Agency and rationality: Adopting the intentional stance toward evolved virtual agents.

Abstract

The interpretation of other agents as intentional actors equipped with mental states has been connected to the attribution of rationality to their behavior. But a workable definition of "rationality" is difficult to formulate in complex situations, where standard normative definitions are difficult to apply. In this study, we explore a notion of rationality based on the idea of evolutionary fitness. We ask whether agents that are more adapted to their environment are, consequently, perceived as more rational and intentional. We created a 2-D virtual environment populated with autonomous virtual agents, each of which behaves according to a built-in program equipped with simulated perception, memory, and decision making. We then introduced a process of simulated evolution that pressured the agents' programs toward behavior more adapted to the simulated environment. We showed these agents to human subjects in 2 experiments, in which we respectively asked them to judge their intelligence and to dynamically estimate their "mental states." The results confirm that subjects construed evolved agents as more intelligent, and judged evolved agents' mental states more accurately, relative to nonevolved agents. These results corroborate a view that the interpretation of agent behavior is connected to a concept of rationality based on the apparent fit between an agent's actions and its environment.

Autism does not limit strategic thinking in the “beauty contest” game

“…Whereas orthodox game theory assumes the rationality of all players, behavioral game theory treats the level of rationality of the players as a variable to be estimated by each player in the game—and, ultimately, the researcher who is studying their behavior. Because estimating the inner workings of other people’s minds indeed defines ToM, the connection between these two disciplines is clear, though often tacit (Baker, Saxe, & Tenenbaum, 2009; Pantelis et al, 2016). This study further explores the insights behavioral game theory can offer to the understanding of ToM, in both typical and atypical development.…”

A Pragmatic Approach to the Intentional Stance Semantic, Empirical and Ethical Considerations for the Design of Artificial Agents

“…(Ziemke, 2020, p. 2) More generally, this implies that behavioral elements might be at least as important as appearance, if not more (Terada et al, 2007;Wiese et al, 2017). Among qualities in this category, studies have focused on the reciprocity and contingency of the behavior in relation to the environment and to other agents (Johnson, 2003;Pantelis et al, 2014Pantelis et al, , 2016. Furthermore, autonomous, rational and seemingly biological motion play a central role (Castelli et al, 2000;Gazzola et al, 2007;Oberman et al, 2007;Pantelis et al, 2016;Abu-Akel et al, 2020).…”

“…Heider and Simmel argued how people attribute social skills to geometric shapes in motion (Heider & Simmel, 1944). Developing this concept further, Pantelis and colleagues analyzed the relationship between the goal-directed motion of similarly simple, autonomous geometric objects in a two-dimensional virtual environments and the attribution of mental states (Pantelis et al, 2014(Pantelis et al, , 2016. The results of the first study show that people tend to estimate agents' states (e.g., when they are 'attacking' another agent, or 'fleeing' from it) correctly and coherently with one another (Pantelis et al, 2014).…”

“…Perhaps more revealing are the results of a follow-up study, where an evolutionary factor is introduced into the agents' behavior. In fact, the authors hypothesize that the ascription of mental properties is at least partially related to how artificial agents adapt to their environment (Pantelis et al, 2016). One of their main arguments is that people's ability to correctly infer the agents' states increases concurrently with the rationality of the agents' behavior.…”

“…Arguably, they support the idea of a primacy of 'pro-social rational content' over the means of conveyance (i.e., in this case, motion itself). Thus, in the absence of such minimal rationality, artificial agents' behavior does not communicate any mental state (Pantelis et al, 2016).…”