900 research outputs found

    Doing the right thing for the right reason: Evaluating artificial moral cognition by probing cost insensitivity

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    Is it possible to evaluate the moral cognition of complex artificial agents? In this work, we take a look at one aspect of morality: `doing the right thing for the right reasons.' We propose a behavior-based analysis of artificial moral cognition which could also be applied to humans to facilitate like-for-like comparison. Morally-motivated behavior should persist despite mounting cost; by measuring an agent's sensitivity to this cost, we gain deeper insight into underlying motivations. We apply this evaluation to a particular set of deep reinforcement learning agents, trained by memory-based meta-reinforcement learning. Our results indicate that agents trained with a reward function that includes other-regarding preferences perform helping behavior in a way that is less sensitive to increasing cost than agents trained with more self-interested preferences.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figure

    A Letter of Intent to Install a milli-charged Particle Detector at LHC P5

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    In this LOI we propose a dedicated experiment that would detect "milli-charged" particles produced by pp collisions at LHC Point 5. The experiment would be installed during LS2 in the vestigial drainage gallery above UXC and would not interfere with CMS operations. With 300 fb1^{-1} of integrated luminosity, sensitivity to a particle with charge O(103) e\mathcal{O}(10^{-3})~e can be achieved for masses of O(1)\mathcal{O}(1) GeV, and charge O(102) e\mathcal{O}(10^{-2})~e for masses of O(10)\mathcal{O}(10) GeV, greatly extending the parameter space explored for particles with small charge and masses above 100 MeV.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figure

    Melting Pot 2.0

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    Multi-agent artificial intelligence research promises a path to develop intelligent technologies that are more human-like and more human-compatible than those produced by "solipsistic" approaches, which do not consider interactions between agents. Melting Pot is a research tool developed to facilitate work on multi-agent artificial intelligence, and provides an evaluation protocol that measures generalization to novel social partners in a set of canonical test scenarios. Each scenario pairs a physical environment (a "substrate") with a reference set of co-players (a "background population"), to create a social situation with substantial interdependence between the individuals involved. For instance, some scenarios were inspired by institutional-economics-based accounts of natural resource management and public-good-provision dilemmas. Others were inspired by considerations from evolutionary biology, game theory, and artificial life. Melting Pot aims to cover a maximally diverse set of interdependencies and incentives. It includes the commonly-studied extreme cases of perfectly-competitive (zero-sum) motivations and perfectly-cooperative (shared-reward) motivations, but does not stop with them. As in real-life, a clear majority of scenarios in Melting Pot have mixed incentives. They are neither purely competitive nor purely cooperative and thus demand successful agents be able to navigate the resulting ambiguity. Here we describe Melting Pot 2.0, which revises and expands on Melting Pot. We also introduce support for scenarios with asymmetric roles, and explain how to integrate them into the evaluation protocol. This report also contains: (1) details of all substrates and scenarios; (2) a complete description of all baseline algorithms and results. Our intention is for it to serve as a reference for researchers using Melting Pot 2.0.Comment: 59 pages, 54 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2107.0685

    Rapid Adaptation to Remote Didactics and Learning in GME

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    Weekly didactic conference in emergency medicine education has traditionally united residents and faculty for learning and fostered community within the residency program. The global pandemic Coronavirus Disease-19 (COVID-19) has fueled a rapid transition to remote learning that has disrupted the typical in-person format. To maintain ACGME educational experiences and requirements for residents in a safe manner, many residencies have moved to videoconferencing platforms such as Zoom™, Teams™, and WebEX.™ Given the importance of didactic conference as a ritual, educational experience and community-building activity, most residency programs have worked to maintain an active and robust didactic conference despite the many logistical challenges. Engaging residency program members in the transition to remote learning and utilizing opportunities for innovation can help to maintain normalcy and combat isolation resulting from the loss of weekly in-person contact. Herein, we propose practical tips for optimizing remote learning for weekly emergency medicine residency didactics

    A tomato strigolactone-impaired mutant displays aberrant shoot morphology and plant interactions

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    Strigolactones are considered a new group of plant hormones. Their role as modulators of plant growth and signalling molecules for plant interactions first became evident in Arabidopsis, pea, and rice mutants that were flawed in strigolactone production, release, or perception. The first evidence in tomato (Solanum lycopersicon) of strigolactone deficiency is presented here. Sl-ORT1, previously identified as resistant to the parasitic plant Orobanche, had lower levels of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus (Glomus intraradices) colonization, possibly as a result of its reduced ability to induce mycorrhizal hyphal branching. Biochemical analysis of mutant root extracts suggested that it produces only minute amounts of two of the tomato strigolactones: solanacol and didehydro-orobanchol. Accordingly, the transcription level of a key enzyme (CCD7) putatively involved in strigolactone synthesis in tomato was reduced in Sl-ORT1 compared with the wild type (WT). Sl-ORT1 shoots exhibited increased lateral shoot branching, whereas exogenous application of the synthetic strigolactone GR24 to the mutant restored the WT phenotype by reducing the number of lateral branches. Reduced lateral shoot branching was also evident in grafted plants which included a WT interstock, which was grafted between the mutant rootstock and the scion. In roots of these grafted plants, the CCD7 transcription level was not significantly induced, nor was mycorrhizal sensitivity restored. Hence, WT-interstock grafting, which restores mutant shoot morphology to WT, does not restore mutant root properties to WT. Characterization of the first tomato strigolactone-deficient mutant supports the putative general role of strigolactones as messengers of suppression of lateral shoot branching in a diversity of plant species

    The Customary International Law Game

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    Structural realists in political science and some rationalist legal scholars argue that customary international law cannot affect state behavior: that it is “epiphenomenal.” This article develops a game theoretic model of a multilateral prisoner’s dilemma in the customary international law context that shows that it is plausible that states would comply with customary international law under certain circumstances. Our model shows that these circumstances relate to: (i) the relative value of cooperation versus defection, (ii) the number of states effectively involved, (iii) the extent to which increasing the number of states involved increases the value of cooperation or the detriments of defection, including whether the particular issue has characteristics of a commons problem, a public good, or a network good, (iv) the information available to the states involved regarding compliance and defection, (v) the relative patience of states in valuing the benefits of long-term cooperation compared to short-term defection, (vi) the expected duration of interaction, (vii) the frequency of interaction, and (viii) whether there are also bilateral relationships or other multilateral relationships between the involved states. This model shows that customary international law is plausible in the sense that it may well affect state behavior where certain conditions are met. It shows what types of contexts, including malleable institutional features, may affect the ability of states to produce and comply with customary international law. This article identifies a number of empirical strategies that may be used to test the model

    The compound machinery of government: The case of seconded officials in the European commission

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    This article explores the compound machinery of government. Attention is directed toward decision making within the core executive of the European Union - the European Commission. The article studies seconded national civil servants (SNEs) hired on short-term contracts. The analysis benefits from an original and rich body of surveys and interview data derived from current and former SNEs. The decision-making dynamics of SNEs are shown to contain a compound mix of departmental, epistemic, and supranational dynamics. This study clearly demonstrates that the socializing power of the Commission is conditional and only partly sustained when SNEs exit the Commission. Any long-lasting effect of socialization within European Union's executive machinery of government is largely absent. The compound decision-making dynamics of SNEs are explained by (1) the organizational affiliations of SNEs, (2) the formal organization of the Commission apparatus, and (3) only partly by processes of resocialization of SNEs within the Commission
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