Recent years have been tainted by market practices that continuously expose us, as consumers, to ... more Recent years have been tainted by market practices that continuously expose us, as consumers, to new risks and threats. We have become accustomed, and sometimes even resigned, to businesses monitoring our activities, examining our data, and even meddling with our choices. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is often depicted as a weapon in the hands of businesses and blamed for allowing this to happen. In this paper, we envision a paradigm shift, where AI technologies are brought to the side of consumers and their organizations, with the aim of building an efficient and effective counter-power. AI-powered tools can support a massive-scale automated analysis of textual and audiovisual data, as well as code, for the benefit of consumers and their organizations. This in turn can lead to a better oversight of business activities, help consumers exercise their rights, and enable the civil society to mitigate information overload. We discuss the societal, political, and technological challenges ...
Recent years have been tainted by market practices that continuously expose us, as consumers, to ... more Recent years have been tainted by market practices that continuously expose us, as consumers, to new risks and threats. We have become accustomed, and sometimes even resigned, to businesses monitoring our activities, examining our data, and even meddling with our choices. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is often depicted as a weapon in the hands of businesses and blamed for allowing this to happen. In this paper, we envision a paradigm shift, where AI technologies are brought to the side of consumers and their organizations, with the aim of building an efficient and effective counter-power. AI-powered tools can support a massive-scale automated analysis of textual and audiovisual data, as well as code, for the benefit of consumers and their organizations. This in turn can lead to a better oversight of business activities, help consumers exercise their rights, and enable the civil society to mitigate information overload. We discuss the societal, political, and technological challenges ...
Terms of service of on-line platforms too often contain clauses that are potentially unfair to th... more Terms of service of on-line platforms too often contain clauses that are potentially unfair to the consumer. We present an experimental study where machine learning is employed to automatically detect such potentially unfair clauses. Results show that the proposed system could provide a valuable tool for lawyers and consumers alike.
Terms of service of on-line platforms too often contain clauses that are potentially unfair to th... more Terms of service of on-line platforms too often contain clauses that are potentially unfair to the consumer. We present an experimental study where machine learning is employed to automatically detect such potentially unfair clauses. Results show that the proposed system could provide a valuable tool for lawyers and consumers alike.
Recent years have been tainted by market practices that continuously expose us, as consumers, to ... more Recent years have been tainted by market practices that continuously expose us, as consumers, to new risks and threats. We have become accustomed, and sometimes even resigned, to businesses monitoring our activities, examining our data, and even meddling with our choices. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is often depicted as a weapon in the hands of businesses and blamed for allowing this to happen. In this paper, we envision a paradigm shift, where AI technologies are brought to the side of consumers and their organizations, with the aim of building an efficient and effective counter-power. AI-powered tools can support a massive-scale automated analysis of textual and audiovisual data, as well as code, for the benefit of consumers and their organizations. This in turn can lead to a better oversight of business activities, help consumers exercise their rights, and enable the civil society to mitigate information overload. We discuss the societal, political, and technological challenges ...
A number of approaches to agent society modeling can be found in the Multi-Agent Systems literatu... more A number of approaches to agent society modeling can be found in the Multi-Agent Systems literature which exploit (variants of) Deontic Logic. In this paper, after briefly mentioning related approaches, we focus on the Computational Logic (CL) approach for society modeling developed within the UE IST-2001-32530 Project (named SOCS), where obligations and prohibitions are mapped into abducible predicates (respectively, positive
The concept of an agent is increasingly used in contemporary software applications, particularly ... more The concept of an agent is increasingly used in contemporary software applications, particularly those involving the Internet, autonomous systems, or cooperation. However, with dependability and safety in mind, it is vital that the mechanisms for representing and implementing agents are clear and consistent. Hence there has been a strong research effort directed at using formal logic as the basis for agent descriptions and agent implementation. Such a logical basis not only presents the clarity and consistency required but also allows for important techniques such as logical verification to be applied.
Abstract. A number of approaches to agent society modeling can be found in the Multi-Agent System... more Abstract. A number of approaches to agent society modeling can be found in the Multi-Agent Systems literature which exploit (variants of) Deontic Logic. In this paper, after briefly mentioning related approaches, we focus on the Computational Logic (CL) approach for society modeling developed within the UE IST-2001-32530 Project (named SOCS), where obligations and prohibitions are mapped into abducible predicates (respectively, positive and negative expectations), and norms ruling the behavior of members are represented ...
Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory, 2006
Abstract Deontic concepts and operators have been widely used in several fields where representat... more Abstract Deontic concepts and operators have been widely used in several fields where representation of norms is needed, including legal reasoning and normative multi-agent systems. The EU-funded SOCS project has provided a language to specify the agent interaction in open multi-agent systems. The language is equipped with a declarative semantics based on abductive logic programming, and an operational semantics consisting of a (sound and complete) abductive proof procedure. In the SOCS framework, the ...
The focus of this work is on the interactions among (possibly heterogeneous) agents that form an ... more The focus of this work is on the interactions among (possibly heterogeneous) agents that form an open society, and on the definition of a computational logic-based architecture for agent interaction. We propose a model where the society defines the allowed interaction protocols, which determine the “socially” allowed agent interaction patterns. The semantics of protocols can be defined by means of social integrity constraints. The main advantages of this approach are in the design of societies of agents, and in the possibility to detect ...
... X Organization Inna Pivkina Chiaki Sakama Kostas Stathis Maciej Szreter Gregory Wheeler Yingq... more ... X Organization Inna Pivkina Chiaki Sakama Kostas Stathis Maciej Szreter Gregory Wheeler Yingqiang Zhang Secretariat Filipa Mira Reis Sılvia Marina Costa Local Organization Antonio Albuquerque Duarte Alvim Eduardo Barros Jamshid Ashtari Joana Lopes Miguel Maurıcio ...
We propose an operational framework which builds on the classical understanding of abductive reas... more We propose an operational framework which builds on the classical understanding of abductive reasoning in logic programming, and extends it in several directions. The new features include the ability to reason with a dynamic knowledge base, where new facts can be added anytime, the ability to generate expectations about such new facts occurring in the future (forecasting), and the process of confirmation/disconfirmation of such expectations.
In the first year of the project, Bologna (UNIBO) will spend 14 months on WP1, a logic-based mode... more In the first year of the project, Bologna (UNIBO) will spend 14 months on WP1, a logic-based model for computees, and 10 months on WP2, modelling interactions between computees. Ferrara (DIFERRARA) will spend 12 months on WP1 and 8 months on WP2.
Open systems are complex, heterogeneous systems whose complexity is often handled by component-ba... more Open systems are complex, heterogeneous systems whose complexity is often handled by component-based approaches. While the internal functioning of such components is invisible to the outside, a great emphasis is put on the verification of properties that ensure a safe, predictable, and understandable external behaviour. At the same time, the rules that govern and describe the system behaviour must guarantee maximum flexibility. Developing technologies that can satisfy the requirements of open multi-agent systems poses an important and difficult challenge. Here, declarative approaches have the potential of offering solutions satisfying the needs for both specifying and developing open multi-agent systems and other open systems for diverse applications such as business processes, clinical guidelines and cloud computing.
We address run-time monitoring of membership, roles and role dynamics in open agent societies. To... more We address run-time monitoring of membership, roles and role dynamics in open agent societies. To this end, we build on Dignum's formalization of agent organizations, on the SOCS computational logic agent framework and on the Event Calculus for representing and reasoning about time.
Social commitments in time: Satisfied or compensated was the title of a presentation given at the... more Social commitments in time: Satisfied or compensated was the title of a presentation given at the 7th DALT workshop edition 34 in which we proposed a layered architecture for modeling and reasoning about social commitments. We gave emphasis to modularity and to the need of accommodating certain temporal aspects in order for a commitment modeling framework to be flexible enough to adapt to diverse commitment theories, and expressive enough to model realistic scenarios. We grounded the framework on two formalisms: the Reactive ...
Recent years have been tainted by market practices that continuously expose us, as consumers, to ... more Recent years have been tainted by market practices that continuously expose us, as consumers, to new risks and threats. We have become accustomed, and sometimes even resigned, to businesses monitoring our activities, examining our data, and even meddling with our choices. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is often depicted as a weapon in the hands of businesses and blamed for allowing this to happen. In this paper, we envision a paradigm shift, where AI technologies are brought to the side of consumers and their organizations, with the aim of building an efficient and effective counter-power. AI-powered tools can support a massive-scale automated analysis of textual and audiovisual data, as well as code, for the benefit of consumers and their organizations. This in turn can lead to a better oversight of business activities, help consumers exercise their rights, and enable the civil society to mitigate information overload. We discuss the societal, political, and technological challenges ...
Recent years have been tainted by market practices that continuously expose us, as consumers, to ... more Recent years have been tainted by market practices that continuously expose us, as consumers, to new risks and threats. We have become accustomed, and sometimes even resigned, to businesses monitoring our activities, examining our data, and even meddling with our choices. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is often depicted as a weapon in the hands of businesses and blamed for allowing this to happen. In this paper, we envision a paradigm shift, where AI technologies are brought to the side of consumers and their organizations, with the aim of building an efficient and effective counter-power. AI-powered tools can support a massive-scale automated analysis of textual and audiovisual data, as well as code, for the benefit of consumers and their organizations. This in turn can lead to a better oversight of business activities, help consumers exercise their rights, and enable the civil society to mitigate information overload. We discuss the societal, political, and technological challenges ...
Terms of service of on-line platforms too often contain clauses that are potentially unfair to th... more Terms of service of on-line platforms too often contain clauses that are potentially unfair to the consumer. We present an experimental study where machine learning is employed to automatically detect such potentially unfair clauses. Results show that the proposed system could provide a valuable tool for lawyers and consumers alike.
Terms of service of on-line platforms too often contain clauses that are potentially unfair to th... more Terms of service of on-line platforms too often contain clauses that are potentially unfair to the consumer. We present an experimental study where machine learning is employed to automatically detect such potentially unfair clauses. Results show that the proposed system could provide a valuable tool for lawyers and consumers alike.
Recent years have been tainted by market practices that continuously expose us, as consumers, to ... more Recent years have been tainted by market practices that continuously expose us, as consumers, to new risks and threats. We have become accustomed, and sometimes even resigned, to businesses monitoring our activities, examining our data, and even meddling with our choices. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is often depicted as a weapon in the hands of businesses and blamed for allowing this to happen. In this paper, we envision a paradigm shift, where AI technologies are brought to the side of consumers and their organizations, with the aim of building an efficient and effective counter-power. AI-powered tools can support a massive-scale automated analysis of textual and audiovisual data, as well as code, for the benefit of consumers and their organizations. This in turn can lead to a better oversight of business activities, help consumers exercise their rights, and enable the civil society to mitigate information overload. We discuss the societal, political, and technological challenges ...
A number of approaches to agent society modeling can be found in the Multi-Agent Systems literatu... more A number of approaches to agent society modeling can be found in the Multi-Agent Systems literature which exploit (variants of) Deontic Logic. In this paper, after briefly mentioning related approaches, we focus on the Computational Logic (CL) approach for society modeling developed within the UE IST-2001-32530 Project (named SOCS), where obligations and prohibitions are mapped into abducible predicates (respectively, positive
The concept of an agent is increasingly used in contemporary software applications, particularly ... more The concept of an agent is increasingly used in contemporary software applications, particularly those involving the Internet, autonomous systems, or cooperation. However, with dependability and safety in mind, it is vital that the mechanisms for representing and implementing agents are clear and consistent. Hence there has been a strong research effort directed at using formal logic as the basis for agent descriptions and agent implementation. Such a logical basis not only presents the clarity and consistency required but also allows for important techniques such as logical verification to be applied.
Abstract. A number of approaches to agent society modeling can be found in the Multi-Agent System... more Abstract. A number of approaches to agent society modeling can be found in the Multi-Agent Systems literature which exploit (variants of) Deontic Logic. In this paper, after briefly mentioning related approaches, we focus on the Computational Logic (CL) approach for society modeling developed within the UE IST-2001-32530 Project (named SOCS), where obligations and prohibitions are mapped into abducible predicates (respectively, positive and negative expectations), and norms ruling the behavior of members are represented ...
Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory, 2006
Abstract Deontic concepts and operators have been widely used in several fields where representat... more Abstract Deontic concepts and operators have been widely used in several fields where representation of norms is needed, including legal reasoning and normative multi-agent systems. The EU-funded SOCS project has provided a language to specify the agent interaction in open multi-agent systems. The language is equipped with a declarative semantics based on abductive logic programming, and an operational semantics consisting of a (sound and complete) abductive proof procedure. In the SOCS framework, the ...
The focus of this work is on the interactions among (possibly heterogeneous) agents that form an ... more The focus of this work is on the interactions among (possibly heterogeneous) agents that form an open society, and on the definition of a computational logic-based architecture for agent interaction. We propose a model where the society defines the allowed interaction protocols, which determine the “socially” allowed agent interaction patterns. The semantics of protocols can be defined by means of social integrity constraints. The main advantages of this approach are in the design of societies of agents, and in the possibility to detect ...
... X Organization Inna Pivkina Chiaki Sakama Kostas Stathis Maciej Szreter Gregory Wheeler Yingq... more ... X Organization Inna Pivkina Chiaki Sakama Kostas Stathis Maciej Szreter Gregory Wheeler Yingqiang Zhang Secretariat Filipa Mira Reis Sılvia Marina Costa Local Organization Antonio Albuquerque Duarte Alvim Eduardo Barros Jamshid Ashtari Joana Lopes Miguel Maurıcio ...
We propose an operational framework which builds on the classical understanding of abductive reas... more We propose an operational framework which builds on the classical understanding of abductive reasoning in logic programming, and extends it in several directions. The new features include the ability to reason with a dynamic knowledge base, where new facts can be added anytime, the ability to generate expectations about such new facts occurring in the future (forecasting), and the process of confirmation/disconfirmation of such expectations.
In the first year of the project, Bologna (UNIBO) will spend 14 months on WP1, a logic-based mode... more In the first year of the project, Bologna (UNIBO) will spend 14 months on WP1, a logic-based model for computees, and 10 months on WP2, modelling interactions between computees. Ferrara (DIFERRARA) will spend 12 months on WP1 and 8 months on WP2.
Open systems are complex, heterogeneous systems whose complexity is often handled by component-ba... more Open systems are complex, heterogeneous systems whose complexity is often handled by component-based approaches. While the internal functioning of such components is invisible to the outside, a great emphasis is put on the verification of properties that ensure a safe, predictable, and understandable external behaviour. At the same time, the rules that govern and describe the system behaviour must guarantee maximum flexibility. Developing technologies that can satisfy the requirements of open multi-agent systems poses an important and difficult challenge. Here, declarative approaches have the potential of offering solutions satisfying the needs for both specifying and developing open multi-agent systems and other open systems for diverse applications such as business processes, clinical guidelines and cloud computing.
We address run-time monitoring of membership, roles and role dynamics in open agent societies. To... more We address run-time monitoring of membership, roles and role dynamics in open agent societies. To this end, we build on Dignum's formalization of agent organizations, on the SOCS computational logic agent framework and on the Event Calculus for representing and reasoning about time.
Social commitments in time: Satisfied or compensated was the title of a presentation given at the... more Social commitments in time: Satisfied or compensated was the title of a presentation given at the 7th DALT workshop edition 34 in which we proposed a layered architecture for modeling and reasoning about social commitments. We gave emphasis to modularity and to the need of accommodating certain temporal aspects in order for a commitment modeling framework to be flexible enough to adapt to diverse commitment theories, and expressive enough to model realistic scenarios. We grounded the framework on two formalisms: the Reactive ...
We show how Twitter streams can be turned into “microdebates” that help organizing and confrontin... more We show how Twitter streams can be turned into “microdebates” that help organizing and confronting user opinions, and establishing a channel between the citizens and the policy-makers.
How are social media changing the way we argue? Are they helping us make better arguments or do t... more How are social media changing the way we argue? Are they helping us make better arguments or do they silence debate, as it has been suggested by some? Are current computational models of argument adequate to capture the nature and dynamics of argumentation in social media? With these questions in mind, we discuss some recent proposals and identify challenges and impacts of an ambitious vi- sion: making computational argumentation an enabling technology for new forms of collective intelligence.
We present an argumentative approach to agent-based mod- eling where agents are socially embedded... more We present an argumentative approach to agent-based mod- eling where agents are socially embedded and exchange information by means of simulated dialogues. We argue that this approach can be ben- eficial in social simulations, allowing for a better representation of agent reasoning, that is also accessible to the non computer science savvy, thus filling a gap between scholars that use BDI frameworks and scholars who do not in social sciences.
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Papers by Paolo Torroni