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Subject: Fw: CfP Workshop 2002 - Special Session on Social Norms
From: francois_bousquet (francois_bousquet@hotmail.com)
Date: jeu oct 18 2001 - 13:06:24 CEST
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Call for Papers
Special Session "Applications in Sociology and Artificial Social Systems"
Workshop 2002 - Agent-Based Simulation 3
SCS and ASIM
University of Passau
Germany
April 7-9, 2002
Social norms and agent-based simulation
The importance of more adequate, non metaphorical social notions in Distributed Artificial Intelligence, such as norms, has long been emphasized (e.g. Castelfranchi/Werner 1994: XII, Müller/Malsch/Schulz-Schaeffer 1998: 1.1). In sociology, social norms are seen as central mechanism of coordination and co-operation among human beings. Social norms, as solutions to recurring problems of social interaction, are seen both as results and preconditions for social life, unintended outcomes and human devised constraints. Coordination and common problem-solving among co-operative software agents could require equivalents to social norms as they can be observed in human societies. However, these phenomena should not be intentional or planned, but just "emergent" (Castelfranchi/Werner 1994: IX). Sociological theories define social norms and explain their emergence in human societies, and empirical social research investigates into the efficacy of social norms. It should be possible, then, that sociology and DAI co-operate in research on social norms. Sociology starts with a serious evaluation of sociological conceptions and theories for computer systems (Malsch 1997), whereas DAI applies more or less sociologically founded conceptions and reveals their limitations or unobserved implications (Conte/Castelfranchi 1995b).
We invite papers which
a.. present norm concepts or concepts of norm processing for the implementation in multi-agent systems
b.. present concepts which determine the contents of norms among agents and develop conceptions that allow for the change of norms' contents
c.. present theoretical or empirical sociological results related to social norms which should have consequences on the implementation of norms in multi-agent systems
d.. question the concept of benevolent behaviour of agents in traditional DAI approaches
e.. present agent behavior which looks as if norms among agents had evolved although social norms were not intentionally implemented or planned by the modeller
f.. analyze the relation between norm processing agents and the productivity of software programs (algorithmic efficiency, like computing time and memory requirements, elegance in system architecture, software maintainability)
g.. give an overview of the problems which DAI may import from sociology by implementing norms
h.. give a programmatic outlook how DAI and sociology could profit from each others research in norms
i.. present agent-based simulations in which norms emerge, become established, or change
j.. present agent-based simulations in which agents deviate from norms
k.. present agent-based simulations which investigate into the function and the functional change of norms
l.. present agent-based simulations which demonstrate that social norms are not only solutions to problems of coordination and co-operation, but also generate social problems themselves
In a special block during the session, there will also be time for sociological presentations which are not related to these topics. The session is organized by PD Dr. Nicole J. Saam, Institute of Sociology, University of Munich.
The deadline for the submission of workshop papers is December 21, 2001.
Further information on the workshop can be obtained from
http://www.or.uni-passau.de/workshop2002
--
Christoph Urban
University of Passau
Institute for OR und System Theory
Innstrasse 33
94032 Passau, Germany E-Mail: urban@fmi.uni-passau.de
Phone: (+49) 851 / 509-3084
Fax: (+49) 851 / 509-3082
