MAS is basically composed by agents and artefacts, where
artefacts are the tools that agents use to achieve their own goalsas such, they are typically automated, deterministic entities, which arenot required to be autonomous
So, for instance, by extending layering to include artefacts, any levelof a MAS could then feature any sort of automatic / autonomic /autonomous behaviour, essentially independently of any otherindividual / social / global property
Omicini, Sartor (EUI & Univ. Bologna) Social Systems and the Multi-level Autonomy AWS-LEP – 24/4/2014 10 / 22
Multi-level Autonomy
Issues I
Classifying complex MAS
Classifying a complex MAS – either a software or a robotic one – asautomatic / teleonomic / teleologic is not necessarily a trivial task
It may require in general some articulated model
Arguably, a multi-level model of autonomy
Omicini, Sartor (EUI & Univ. Bologna) Social Systems and the Multi-level Autonomy AWS-LEP – 24/4/2014 11 / 22
Multi-level Autonomy
Issues II
Global MAS level might not be enough
What if we assume that the global level of autonomy of a MAS is themost relevant system feature?
Issues such as responsibility and liability cannot a priori be reduced tothe simple observation of the main level of a MAS
Existing works on collective moral and responsibility typically refer tohuman groups, and just account for a two-level layering
For instance
an individual may participate to more than one MAS, possiblyexpressing different levels of autonomy in the diverse contextshowever, being a single component of more than one system, it couldin principle work as an element of inter-system interference, possiblyundetected, which could make issues like responsibility and liabilitymuch more complex
Omicini, Sartor (EUI & Univ. Bologna) Social Systems and the Multi-level Autonomy AWS-LEP – 24/4/2014 12 / 22
Multi-level Autonomy
Issues III
Non-determinismThis is particularly the case of non-deterministic systems—for instance in the caseof stochastic behaviours in nature-inspired models
There, in fact, upper-level behaviour could appear by emergence without any linearconnection with the lower level components—as in the case of swarm systems
For instance, coordination media could used to encapsulate local interactionleading to self-organising behaviours [Ricci et al., 2007]
There, teleonomic components would self-organising around automaticabstractions such as tuple-based coordination media
The resulting behaviour would be essentially unpredictable
and be classified as either teleonomic – since it tends to autonomously preservesome essential system property – or even (possibly) teleologic—when coordinationartefacts would contain the local policies explicitly designed to produce the overallself-organising behaviour [Omicini et al., 2004]
Omicini, Sartor (EUI & Univ. Bologna) Social Systems and the Multi-level Autonomy AWS-LEP – 24/4/2014 13 / 22
Conclusion
Outline
1 Agents & Multi-Agent Systems
2 Multi-level Autonomy
3 Conclusion
Omicini, Sartor (EUI & Univ. Bologna) Social Systems and the Multi-level Autonomy AWS-LEP – 24/4/2014 14 / 22
Conclusion
Artificial Systems. . . I
. . . are not mere social systems
where humans and groups provide essentially two distinct levels ofabstraction
to be used for the attribution of properties
in artificial systems, many levels can be used, and possibly with thesame set of criteria
. . . are not natural systems
where the hierarchical view concerns fundamentally diverse layers
each one with its own entities and laws
in artificial systems, the many levels possibly available should bedescribed with a uniform set of criteria
Omicini, Sartor (EUI & Univ. Bologna) Social Systems and the Multi-level Autonomy AWS-LEP – 24/4/2014 15 / 22
Conclusion
Multi-level Autonomy. . .
. . . mandates for new concepts and tools
where artificial systems of any sorts could be understood and classified
according to their (possibly diverse) levels of autonomy
along with the many related concepts, such as (collective)responsibility and liability
Omicini, Sartor (EUI & Univ. Bologna) Social Systems and the Multi-level Autonomy AWS-LEP – 24/4/2014 16 / 22
Outline
1 Agents & Multi-Agent Systems
2 Multi-level Autonomy
3 Conclusion
Omicini, Sartor (EUI & Univ. Bologna) Social Systems and the Multi-level Autonomy AWS-LEP – 24/4/2014 17 / 22
Bibliography
Bibliography I
Ciancarini, P. (1996).Coordination models and languages as software integrators.ACM Computing Surveys, 28(2):300–302.
Gelernter, D. and Carriero, N. (1992).Coordination languages and their significance.Communications of the ACM, 35(2):97–107.
Molesini, A., Omicini, A., Ricci, A., and Denti, E. (2006).Zooming multi-agent systems.In Muller, J. P. and Zambonelli, F., editors, Agent-Oriented SoftwareEngineering VI, volume 3950 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science,pages 81–93. Springer Berlin Heidelberg.6th International Workshop (AOSE 2005), Utrecht, The Netherlands,25–26 July 2005. Revised and Invited Papers.
Omicini, Sartor (EUI & Univ. Bologna) Social Systems and the Multi-level Autonomy AWS-LEP – 24/4/2014 18 / 22
Bibliography
Bibliography II
Noriega, P. and Sierra, C. (2002).Electronic Institutions: Future trends and challenges.In Klusch, M., Ossowski, S., and Shehory, O., editors, CooperativeInformation Agents VI, volume 2446 of Lecture Notes in ArtificialIntelligence, pages 14–17. Springer Berlin Heidelberg.6th International Workshop (CIA 2002), Madrid, Spain,18–20 September 2002. Proceedings.
Omicini, A. and Denti, E. (2001).From tuple spaces to tuple centres.Science of Computer Programming, 41(3):277–294.
Omicini, Sartor (EUI & Univ. Bologna) Social Systems and the Multi-level Autonomy AWS-LEP – 24/4/2014 19 / 22
Bibliography
Bibliography III
Omicini, A., Ricci, A., and Viroli, M. (2008).Artifacts in the A&A meta-model for multi-agent systems.Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, 17(3):432–456.Special Issue on Foundations, Advanced Topics and IndustrialPerspectives of Multi-Agent Systems.
Omicini, A., Ricci, A., Viroli, M., Castelfranchi, C., and Tummolini, L.(2004).Coordination artifacts: Environment-based coordination for intelligentagents.In Jennings, N. R., Sierra, C., Sonenberg, L., and Tambe, M., editors,3rd international Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents andMultiagent Systems (AAMAS 2004), volume 1, pages 286–293, NewYork, USA. ACM.
Omicini, Sartor (EUI & Univ. Bologna) Social Systems and the Multi-level Autonomy AWS-LEP – 24/4/2014 20 / 22
Bibliography
Bibliography IV
Ricci, A., Omicini, A., Viroli, M., Gardelli, L., and Oliva, E. (2007).Cognitive stigmergy: Towards a framework based on agents andartifacts.In Weyns, D., Parunak, H. V. D., and Michel, F., editors,Environments for MultiAgent Systems III, volume 4389 of LNCS,pages 124–140. Springer.3rd International Workshop (E4MAS 2006), Hakodate, Japan,8 May 2006. Selected Revised and Invited Papers.
Zambonelli, F. and Omicini, A. (2004).Challenges and research directions in agent-oriented softwareengineering.Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, 9(3):253–283.Special Issue: Challenges for Agent-Based Computing.
Omicini, Sartor (EUI & Univ. Bologna) Social Systems and the Multi-level Autonomy AWS-LEP – 24/4/2014 21 / 22
Social Systems and the Multi-level AutonomyThe Autonomy of Automated Systems
Andrea Omicini Giovanni Sartor
European University InstituteAlma Mater Studiorum—Universita di Bologna
Autonomous Weapons Systems – Law, Ethics, PolicyEuropean University Institute in Florence, Italy
24 April 2014
Omicini, Sartor (EUI & Univ. Bologna) Social Systems and the Multi-level Autonomy AWS-LEP – 24/4/2014 22 / 22