The Blaming Function of Entity Criminal Liability

Application of the doctrine of entity criminal liability, which had only a thin tort-like rationale at inception, now sometimes instantiates a social practice of blaming institutions. Examining that social practice can ameliorate persistent controversy over entity liability\u27s place in the criminal law. An organization\u27s role in its agent\u27s bad act is often evaluated with a moral slant characteristic of judgments of criminality and with inquiry into whether the institution qua institution contributed to the agent\u27s wrong. Legal process, by lending clarity and authority, enhances the communicative impact, in the form of reputational effects, of blaming an institution for a wrong. Reputational effects can flow through to individuals in ways that reduce probability of future wrongdoing by altering individual preferences and forcing reevaluation and reform of institutional arrangements. Blame and utility are closely connected here: the impulse to blame organizations and the beneficial effects of doing so both appear to depend on the degree of institutional influence on the agent. These insights imply that the doctrine should be tailored, unlike present law, to more fully exploit criminal law\u27s expressive capital by selecting cases according to entity blameworthiness. Barriers to describing the phenomenon of organizational influence and culture prevent discovery of a first-best rule of institutional responsibility. A second-best step would be to enhance the existing doctrine\u27s examination of agent mens rea, to impose fault only if the agent acted primarily with the intent to benefit the firm

Programming with agents new metaphors for thinking about computation

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Media Arts & Sciences, 1996.Includes bibliographical references (p. [197]-206).by Michael David Travers.M.S

Perceiving Sociable Technology: Exploring the Role of Anthropomorphism and Agency Perception on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)

With the arrival of personal assistants and other AI-enabled autonomous technologies, social interactions with smart devices have become a part of our daily lives. Therefore, it becomes increasingly important to understand how these social interactions emerge, and why users appear to be influenced by them. For this reason, I explore questions on what the antecedents and consequences of this phenomenon, known as anthropomorphism, are as described in the extant literature from fields ranging from information systems to social neuroscience. I critically analyze those empirical studies directly measuring anthropomorphism and those referring to it without a corresponding measurement. Through a grounded theory approach, I identify common themes and use them to develop models for the antecedents and consequences of anthropomorphism. The results suggest anthropomorphism possesses both conscious and non-conscious components with varying implications. While conscious attributions are shown to vary based on individual differences, non-conscious attributions emerge whenever a technology exhibits apparent reasoning such as through non-verbal behavior like peer-to-peer mirroring or verbal paralinguistic and backchanneling cues. Anthropomorphism has been shown to affect users’ self-perceptions, perceptions of the technology, how users interact with the technology, and the users’ performance. Examples include changes in a users’ trust on the technology, conformity effects, bonding, and displays of empathy. I argue these effects emerge from changes in users’ perceived agency, and their self- and social- identity similarly to interactions between humans. Afterwards, I critically examine current theories on anthropomorphism and present propositions about its nature based on the results of the empirical literature. Subsequently, I introduce a two-factor model of anthropomorphism that proposes how an individual anthropomorphizes a technology is dependent on how the technology was initially perceived (top-down and rational or bottom-up and automatic), and whether it exhibits a capacity for agency or experience. I propose that where a technology lays along this spectrum determines how individuals relates to it, creating shared agency effects, or changing the users’ social identity. For this reason, anthropomorphism is a powerful tool that can be leveraged to support future interactions with smart technologies

The Blaming Function of Entity Criminal Liability

Application of the doctrine of entity criminal liability, which had only a thin tortlike rationale at inception, now sometimes instantiates a social practice of blaming institutions. Examining that social practice can ameliorate persistent controversy over entity liability\u27s place in the criminal law. An organization\u27s role in its agent\u27s bad act is often evaluated with a moral slant characteristic of judgments of criminality and with inquiry into whether the institution qua institution contributed to the agent\u27s wrong. Legal process, by lending clarity and authority, enhances the communicative impact, in the form of reputational effects, of blaming an institution for a wrong. Reputational effects can flow through to individuals in ways that reduce probability of future wrongdoing by altering individual preferences and forcing reevaluation and reform of institutional arrangements. Blame and utility are closely connected here: the impulse to blame organizations and the beneficial effects of doing so both appear to depend on the degree of institutional influence on the agent. These insights imply that the doctrine should be tailored, unlike present law, to more fully exploit criminal law\u27s expressive capital by selecting cases according to entity blameworthiness. Barriers to describing the phenomenon of organizational influence and culture prevent discovery of a first-best rule of institutional responsibility. A second-best step would be to enhance the existing doctrine\u27s examination of agent mens rea, to impose fault only if the agent acted primarily with the intent to benefit the firm

Towards a comprehensive agent-oriented software engineering methodology

Recently, agent systems have proven to be a powerful new approach for designing and developing complex and distributed software systems. The agent area is one of the most dynamic and exciting areas in computer science today, because of the agents ability to impact the lives and work of all of us. Developing multi-agent systems for complex and distributed systems entails a robust methodology to assist developers to develop such systems in appropriate way. In the last ten years, many of agent oriented methodologies have been proposed. Although, these methodologies are based on strong basis they still suffer from a set of shortcomings and they still have the problems of traditional distributed systems as well as the difficulties that arise from flexibility requirements and sophisticated interactions. This thesis proposed a new agent oriented software engineering methodology called: Multi-Agent System Development (MASD) for development of multi-agent systems. The new methodology is provided by a set of guidelines, methods, models, and techniques that facilitate a systematic software development process. The thesis makes the following contributions: The main contribution of this thesis is to build a new methodology for the development of multi-agent systems. It is based upon the previous existing methodologies. It is aimed to develop a complete life-cycle methodology for designing and developing MASs. The new methodology is considered as an attempt to solve some of the problems that existing methodologies suffer from. The new methodology is established based on three fundamental aspects: concepts, models, and process. These three aspects are considered as a foundation for building a solid methodology. The concepts are all the necessary MAS concepts that should be available in order to build the models of the new methodology in a correct manner. The models include modeling techniques, modeling languages, a diagramming notation, and tools that can be used to analysis and design the agent system. The process is a set of steps or phases describe how the new methodology works in detail. The new methodology is built to bridge the gap between design models and existing agent implementation languages. It provides refined design models that can be directly implemented in an available programming language or use a dedicated agent-oriented programming language which provides constructs to implement the high-level design concepts such as Jadex, JADE, JACK, etc. The MASD methodology also uses an important concept called triggers and relies heavily on agent roles. The role concept is considered one of the most important aspects that represent agent behaviour. The trigger concept is also considered as an important aspect that represents agent reactivity. The new methodology captures the social agent aspects by utilizing well-known techniques such as use case maps, which enable developers to identify social aspects from the problem specification. MASD methodology is developed based on the essential software engineering issues such as preciseness, accessibility, expressiveness, domain applicability, modularity, refinement, model derivation, traceability, and clear definitions. The MASD methodology is provided by a plain and understandable development process through the methodology phases. It captures the holistic view of the system components, and commutative aspects, which should be recognized before designing the methodology models. This is achieved by using well-known techniques such as UCMs and UML UCDs. The resulting methodology was obtained by performing several steps. First, a review study “literature review” of different agent methodologies is carried out to capture their strengths and weaknesses. This review study started with the conceptual framework for MAS to discuss the common terms and concepts that are used in the thesis. The aim is to establish the characteristics of agent-oriented methodologies, and see how these characteristics are suited to develop multi-agent systems. Secondly, a requirement for a novel methodology is presented. These requirements are discussed in detail based on the three categories: concepts, models, and process. Thirdly, the new mature methodology is developed based on existing methodologies. The MASD methodology is composed of four phases: the system requirement phase, analysis phase, design phase and implementation phase. The new methodology covers the whole life cycle of agent system development, from requirement analysis, architecture design, and detailed design to implementation. Fourthly, the methodology is illustrated by a case study on an agent-based car rental system. Finally, a framework for evaluating agent-oriented methodologies is performed. Four methodologies including MASD are evaluated and compared by performing a feature analysis. This is carried out by evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of each participating methodology using a proposed evaluation framework called the Multi-agent System Analysis and Design Framework (MASADF). The evaluation framework addresses several major aspects of agent-oriented methodologies, such as: concepts, models and process

Philosophy of cognitive technology

The educational and methodical manual on the philosophy and methodology of science supplements the lecture material with topical issues of the philosophy of digital technologies. The section "Philosophy of Natural Science and Technology" outlines the features of the classical philosophy of technology. In the section "Philosophy, science, man at the beginning of the III millennium" the prospects for the impact of the fourth industrial revolution on the applied use of digital technologies and technological features of the functioning of digital ecosystems are analyzed development of digital technologies and the role of philosophy in the analysis of the ethical aspects of the technological modernization of modern society

Two Models of Corporate Governance: Beyond Berle and Means

This Article introduces a new model of corporate governance, which challenges, as did Berle and Means, the conclusions drawn from the traditional ownership model. Rather than focusing upon the inefficiencies of the large complex firm resulting from the separation of share ownership and control, however, this new model, which I call the power model, focuses upon the political nature of decision making in the large corporation, which exists regardless of the identity of the entrepreneur

Interactive Technologies for the Public Sphere Toward a Theory of Critical Creative Technology

Digital media cultural practices continue to address the social, cultural and aesthetic contexts of the global information economy, perhaps better called ecology, by inventing new methods and genres that encourage interactive engagement, collaboration, exploration and learning. The theoretical framework for creative critical technology evolved from the confluence of the arts, human computer interaction, and critical theories of technology. Molding this nascent theoretical framework from these seemingly disparate disciplines was a reflexive process where the influence of each component on each other spiraled into the theory and practice as illustrated through the Constructed Narratives project. Research that evolves from an arts perspective encourages experimental processes of making as a method for defining research principles. The traditional reductionist approach to research requires that all confounding variables are eliminated or silenced using methods of statistics. However, that noise in the data, those confounding variables provide the rich context, media, and processes by which creative practices thrive. As research in the arts gains recognition for its contributions of new knowledge, the traditional reductive practice in search of general principles will be respectfully joined by methodologies for defining living principles that celebrate and build from the confounding variables, the data noise. The movement to develop research methodologies from the noisy edges of human interaction have been explored in the research and practices of ludic design and ambiguity (Gaver, 2003); affective gap (Sengers et al., 2005b; 2006); embodied interaction (Dourish, 2001); the felt life (McCarthy & Wright, 2004); and reflective HCI (Dourish, et al., 2004). The theory of critical creative technology examines the relationships between critical theories of technology, society and aesthetics, information technologies and contemporary practices in interaction design and creative digital media. The theory of critical creative technology is aligned with theories and practices in social navigation (Dourish, 1999) and community-based interactive systems (Stathis, 1999) in the development of smart appliances and network systems that support people in engaging in social activities, promoting communication and enhancing the potential for learning in a community-based environment. The theory of critical creative technology amends these community-based and collaborative design theories by emphasizing methods to facilitate face-to-face dialogical interaction when the exchange of ideas, observations, dreams, concerns, and celebrations may be silenced by societal norms about how to engage others in public spaces. The Constructed Narratives project is an experiment in the design of a critical creative technology that emphasizes the collaborative construction of new knowledge about one's lived world through computer-supported collaborative play (CSCP). To construct is to creatively invent one's world by engaging in creative decision-making, problem solving and acts of negotiation. The metaphor of construction is used to demonstrate how a simple artefact - a building block - can provide an interactive platform to support discourse between collaborating participants. The technical goal for this project was the development of a software and hardware platform for the design of critical creative technology applications that can process a dynamic flow of logistical and profile data from multiple users to be used in applications that facilitate dialogue between people in a real-time playful interactive experience

Friend Me Your Ears: A Musical Approach to Human-Robot Relationships.

PhDA relationship is something that is necessarily built up over time, however, Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) trials are rarely extended beyond a single ses- sion. These studies are insufficient for examining multi-interaction scenarios, which will become commonplace if the robot is situated in a workplace or adopts a role that is part of a human's routine. Long term studies that have been exe- cuted often demonstrate a declining novelty effect. Music, however, provides an opportunity for affective engagement, shared creativity, and social activity. This being said, it is unlikely that a robot best equipped to build sustainable and meaningful relationships with humans will be one that can solely play music. In their day-to-day lives, most humans encounter machines and computer programs capable of executing impressively complex tasks to a high standard that may provide them with hours of engagement. In order to have anything that that could be classed as a social relationship, the human must have the sense that their interactions are taking place with another, a phenomenon known as social presence. In this thesis, we examine whether the addition of simulated social behaviours will improve a sense of believability or social presence, which, along with an engaging musical interaction, will allow us to move towards something that could be called a human-robot relationship. First, we conducted a large online survey to gain insight into relationships based in regular music activ- ity. Using these results, we designed, constructed and programmed Mortimer, a robotic system capable of playing the drums and a responsive composition algorithm to best meet these aims. This robot was then used in a series of studies, one single session and two long-term, testing various simulated social behaviours to compliment the musical improvisation. These experiments and their results address the paucity of long-term studies both speci cally in Social Robotics and in the broader HRI eld, and provide a promising insight into a possible solution to generally poor outcomes in this area. This conclusion is based upon the model of a positive human-robot relationship and the method- ological approach of automated behavioural metrics to evaluate robotic systems in this regard developed and detailed within the thesis.the EPSRC as part of the Media and Arts Tech-nology Doctoral Training Centre, EP/G03723X/2