Measuring Responsibility in Multi-Agent Systems

TL;DR

This paper proposes a new family of quantitative responsibility measures for multi-agent systems, formalized within probabilistic logic, including an entropy-based metric that captures causal responsibility over time.

Contribution

It introduces a novel framework linking probabilities and responsibility through three metrics, including the first entropy-based measure for causal responsibility in multi-agent planning.

Findings

Provides a formalized responsibility measure framework

Introduces an entropy-based responsibility metric

Offers insights into agents' roles in outcomes over time

Abstract

We introduce a family of quantitative measures of responsibility in multi-agent planning, building upon the concepts of causal responsibility proposed by Parker et al.~[ParkerGL23]. These concepts are formalised within a variant of probabilistic alternating-time temporal logic. Unlike existing approaches, our framework ascribes responsibility to agents for a given outcome by linking probabilities between behaviours and responsibility through three metrics, including an entropy-based measurement of responsibility. This latter measure is the first to capture the causal responsibility properties of outcomes over time, offering an asymptotic measurement that reflects the difficulty of achieving these outcomes. Our approach provides a fresh understanding of responsibility in multi-agent systems, illuminating both the qualitative and quantitative aspects of agents' roles in achieving or preventing outcomes.