Ontological aspects of the implementation of norms in agent-based electronic institutions

Abstract

In order to regulate different circumstances over an extensive period of time, norms in institutions are stated in a vague and often ambiguous manner, thereby abstracting from concrete aspects, which are relevant for the operationalization of institutions. If agent-based electronic institutions, which adhere to a set of abstract requirements, are to be built, how can those requirements be translated into more concrete constraints, the impact of which can be described directly in the institution?We address this issue considering institutions as normative systems based on articulate ontologies of the agent domain they regulate. Ontologies, we hold, are used by institutions to relate the abstract concepts in which their norms are formulated, to their concrete application domain. In this view, different institutions can implement the same set of norms in different ways as far as they presuppose divergent ontologies of the concepts in which that set of norms is formulated. In this paper we analyze this phenomenon introducing a notion of contextual ontology. We will focus on the formal machinery necessary to characterize it as well.

Engineering Social Reality with Inheritance Relations

“…We are aware of only a few similar approaches towards the use of contextdependent ontological subsumption rules (i.e., [10] and [4]) that could also be used to solve the dynamic problem ontologically. While these approaches achieve similar results in the specification of ontological relations that can change depending on the current context, neither of these take any note of the definition of contexts themselves.…”

“…The second premise is a (generally acknowledged) contextual classification concerning an universal context (and can thus be formalised as ontological subsumption as done in, e.g., [1,11]). The conclusion is a "new", proper contextual classification which is considered to hold with respect to the given system (this requires the extension to a context dependent counts-as as attempted in, e.g., [4,10]). But what about the first premise?…”

“…It has been proposed already (e.g., see [1,9,10]) that an explicit representation of the links between the abstract and concrete concepts can be given by the concept of counts-as. The intuition of counts-as as subsumption relation (that is, as a relation pertaining to ontologies) to solve this problem was first stated in [11].…”

Reasoning about constitutive norms in BDI agents

“…In this sense, the expression X ⇒ s Y means that 'within the context s occurrence of X count-as Y '. In the existing literature, several variations of the ⇒ s operator have been proposed [18,20,21]. For example, in [21] Grossi and Dignum have proposed an alternative definition of the count-as connective for dealing with non-monotonicity.…”

“…constitutive norms allow agents to know that they cannot raise their arm in an auction if they do not want to make a bid). As a consequence, agents need to consider constitutive norms not only for translating abstract regulative norms into specific ones, but also for selecting the most suitable actions according to their goals and the institutional repercussions [20].…”