Abstract
Autonomous agents are increasingly being proposed for use in healthcare, assistive care, education, and other applications
governed by complex human-centric norms. To ensure compliance with these norms, the rules they induce need to be
unambiguously defined, checked for consistency, and used to verify the agent. In this paper, we introduce a framework
for formal specification, validation and verification of social, legal, ethical, empathetic and cultural (SLEEC) rules for
autonomous agents. Our framework comprises: (i) a language for specifying SLEEC rules and rule defeaters (that is,
circumstances in which a rule does not apply or an alternative form of the rule is required); (ii) a formal semantics
(defined in the process algebra tock-CSP) for the language; and (iii) methods for detecting conflicts and redundancy
within a set of rules, and for verifying the compliance of an autonomous agent with such rules. We show the applicability
of our framework for two autonomous agents from different domains: a firefighter UAV, and an assistive-dressing robot.
governed by complex human-centric norms. To ensure compliance with these norms, the rules they induce need to be
unambiguously defined, checked for consistency, and used to verify the agent. In this paper, we introduce a framework
for formal specification, validation and verification of social, legal, ethical, empathetic and cultural (SLEEC) rules for
autonomous agents. Our framework comprises: (i) a language for specifying SLEEC rules and rule defeaters (that is,
circumstances in which a rule does not apply or an alternative form of the rule is required); (ii) a formal semantics
(defined in the process algebra tock-CSP) for the language; and (iii) methods for detecting conflicts and redundancy
within a set of rules, and for verifying the compliance of an autonomous agent with such rules. We show the applicability
of our framework for two autonomous agents from different domains: a firefighter UAV, and an assistive-dressing robot.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 112229 |
| Number of pages | 21 |
| Journal | Journal of Systems and Software |
| Volume | 220 |
| Early online date | 13 Nov 2024 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | E-pub ahead of print - 13 Nov 2024 |
Bibliographical note
© 2024 The Authors.Keywords
- autonomous agents; social, legal, ethical, empathethic and cultural requirements; verification and validation; sociotechnical systems; formal methods