Elessar: Ethics in Norm-Aware Agents

Conference paper (2020)

Authors

Nirav Ajmeri University of North Carolina
P.K. Murukannaiah Interactive Intelligence - EEMCS
Hui Guo North Carolina State University
Munindar P. Singh University of North Carolina
Research Group
Interactive Intelligence (EEMCS) (TU Delft)
Copyright: © 2020 Nirav Ajmeri, P.K. Murukannaiah, Hui Guo, Munindar P. Singh
Fairness Ethics Values Preferences Social norms
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Published Date

2020-5

Language

English

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Faculty

Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science

Department

Intelligent Systems

Research Group

Interactive Intelligence

Abstract

We address the problem of designing agents that navigate social norms by selecting ethically appropriate actions. We present Elessar, a framework in which agents aggregate value preferences of users and select ethically appropriate actions through multicriteria decision making in different social contexts. Via simulations, seeded with a survey of user values and attitudes, we find that Elessar agents act ethically and are effective than baseline agents, in terms of (1) exhibiting the Rawlsian property of fairness, and (2) yielding a satisfactory social experience to users. Our results are stable across agent societies of different sizes and connectedness.