A Framework for Ethical Judgment of Smart City Applications

TL;DR

This paper presents a multi-agent, logic-based framework for evaluating ethical issues in smart city applications, aiming to prevent unethical outcomes through formal modeling and analysis.

Contribution

It introduces a novel ethical judgment framework using multi-agent systems and formal languages, with a set of 13 principles for smart city ethics.

Findings

Alloy is more efficient than PVS for ethical rule checks.

The framework successfully detects unethical outcomes in simulations.

The approach can be extended for practical smart city governance.

Abstract

As modern cities increasingly adopt a variety of sensors and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to collect and analyze data about residents, environments, and public services, they are fostering greater interactions among smart city applications, residents, governments, and businesses. This trend makes it essential for regulators to focus on these interactions to manage smart city practices effectively and prevent unethical outcomes. To facilitate ethical analysis for smart city applications, this paper introduces a judgment framework that examines various scenarios where ethical issues may arise. Employing a multi-agent approach, the framework incorporates diverse social entities and applies logic-based ethical rules to identify potential violations. Through a rights-based analysis, we developed a set of 13 ethical principles and rules to guide ethical practices in smart cities. We utilized two specification languages, Prototype Verification System (PVS) and Alloy, to model our multi-agent system. Our analysis suggests that Alloy may be more efficient for formalizing smart cities and conducting ethical rule checks, particularly with the assistance of a human evaluator. Simulations of a real-world smart city application demonstrate that our ethical judgment framework effectively detects unethical outcomes and can be extended for practical use.