When designing or analyzing multi-agent systems, a fundamental problem is responsibility ascription: to specify which agents are responsible for the joint outcome of their behaviors and to which extent. We model strategic multi-agent interaction as an extensive form game of imperfect information and define notions of forward (prospective) and backward (retrospective) responsibility. Forward responsibility identifies the responsibility of a group of agents for an outcome along all possible plays, whereas backward responsibility identifies the responsibility along a given play. We further distinguish between strategic and causal backward responsibility, where the former captures the epistemic knowledge of players along a play, while the latter formalizes which players -- possibly unknowingly -- caused the outcome. A formal connection between forward and backward notions is established in the case of perfect recall. We further ascribe quantitative responsibility through cooperative game theory. We show through a number of examples that our approach encompasses several prior formal accounts of responsibility attribution.
翻译:在设计或分析多试剂系统时,一个根本的问题是责任的描述:具体说明哪些代理人对其行为的共同结果负责,在何种程度上负责;我们将战略性多试剂互动模式作为不完善信息的广泛游戏,并界定前进(前景)和后向(反向)责任的概念;前向责任确定一组代理人对取得结果的责任,并尽可能发挥一切作用,而后向责任则根据某一动作确定责任;我们进一步区分战略责任和因果后向责任,前者在一出戏中捕捉参与者的认知知识,而后者正式确定哪些行为者 -- -- 可能是在不知情的情况下 -- -- 导致了结果;在完全回顾的情况下,将前向和后向概念建立正式联系;我们通过合作游戏理论进一步赋予定量责任;我们通过一些实例表明,我们的方法包括了几个先前正式的责任归属说明。