Conference Papers by Giovanni Sileno
DKB-KIK Workshop on Formal and Cognitive Reasoning, 2019
Principles of cognitive economy would require that concepts about objects, properties and relatio... more Principles of cognitive economy would require that concepts about objects, properties and relations should be introduced only if they simplify the conceptualisation of a domain. Unexpectedly, classic logic conditionals, specifying structures holding within elements of a formal conceptualisation, do not always satisfy this crucial principle. The paper argues that this requirement is captured by supervenience, hereby further identified as a property necessary for compression. The resulting theory suggests an alternative explanation of the empirical experiences observable in selection tasks, associating human performance with con-ditionals on the ability of dealing with compression, rather than with logic necessity.
Proceedings of AIC 2018, 2018
This paper provides an updated formalization of the operation of contrast, and shows that, by app... more This paper provides an updated formalization of the operation of contrast, and shows that, by applying it on conceptual spaces, membership functions to categories as e.g. those captured by adjectives or directional relationships emerge as a natural by-product. Because the outcome of contrast depends not only on the objects contrasted (a target and a reference, as for instance a prototype), but also on the frame in which those are contained, it is argued that contrast enables a continuous contextualization, offering a basis for " on the fly " predication. This investigation is then used for inferring general requirements for its application and generalization, and for comparison with current practices in the conceptual space literature.
Proceedings of CogSci 2018, 2018
Several computational methods have been proposed to evaluate the relevance of an instantiated cau... more Several computational methods have been proposed to evaluate the relevance of an instantiated cause to an observed consequence. The paper reports on an experiment to investigate the adequacy of some of these methods as descriptors of human judgments about causal relevance.
Proceedings of JURIX 2017, 2017
Responsibility, as referred to in everyday life, as explored in moral philosophy and debated in j... more Responsibility, as referred to in everyday life, as explored in moral philosophy and debated in jurisprudence, is a multiform, ill-defined but inescapable notion for reasoning about actions. Its presence in all social constructs suggests the existence of an underlying cognitive base. Following this hypothesis, and building upon simplicity theory, the paper proposes a novel computational approach.
Proceedings of KI: Advances in Artificial Intelligence 2017, 2017
Within the general objective of conceiving a cognitive architecture for image interpretation able... more Within the general objective of conceiving a cognitive architecture for image interpretation able to generate outputs relevant to several target user profiles, the paper elaborates on a set of operations that should be provided by a cognitive space to guarantee the generation of relevant descriptions. First, it attempts to define a working definition of contrast operation. Then, revisiting well-known results in cognitive studies, it sketches a definition of similarity based on contrast, distinguished from the metric defined on the conceptual space.
MIREL workshop @ ICAIL, 2017
Developing systems operating in alignment with norms is not a straightforward endeavour. Part of ... more Developing systems operating in alignment with norms is not a straightforward endeavour. Part of the problems derive from the suggestion that law concerns a system of norms, which, in abstract, in a fixed point in time, could be approached and expressed atemporally, but, when it is contextualized and applied, it naturally deals with a continuous flow of events that modifies the normative directives as well. The paper presents an alternative approach to some of these problems, exemplified by well-known deontic puzzles, by extending the Petri net notation, most common in process modeling, to Logic Programming Petri Nets. The resulting visual formalism represents in a integrated, yet distinct fashion, procedural and declarative aspects of the system under study.
This work presents elements for an alternative oper-ationalization of monitoring and diagnosis of... more This work presents elements for an alternative oper-ationalization of monitoring and diagnosis of multi-agent systems (MAS). In contrast to traditional accounts of model-based diagnosis, and most proposals concerning non-compliance, our method does not consider any commitment towards the individual unit of agency. Identity is considered to be mostly an attribute to assign responsibility , and not as the only referent that may be source of intentionality. The proposed method requires as input a set of prototypical agent-roles known to be relevant for the domain, and an observation, i.e. evidence collected by a monitor agent. We elaborate on a concrete example concerning tax frauds in real-estate transactions.
Proceedings of the 18th Conference on Principles and Practice of Multi-Agent Systems (PRIMA 2015)., Oct 2015
The paper introduces an agent architecture centered around
the notions of commitment, expectatio... more The paper introduces an agent architecture centered around
the notions of commitment, expectation, affordance, and susceptibility. These components are to a certain measure at the base of any agent system, however, inspired by research in explanation-based decision making, this contribution attempts to make explicit and start organizing under the same operationalization neglected figures as negative commitment, negative expectation, etc.
Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence (ICAART 2015), Jan 11, 2015
Inspired by research in precedential reasoning in law, the paper presents a set of algorithms for... more Inspired by research in precedential reasoning in law, the paper presents a set of algorithms for the conversion of rule bases between priority-based and constraint-based representations. Such algorithms can be used for the analysis of a rule base, and for the study of the impact of the introduction of new rules. In addition, the paper explores an optimization mechanism, built upon assumptions about the world in which the rule-based system operates, providing a model of environmental adaptation. The investigation is relevant to practical reasoning, agent modeling and agent programming.
Proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Legal knowledge and information systems (JURIX 2014). Volume: 271, Frontiers in artificial intelligence and applications, Dec 10, 2014
Rather than as abstract entities, jural relations are analyzed in terms of the bindings they crea... more Rather than as abstract entities, jural relations are analyzed in terms of the bindings they create on the individual behaviour of concurrent social agents. Investigating a simple sale transaction modeled with Petri Nets, we argue that the concepts on the two Hohfeldian squares rely on the implicit reference to a "transcendental" collective entity, to which the two parties believe or are believed to belong. From this perspective, we observe that both liabilities and duties are associated to obligations, respectively of an epistemic or practical nature. The fundamental legal concepts defined by Hohfeld are revisited accordingly, leading to the construction of two Hohfeldian prisms.
Proceedings of the 14th workshop on Computational Models of Natural Argument (CMNA2014), Dec 9, 2014
Current research in legal argumentation theory tries to bridge the gap between representations of... more Current research in legal argumentation theory tries to bridge the gap between representations of the arguments brought by parties, and representations of factors and dimensions, as used in case-based reasoning frameworks. The present paper targets the same objective, but taking an alternative approach. Instead of reasoning in terms of attack or support relationships between claims, we consider the relation of the collected messages with alternative interpretations of the case, thus referring to explanation-based argumentation (EBA). This shift of perspective allows us to start an alternative investigation into some of the questions raised in the literature. A prototype application is presented along with the paper.
Proceedings of the International Workshop on Computational Models of Narrative (CMN 2014), Aug 3, 2014
The paper investigates a representational model for narratives, aiming to facilitate the acquisit... more The paper investigates a representational model for narratives, aiming to facilitate the acquisition of the systematic core of stories concerning legal cases, i.e. the set of causal and temporal relationships that govern the world in which the narrated scenario takes place. At the discourse level, we consider narratives as sequences of messages collected in an observation, including descriptions of agents, of agents’ behaviour and of mechanisms relative to physical, mental and institutional domains. At the content level, stories correspond to synchronizations of embodied agent-roles scripts. Following this approach, the Pierson v Post case is analyzed in detail and represented as a Petri net.
Proceedings of the Workshop Computational Social Science and Social Computer Science: Two Sides of the Same Coin (SOCIAL.PATH 2014), Jun 23, 2014
The paper investigates the connection of the concept of affordance with the concept of institutio... more The paper investigates the connection of the concept of affordance with the concept of institution, fundamental in social sciences and in legal theory, with the purpose of delineating a working definition of social affordance. This hybrid concept enriches the representation tools to be used with agent-roles, knowledge components we use as basis in explaining and interpreting socio-legal scenarios. The paper shows how social affordances are of critical importance to model the agent-role embodiment mechanism.
Proceedings of the 11th International Workshop on Argumentation in Multi-Agent Systems (ARGMAS 2014) in conjunction with AAMAS 2014, May 6, 2014
This paper presents an implementation for an explanation-based theory of argumentation. Instead o... more This paper presents an implementation for an explanation-based theory of argumentation. Instead of referring to attack/support relationships between arguments, as in traditional argumentation theories, we focus on the relation of messages with the space of hypothetical explanations. The consequences of this choice are two-fold. First, attack and support relationships become derivative measures. Second, we unveil a natural integration with probabilistic reasoning. The proposed operationalization is based on stable models semantics for logic programming.
Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence (ICAART 2014), Mar 8, 2014
The paper introduces elements of a methodology for the acquisition of descriptions of social scen... more The paper introduces elements of a methodology for the acquisition of descriptions of social scenarios (e.g. cases) and for their synthesis to agent-based models. It proceeds along three steps. First, the case is analyzed at signal layer, i.e. the messages exchanged between actors. Second, the signal layer is enriched with implicit actions, intentions, and conditions necessary for the story to occur. This elicitation is based on elements provided with the story, common-sense, expert knowledge and direct interaction with the narrator. Third, the resulting scenario representation is synthesized as agent programs. These scripts correspond to descriptions of agent-roles observed in that social setting.
Proceedings of the 1st JURIX Doctoral Consortium and Poster Sessions in conjunction with the 26th Int. Conf. on Legal Knowledge and Information Systems (JURIX 2013), p. 78-80, CEUR Workshop proceedings., Dec 13, 2013
Proceedings of the 25th Benelux Conference on Artificial Intelligence (BNAIC 2013)
Focusing on descriptions of behaviours concerning the application of law, the paper presents elem... more Focusing on descriptions of behaviours concerning the application of law, the paper presents elements of a methodology that supports story acquisition for a scenario-based modelling framework. It introduces practical reasoning patterns concerning action and power, which serve firstly as visual templates for the modeller, and secondly as building blocks of a story-model that can be analyzed and executed on a computational framework.
Proocedings of the 25th International Conference on Legal Knowledge and Information Systems (JURIX 2012)
This article presents a conceptual framework intended to describe and to abstract cases or scenar... more This article presents a conceptual framework intended to describe and to abstract cases or scenarios of compliance and non-compliance. These scenarios are collected in order to be animated in an agent-based platform for purposes of design and validation of both new regulations and new implementations, or to be used as reference base for a diagnosis tool. In our approach, legal narratives become a source of agent-roles descriptions, i.e. abstractions of individual characters/agents from singular stories, feeding the target application framework.
Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence (ICAART 2013)
This paper presents a multi-agent framework intended to animate scenarios of compliance and non-c... more This paper presents a multi-agent framework intended to animate scenarios of compliance and non-compliance in a normative system. With the purpose of describing social human behaviour, we choose to reduce social complexity by creating models of the involved agents starting from stories, and completing them with background theories derived from common-sense and expert knowledge. For this reason, we explore how an institutional perspective can be taken into account in a computational framework. Roles, institutions and rules become components of the agent architecture. The social intelligence of the agent is distributed to several cognitive modules, performing the institutional thinking, whose outcomes are coordinated in the main decision-making cycle. The institutional logic is analyzed from a general simulation perspective, and a concrete possible choice is presented, drawn from fundamental legal concepts. As a concrete result, a preliminary implementation of the framework has been developed with Jason.
Thesis Chapters by Giovanni Sileno
Aligning Law and Action - Chapter 4. , 2016
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Conference Papers by Giovanni Sileno
the notions of commitment, expectation, affordance, and susceptibility. These components are to a certain measure at the base of any agent system, however, inspired by research in explanation-based decision making, this contribution attempts to make explicit and start organizing under the same operationalization neglected figures as negative commitment, negative expectation, etc.
Thesis Chapters by Giovanni Sileno
the notions of commitment, expectation, affordance, and susceptibility. These components are to a certain measure at the base of any agent system, however, inspired by research in explanation-based decision making, this contribution attempts to make explicit and start organizing under the same operationalization neglected figures as negative commitment, negative expectation, etc.