Constraining autonomy through norms

Abstract

Despite many efforts to understand why and how norms can be incorporated into agents and multi-agent systems, there are still several gaps that must be filled. This paper focuses on one of the most important processes concerned with norms, namely that of norm compliance. However, instead of taking a static view of norms in which norms are straight-forwardly complied with, we adopt a more dynamic view in which an agent's motivations, and therefore its autonomy, play an important role. We analyse the motivations that an agent might have to comply with norms, and then formally propose a set of strategies for use by agents in norm-based systems. Finally, through some simulation experiments, the effects of autonomous norm compliance in both individual agents and societies are analysed.