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Accountability for Practical Reasoning Agents

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Book cover Agreement Technologies (AT 2018)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 11327))

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Abstract

Artificial intelligence has been increasing the autonomy of man-made artefacts such as software agents, self-driving vehicles and military drones. This increase in autonomy together with the ubiquity and impact of such artefacts in our daily lives have raised many concerns in society. Initiatives such as transparent and ethical AI aim to allay fears of a “free for all” future where amoral technology (or technology amorally designed) will replace humans with terrible consequences. We discuss the notion of accountable autonomy, and explore this concept within the context of practical reasoning agents. We survey literature from distinct fields such as management, healthcare, policy-making, and others, and differentiate and relate concepts connected to accountability. We present a list of justified requirements for accountable software agents and discuss research questions stemming from these requirements. We also propose a preliminary formalisation of one core aspect of accountability: responsibility.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://deepmind.com/applied/deepmind-ethics-society/.

  2. 2.

    https://deepmind.com/research/alphago/.

  3. 3.

    This formalism is based on dynamic logic, but it is out of scope of this paper to describe the semantics. Also, note that our purpose here is to specify the nature of the obligation implied by answerability. For implementing accountability processes, it is likely that agents can use less expresssive and possibly more specialised, representations of their obligations.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

    Stephen Cranefield

  2. University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK

    Nir Oren & Wamberto W. Vasconcelos

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  1. Stephen Cranefield
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  2. Nir Oren
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  3. Wamberto W. Vasconcelos
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Correspondence to Stephen Cranefield , Nir Oren or Wamberto W. Vasconcelos .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. IMT Lille Douai, Douai, France

    Marin Lujak

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Cranefield, S., Oren, N., Vasconcelos, W.W. (2019). Accountability for Practical Reasoning Agents. In: Lujak, M. (eds) Agreement Technologies. AT 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11327. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17294-7_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17294-7_3

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