Towards a Formalisation of Value-based Actions and Consequentialist Ethics
This work addresses the formalization of ethical decision-making for AI agents, but it appears incremental as it builds on existing STRIPS formalizations.
The paper tackles the problem of formalizing how agents act based on their values by proposing a computational framework using STRIPS and Value-based Formal Reasoning, resulting in a satisficing, pluralistic, act-based, and preferential model for consequentialist ethics.
Agents act to bring about a state of the world that is more compatible with their personal or institutional values. To formalise this intuition, the paper proposes an action framework based on the STRIPS formalisation. Technically, the contribution expresses actions in terms of Value-based Formal Reasoning (VFR), which provides a set of propositions derived from an Agent's value profile and the Agent's assessment of propositions with respect to the profile. Conceptually, the contribution provides a computational framework for a form of consequentialist ethics which is satisficing, luralistic, act-based, and preferential.