Beyond goal-rationality: Traditional action can reduce volatility in socially situated agents

Chloe M. Barnes*, Anikó Ekárt, Peter R. Lewis

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Systems that pursue their own goals in shared environments can indirectly affect one another in unanticipated ways, such that the actions of other systems can interfere with goal-achievement. As humans have evolved to achieve goals despite interference from others in society, we thus endow socially situated agents with the capacity for social action as a means of mitigating interference in co-existing systems. We demonstrate that behavioural and evolutionary volatility caused by indirect interactions of goal-rational agents can be reduced by designing agents in a more socially-sensitive manner. We therefore challenge the assumption that designers of intelligent systems typically make, that goal-rationality is sufficient for achieving goals in shared environments.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)579-596
Number of pages18
JournalFuture Generation Computer Systems
Volume113
Early online date17 Jul 2020
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Dec 2020

Bibliographical note

© 2020, Elsevier. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Keywords

  • Interference
  • Neuroevolution
  • Social action
  • Socio-technical systems

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Beyond goal-rationality: Traditional action can reduce volatility in socially situated agents'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this