Ethics of Autonomous Collective Decision-Making: The CAESAR Framework.

Area of Science:

• Computer Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Ethics

Background:

• Autonomous systems are increasingly prevalent, impacting society through complex communication and collective decision-making.
• Existing research on autonomous system ethics primarily focuses on individual agents, not group dynamics.

Purpose of the Study:

• To address the ethical challenges of collective decision-making in autonomous systems.
• To propose the CAESAR approach for modeling group ethical decision-making involving agents and humans.
• To define the components of CAESAR agents and the factors influencing collective ethical outcomes.

Main Methods:

• Developed the CAESAR (Collective Autonomous Ethical System for Accountability and Reasoning) approach.
• Modeled the collective ethical decision-making process for groups of agents and humans.
• Defined CAESAR agents with specific building blocks for ethical participation.

Main Results:

• CAESAR explicitly incorporates factors like trust, security, safety, and privacy into collective decision-making.
• The approach models the ethical considerations of an aggregate of autonomous systems.
• Demonstrated how collective decision-making modeling in CAESAR supports accountability.

Conclusions:

• The CAESAR approach provides a framework for understanding and managing ethical challenges in collective autonomous systems.
• By focusing on group dynamics, CAESAR enhances the ethical considerations of autonomous system interactions.
• Modeling collective decision-making through CAESAR offers a pathway to improved accountability in complex autonomous environments.