Value-based Practical Reasoning: Modal Logic + Argumentation
This work addresses the challenge of value-based decision-making for autonomous agents, but it appears incremental as it builds on existing modal logic and argumentation techniques.
The paper tackles the problem of autonomous agents needing to choose among multiple plans that promote or demote different values, by developing a logic-based framework combining modal logic and argumentation for value-based practical reasoning. The result is a method that allows agents to represent, verify, and reason about plans to resolve conflicts and select appropriate actions.
Autonomous agents are supposed to be able to finish tasks or achieve goals that are assigned by their users through performing a sequence of actions. Since there might exist multiple plans that an agent can follow and each plan might promote or demote different values along each action, the agent should be able to resolve the conflicts between them and evaluate which plan he should follow. In this paper, we develop a logic-based framework that combines modal logic and argumentation for value-based practical reasoning with plans. Modal logic is used as a technique to represent and verify whether a plan with its local properties of value promotion or demotion can be followed to achieve an agent's goal. We then propose an argumentation-based approach that allows an agent to reason about his plans in the form of supporting or objecting to a plan using the verification results.