Grafting norms onto the BDI agent model

Abstract

This chapter proposes an approach on the design of a normative rational agent based on the Belief-Desire-Intention model. Starting from the famous BDI model, an extension of the BDI execution loop will be presented; this will address such issues as norm instantiation and norm internalization, with a particular emphasis on the problem of norm consistency. A proposal for the resolution of conflicts between newly occurring norms, on one side, and already existing norms or mental states, on the other, will be described. While it is fairly difficult to imagine an evaluation for the proposed architecture, a challenging scenario inspired from science-fiction literature will be used to give the reader an intuition of how the proposed approach will deal with situations of normative conflicts.