Chapter 25:
Challenges and Extensions
Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents
– Munindar P. Singh and Michael N. Huhns, Wiley, 2005
Highlights of this Chapter
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Chapter 25
Trust
Ethics
Coherence
Benevolence
Managing Privacy
Key Challenges and Recommendations
Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents - Munindar Singh and Michael Huhns
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When Would you Trust a Service?
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Has the right capabilities
Understands your needs
Follows legal contracts where specified
Supports its organization or society
Follows an ethics
Behaves rationally
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Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents - Munindar Singh and Michael Huhns
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Ethical Abstractions
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Chapter 25
Deontological ethics
Teleological ethics
Consequentialism
Duties
Obligations
Applying ethics
Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents - Munindar Singh and Michael Huhns
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Motivation
Specifying agents who would act
appropriately
 Distinguishing right from wrong
 Relates to legal, social, economic
considerations
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Right and Good
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Right: that which is right in itself
Good: that which is good or valuable for
someone or for some end
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Deontological vs. Teleological
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Deontological theories
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Right trumps good
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Being good does not mean being right
Ends do not justify means
Teleological theories
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Good trumps right
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Chapter 25
Something is right only if it maximizes the good
Ends justify means
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Deontological Theories
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Constraints
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Negatively formulated
Narrowly framed
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Narrowly directed
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Chapter 25
E.g., lying is not not-telling-the-truth
At an agent’s specific action and its explicitly
identified consequences
Not at the action by other means
Not at implicit, even known, consequences
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Deontological Double Effect
Distinguish intentional effects from
foreseen consequences
 An action is not wrong unless the agent
explicitly intends for it to do wrong
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Chapter 25
Legitimizes inaction even when inaction
has predictable (but unintended) effects
Shut down bank ATM for diagnostics even
if that might leave someone without cash
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Kant’s Categorical Imperative
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Universalizability: Acceptable outcomes
if everyone applies the same “maxim”
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Chapter 25
False promising is unacceptable, because if
everyone did so, society would not function
Respect for others (no lying or coercion) so
they can consent
An agent “maxim” is uncertainly inferred
from its actions
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Teleological Theories
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Based on how actions satisfy various
goals, not their intrinsic rightness
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Chapter 25
Comparison-based
Preference-based
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Consequentialism
An agent should promote whatever
values it adopts
 Actions are instrumental in the
promotion
 Honor the values only if doing so
promotes them
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Utilitarianism
A moral action is one that is useful
 Must be good for someone
 Good may be interpreted as
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Chapter 25
Pleasure: hedonism
Preference satisfaction: microeconomic rationalism
(assumes each agent knows its preferences)
Interest satisfaction: welfare utilitarianism
Aesthetic ideals: ideal utilitarianism
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Prima Facie Duties
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What agents need to decide actions are
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Not just universal principles (each can be
stretched)
Not just consequences
But also a regard for their promises and duties
Agents have prima facie duties to help
others, keep promises, repay
kindness,...
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Chapter 25
No ranking among these
Highly defeasible conclusions, e.g., steal food
to feed kids
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Obligations
Obligations are
 For deontological theories, those that
are impermissible to omit
 For teleological theories, those that
most promote good
 For contract-based theories, those that
an agent accepts
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Asimov’s Laws of Robotics
0. A robot may not injure humanity or, through
inaction, allow humanity to come to harm. [Added
after the following more famous laws]
1. A robot may not injure a human being, or, through
inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human
beings except where such orders would conflict with
the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as
such protection does not conflict with the First or
Second Law.
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Applying Ethics: 1
The ethical theories are theories
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Of justification
Not of deliberation
An agent can decide what basic “value
system” to use under any approach
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Applying Ethics: 2
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The deontological theories (“right”)
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Are narrower
Ignore practical considerations
But are meant as incomplete constraints (out of all
the right actions, the agent can choose any)
The teleological theories (“good”)
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Chapter 25
Are broader
Include practical considerations
But leave fewer options for the agent, who must
always choose the best available alternative
Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents - Munindar Singh and Michael Huhns
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Applying Ethics: 3
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The ethical approaches
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Are single-agent in orientation
Implicitly encode other agents
An explicitly multiagent ethics would be
an interesting topic for study
Chapter 25
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An Agent Should Act
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Benevolently
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Rationally, i.e., maximizing utility
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Consistent with its model of itself
Predictably
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Chapter 25
Seeking the welfare of others
Consistent with its model of others’ beliefs about it
Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents - Munindar Singh and Michael Huhns
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Benevolence:
cars
“A Mattress in the Road”
Mattress
Who will stop to pick it up?
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Example: Information Sharing
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Benevolent agents sharing information they
have retrieved, filtered, and refined
Utilitarian variant: Access to shared
information based on contributions to it
Collective Store
World Wide Web...
Query Agents
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Challenges and Recommendations
Respect autonomy and heterogeneity
 Design rules for ontologies, business
transactions, protocols, organizations, …
 Security and trust: difficult given openness
 Scalability
 Quality of service: application-specific and
incorporating user needs
 User-centered requirements analysis and
design
Chapter 25
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Chapter 25 Summary
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SOC is about building systems in open
environments
SOC systems rely upon trust among
components and people
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Can ethics inspire abstractions for SOC?
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Chapter 25
Technical work on trust: in progress
More responsive to human needs?
Easier to govern?
Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents - Munindar Singh and Michael Huhns
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To Probe Further
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Journals
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IEEE Internet Computing, http://computer.org/internet
Journal of Web Semantics
IEEE Transactions on Services Computing
[email protected]
Conferences
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Chapter 25
Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems
Business Process Managment
Semantic Web Conference (ISWC)
Service-Oriented Computing (ICSOC)
Service Computing (SCC)
Web Services (ICWS)
World-Wide Web (WWW)
Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents - Munindar Singh and Michael Huhns
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