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Argumentation-Based Reasoning about Plans, Maintenance Goals, and Norms

Published:10 February 2020Publication History
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Abstract

In a normative environment, an agent’s actions are directed not only by its goals but also by the norms activated by its actions and those of other actors. The potential for conflict between agent goals and norms makes decision making challenging, in that it requires looking ahead to consider the longer-term consequences of which goal to satisfy or which norm to comply with in face of conflict. We therefore seek to determine the actions an agent should select at each point in time, taking account of its temporal goals, norms, and their conflicts. We propose a solution in which a normative planning problem is the basis for practical reasoning based on argumentation. Various types of conflict within goals, within norms, and between goals and norms are identified based on temporal properties of these entities. The properties of the best plan(s) with respect to goal achievement and norm compliance are mapped to arguments, followed by mapping their conflicts to attack between arguments, all of which are used to identify why a plan is justified.

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    • Published in

      cover image ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems
      ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems  Volume 14, Issue 3
      September 2019
      135 pages
      ISSN:1556-4665
      EISSN:1556-4703
      DOI:10.1145/3382775
      Issue’s Table of Contents

      Copyright © 2020 ACM

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      Association for Computing Machinery

      New York, NY, United States

      Publication History

      • Published: 10 February 2020
      • Accepted: 1 September 2019
      • Revised: 1 August 2019
      • Received: 1 December 2018
      Published in taas Volume 14, Issue 3

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