Specifying and Reasoning with Institutional Agents

This paper proposes a logic-oriented framework for institutional agents specification and analysis. Within this framework institutional agents are seen as artificial agents that aggregate a set of (real) agents, being capable to act (by means of real agents’ actions) and to whom deontic qualifications may be associated. In order to analyse how institutional agents interact with the external world, the following aspects are characterised: how the obligations flow from the institutional agent to the real agents that support him, and how the actions of the latter count as actions of the former. The fundamental concept supporting these aspects is the concept of role. Institutional agents are specified and analysed by means of a firstorder role based deontic/action modal logic. The analysis is automated by means of a tableaux theorem proving method extended with additional rules to deal with the proposed classical action and deontic modalities. Categories and Subject Descriptors I.2.1 [A...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2003
• Where: ICAIL
• Authors: Filipe Santos, Olga Pacheco
• Keywords: ICAIL 2003, Institutional Agent, Modal Logic, Theorem Proving