scholarly journals Algorithmic Ethics: Formalization and Verification of Autonomous Vehicle Obligations

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Colin Shea-Blymyer ◽  
Houssam Abbas
Keyword(s):  
Model Checking ◽  
Deontic Logic ◽  
Autonomous Vehicle ◽  
Autonomous Systems ◽  
Automatic Reasoning ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Formal Framework ◽  
Act Utilitarianism ◽  
Self Driving Cars

In this article, we develop a formal framework for automatic reasoning about the obligations of autonomous cyber-physical systems, including their social and ethical obligations. Obligations, permissions, and prohibitions are distinct from a system's mission, and are a necessary part of specifying advanced, adaptive AI-equipped systems. They need a dedicated deontic logic of obligations to formalize them. Most existing deontic logics lack corresponding algorithms and system models that permit automatic verification. We demonstrate how a particular deontic logic, Dominance Act Utilitarianism (DAU) [23], is a suitable starting point for formalizing the obligations of autonomous systems like self-driving cars. We demonstrate its usefulness by formalizing a subset of Responsibility-Sensitive Safety (RSS) in DAU; RSS is an industrial proposal for how self-driving cars should and should not behave in traffic. We show that certain logical consequences of RSS are undesirable, indicating a need to further refine the proposal. We also demonstrate how obligations can change over time, which is necessary for long-term autonomy. We then demonstrate a model-checking algorithm for DAU formulas on weighted transition systems and illustrate it by model-checking obligations of a self-driving car controller from the literature.

Research for a sustainable European sugar sector

2010 ◽  
pp. 487-495
Author(s):  
Martin Bruhns ◽  
Peter Glaviè ◽  
Arne Sloth Jensen ◽  
Michael Narodoslawsky ◽  
Giorgio Pezzi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sugar Industry ◽  
Research Priorities ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Sustainable Chemistry ◽  
Technology Platforms ◽  
Research Themes ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Manufacturing Applications ◽  
European Technology

The paper is based on the results of international project entitled “Towards Sustainable Sugar Industry in Europe (TOSSIE)”. 33 research topics of major importance to the sugar sector are listed and briefly described, and compared with research priorities of the European Technology Platforms: “Food for Life”, “Sustainable Chemistry”, “Biofuels”, and “Plant for the Future”. Most topics are compatible with the research themes included in the COOPERATION part of the 7th Framework Program of the EU (2007-2013). However, some topics may require long-term R&D with the time horizon of up to 15 years. The list of topics is divided into four parts: Sugar manufacturing, Applications of biotechnology and biorefinery processing, Sugarbeet breeding and growing, Horizontal issues. Apart from possible use of the list by policy- and decision makers with an interest in sugarbeet sector, the description of each research topic can be used as a starting point in setting up a research project or other R&D activities.

scholarly journals Learning tractable probabilistic models for moral responsibility and blame

2021 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 621-659
Author(s):  
Lewis Hammond ◽  
Vaishak Belle
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Probabilistic Models ◽  
Autonomous Systems ◽  
Cancer Staging ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Probabilistic Learning ◽  
Learning Framework ◽  
Decision Points ◽  
Self Driving Cars ◽  
Trolley Problems

AbstractMoral responsibility is a major concern in autonomous systems, with applications ranging from self-driving cars to kidney exchanges. Although there have been recent attempts to formalise responsibility and blame, among similar notions, the problem of learning within these formalisms has been unaddressed. From the viewpoint of such systems, the urgent questions are: (a) How can models of moral scenarios and blameworthiness be extracted and learnt automatically from data? (b) How can judgements be computed effectively and efficiently, given the split-second decision points faced by some systems? By building on constrained tractable probabilistic learning, we propose and implement a hybrid (between data-driven and rule-based methods) learning framework for inducing models of such scenarios automatically from data and reasoning tractably from them. We report on experiments that compare our system with human judgement in three illustrative domains: lung cancer staging, teamwork management, and trolley problems.

scholarly journals The Implications of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Religious Exercise: Preliminary Remarks

Laws ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 44
Author(s):  
Adelaide Madera
Keyword(s):  
Global Health ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Personal Lives ◽  
Regulatory Frameworks ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Legal Contexts

Since 2020, the spread of COVID-19 has had an overwhelming impact not only on our personal lives, but also on domestic regulatory frameworks. Influential academics have strongly underlined that, in times of deep crisis, such as the current global health crisis, the long-term workability of legal systems is put to a severe test. In this period, in fact, the protection of health has been given priority, as a precondition that is orientating many current legal choices. Such an unprecedented health emergency has also raised a serious challenge in terms of fundamental rights and liberties. Several basic rights that normally enjoy robust protection under constitutional, supranational, and international guarantees, have experienced a devastating “suspension” for the sake of public health and safety, thus giving rise to a vigorous debate concerning whether and to what extent the pandemic emergency justifies limitations on fundamental rights. The present paper introduces the Special Issue on “The crisis of the religious freedom during the age of COVID-19 pandemic”. Taking as a starting point the valuable contributions of the participants in the Special Issue, it explores analogous and distinctive implications of the COVID-19 pandemic in different legal contexts and underlines the relevance of cooperation between religious and public actors to face a global health crisis.

Pedestrians, Autonomous Vehicles, and Cities

2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Millard-Ball
Keyword(s):  
Travel Behavior ◽  
Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
Autonomous Vehicle ◽  
Urban Neighborhoods ◽  
Urban Traffic ◽  
Risk Averse ◽  
Strategic Interactions ◽  
Road Users ◽  
Self Driving Cars ◽  
Time Autonomous

Autonomous vehicles, popularly known as self-driving cars, have the potential to transform travel behavior. However, existing analyses have ignored strategic interactions with other road users. In this article, I use game theory to analyze the interactions between pedestrians and autonomous vehicles, with a focus on yielding at crosswalks. Because autonomous vehicles will be risk-averse, the model suggests that pedestrians will be able to behave with impunity, and autonomous vehicles may facilitate a shift toward pedestrian-oriented urban neighborhoods. At the same time, autonomous vehicle adoption may be hampered by their strategic disadvantage that slows them down in urban traffic.

scholarly journals Decision making in reverse logistics using system dynamics

2004 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Georgiadis ◽  
D. Vlachos
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
System Dynamics ◽  
Reverse Logistics ◽  
Closed Loop ◽  
System Modeling ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Helpful Tool ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Decision Making Tool

Reverse logistics is a modern field of consideration, research and study, providing helpful information on the operation of the closed-loop supply chain. Although the starting point of this field is traced back to the early 90?s, no standard method has been suggested, neither prevailed. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new approach on the study of reverse logistics. It is actually a review on how System Dynamics (SD) can be a helpful tool when it is used in the reverse logistics field. The paper explains the basic theory of the system modeling and next it utilizes the reverse logistics model. Finally, an illustrative example shows how SD modeling can be used to produce a powerful long-term decision-making tool.

scholarly journals FDI in the Post-Soviet Space Three Decades after the Disintegration of the Soviet Union

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 30-60
Author(s):  
K. Kalotay ◽  
A. Sulstarova
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Transition Economies ◽  
Structural Characteristics ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Outward Fdi ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Soviet Space ◽  
Post Soviet Space

The former Soviet Union disintegrated three decades ago. That momentous 1991 was not only the starting point for independence of the countries of the post-Soviet space but also the starting point for their transformation from centrally planned economy to capitalism, often with local specificities. At the moment of writing this article aiming at analysing the long-term, structural characteristics of inward and outward foreign direct investment (FDI), these 12 economies are facing new COVID-19-related challenges, different from the problems of transformation undertaken in the past decades. After a brief literature survey, in which the main issues raised by academic research are highlighted, the article analyses the long-term trends and the main characteristics (geographical and sectoral) of FDI, with special reference to greenfield project announcements from 2003 on (the starting year of data availability). It also explores how much economic development was based on either attracting inward or promoting outward FDI or both. The performance of the 12 post-Soviet economies is controlled against the performance of other transition economies such as the Baltic States, South-East Europe and/or the Visegrad Group. The article concludes that indeed efforts towards using inward or outward FDI for development has been modest, even if in inflows one can observe some convergence with the other transition economies, which have been relying more wittingly using FDI for their development.

scholarly journals Specifying Safety Monitors for Autonomous Systems Using Model-Checking

2014 ◽  
pp. 262-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathilde Machin ◽  
Fanny Dufossé ◽  
Jean-Paul Blanquart ◽  
Jérémie Guiochet ◽  
David Powell ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Model Checking ◽  
Autonomous Systems

scholarly journals Dynamic Logic for Data-aware Systems: Decidability Results

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Belardinelli ◽  
Andreas Herzig
Keyword(s):  
Model Checking ◽  
Dynamic Logic ◽  
English Auctions ◽  
First Order ◽  
Formal Framework ◽  
Data Content ◽  
Order Extension

We introduce a first-order extension of dynamic logic (FO-DL), suitable to represent and reason about the behaviour of Data-aware Systems (DaS), which are systems whose data content is explicitly exhibited in the system’s description. We illustrate the expressivity of the formal framework by modelling English auctions as DaS, and by specifying relevant properties in FO-DL. Most importantly, we develop an abstraction-based verification procedure, thus proving that the model checking problem for DaS against FO-DL is actually decidable, provided some mild assumptions on the interpretationdomain.

scholarly journals Self-Driving Cars and Criminal Liability

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3-4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Béla Csitei
Keyword(s):  
Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
Criminal Liability ◽  
Autonomous Vehicle ◽  
Essential Elements ◽  
Criminal Sanction ◽  
Criminal Offence ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Self Driving Cars

After clarifying the concepts of automated and autonomous vehicles, the purpose of the study is to investigate how reasonable the criminal sanction is arising from accidents caused by autonomous vehicles. The next question to be answered is that the definition of the crime according to the Hungarian law may be applied in case of traffic related criminal offences caused by automated and autonomous vehicles. During my research I paid special attention to two essential elements of criminal offence, namely the human act and guilt. Furthermore, I strived for finding solution for the next problem, as well: if the traffic related criminal offence is committed by driving an autonomous vehicle, how to define the subject of criminal liability.

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