Skip to main content

Imperfect Norm Enforcement in Stochastic Environments: An Analysis of Efficiency and Cost Tradeoffs

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 8864))

Abstract

In heterogeneous multiagent systems, agents might interfere with each other either intentionally or unintentionally, as a side-effect of their activities. One approach to coordinating these agents is to restrict their activities by means of social norms whose compliance ensures certain system properties, or otherwise results in sanctions to violating agents. While most research on normative systems assumes a deterministic environment and norm enforcement mechanism, we formalize a normative system within an environment whereby agent actions have stochastic outcomes and norm enforcement follows a stochastic model in which stricter enforcement entails higher cost. Within this type of system, we analyze the tradeoff between norm enforcement efficiency (measured in number of norm violations) and its cost considering a population of norm-aware self-interested agents capable of building plans to maximize their expected utilities. Finally, we validate our analysis empirically through simulations in a representative scenario.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Buying options

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Ågotnes, T., van der Hoek, W., Wooldridge, M.: Normative system games. In: Durfee, E.H., Yokoo, M., Huhns, M.N., Shehory, O. (eds.) AAMAS, pp. 881–888. IFAAMAS (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Bellman, R.E.: Dynamic Programming. Dover Publications, Incorporated (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Boutilier, C., Dean, T., Hanks, S.: Decision-Theoretic Planning: Structural Assumptions and Computational Leverage. J. Artif. Intell. Res. (JAIR) 11, 1–94 (1999)

    MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  4. Castelfranchi, C., Dignum, F., Jonker, C.M., Treur, J.: Deliberative Normative Agents: Principles and Architecture. In: Jennings, N.R., Lespérance, Y. (eds.) ATAL 1999. LNCS, vol. 1757, pp. 364–378. Springer, Heidelberg (2000)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  5. Fagundes, M.S.: Sequential Decision Making in Normative Environments. Ph.D. thesis, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Fagundes, M.S., Billhardt, H., Ossowski, S.: Reasoning about Norm Compliance with Rational Agents. In: Coelho, H., Studer, R., Wooldridge, M. (eds.) ECAI. Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications, vol. 215, pp. 1027–1028. IOS Press (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Fagundes, M.S., Ossowski, S., Luck, M., Miles, S.: Using Normative Markov Decision Processes for evaluating electronic contracts. AI Commun. 25(1), 1–17 (2012)

    MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  8. Howard, R.A.: Dynamic Programming and Markov Processes. The M.I.T. Press (1960)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Jones, A.J.I., Sergot, M.: On the characterisation of law and computer systems: the normative systems perspective. In: Deontic Logic in Computer Science: Normative System Specification. Wiley Professional Computing Series, pp. 275–307. Wiley (1993)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Modgil, S., Faci, N., Meneguzzi, F.R., Oren, N., Miles, S., Luck, M.: A framework for monitoring agent-based normative systems. In: Sierra, C., Castelfranchi, C., Decker, K.S., Sichman, J.S. (eds.) AAMAS (1), pp. 153–160. IFAAMAS (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Nash Jr, J.F.: Equilibrium points in n-person games. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 36, 48–49 (1950)

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  12. Omicini, A., Ossowski, S., Ricci, A.: Coordination infrastructures in the engineering of multiagent systems. In: Bergenti, F., Gleizes, M.P., Zambonelli, F. (eds.) Methodologies and Software Engineering for Agent Systems: The Agent-Oriented Software Engineering Handbook, Multiagent Systems, Artificial Societies, and Simulated Organizations, vol. 11, ch. 14, pp. 273–296. Kluwer Academic Publishers (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Puterman, M.L., Shin, M.C.: Modified Policy Iteration Algorithms for Discounted Markov Decision Problems. Management Science 24, 1127–1137 (1978)

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  14. Schumacher, M., Ossowski, S.: The governing environment. In: Weyns, D., Van Dyke Parunak, H., Michel, F. (eds.) E4MAS 2005. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 3830, pp. 88–104. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  15. Tennenholtz, M.: On social constraints for rational agents. Computational Intelligence 15(4), 367–383 (1999)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Ummels, M., Wojtczak, D.: The complexity of nash equilibria in stochastic multiplayer games. Logical Methods in Computer Science 7(3) (2011)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Moser Silva Fagundes .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

About this paper

Cite this paper

Fagundes, M.S., Ossowski, S., Meneguzzi, F. (2014). Imperfect Norm Enforcement in Stochastic Environments: An Analysis of Efficiency and Cost Tradeoffs. In: Bazzan, A., Pichara, K. (eds) Advances in Artificial Intelligence -- IBERAMIA 2014. IBERAMIA 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 8864. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12027-0_42

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12027-0_42

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-12026-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-12027-0

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics