An Agent-Centric Perspective on Norm Enforcement and Sanctions

Elena Yan (1) , Luis Gustavo Nardin (1) , Jomi Hübner (2) , Olivier Boissier (1)

1 LIMOS - Laboratoire d'Informatique, de Modélisation et d'Optimisation des Systèmes
2 UFSC - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina = Federal University of Santa Catarina [Florianópolis]

In increasingly autonomous and highly distributed multi-agent systems, centralized coordination becomes impractical and raises the need for governance and enforcement mechanisms from an agent-centric perspective. In our conceptual view, sanctioning norm enforcement is part of this agent-centric approach and they aim at promoting norm compliance while preserving agents' autonomy. The few works dealing with sanctioning norm enforcement and sanctions from the agent-centric perspective present limitations regarding the representation of sanctions and the comprehensiveness of their norm enforcement process. To address these drawbacks, we propose the NPL(s), an extension of the NPL normative programming language enriched with the representation of norms and sanctions as first-class abstractions. We also propose a BDI normative agent architecture embedding an engine for processing the NPL(s) language and a set of capabilities for approaching more comprehensively the sanctioning norm enforcement process. We apply our contributions in a case study for improving the robustness of agents' decision-making in a production automation system.

Mots clés: Sanctions; Normative Programming Language; Normative Agent Architecture; Norm Enforcement

Domaines: Modélisation et simulation

Elena Yan, Luis Gustavo Nardin, Jomi Hübner, Olivier Boissier. An Agent-Centric Perspective on Norm Enforcement and Sanctions. International Workshop on Coordination, Organizations, Institutions, Norms and Ethics for Governance of Multi-Agent Systems, May 2024, Auckland, New Zealand. ⟨10.48550/arXiv.2403.15128⟩. ⟨hal-04597649⟩