Applying Ethical Principles to Decision Support

This proposal lies in the general scope of fairness and multiagent systems (MAS) in AI ethics. We view MAS through the concept of sociotechnical systems (STS), which Murukannaiah and Singh (2020) explain consist of multiple human-agent duos with a social tier that imposes regulations upon a technical tier. To promote an end goal of fairness in STS, Chopra and Singh (2018) argue that it is important to view STS through the lens of macro ethics, targeting the holistic governance of STS rather than the actions of single agents. In the governance of STS, the roles of values and norms are crucial in achieving satisfactory outcomes. However, issues arise when stakeholders have different preferences about a decision that must be made. This can occur in mundane scenarios, for instance whether an Internet of Things smart home agent decides to put the heating on earlier or later, considering the differing preferences of relevant stakeholders. In addition, as highlighted by Dignum and Dignum (2020), there may also be scenarios where values or norms conflict. In an STS that promotes fair governance, decisions must be made that consider the variety of stakeholder preferences as well as existing values and norms. These decisions must also resolve any existing conflicts. There is thus a gap in supporting decisions to resolve these everyday dilemmas in satisfactory ways. We suggest that this gap can be addressed through the application of ethical principles, which is corroborated by the works of Saltz et al. (2019), Leben (2020), and Conitzer et al. (2017). To support decision making through the application of ethical principles in order to promote the higher goal of fairness, there are various questions that should be addressed. These include which ethical principles exist in AI ethics literature, which ethical principles require further research in relation to AI ethics, how ethical principles can be integrated into reasoning to govern STS, how conflicting ethical principles can be resolved, how abstract ethical principles can be applied to specific contexts, and how we can utilise this information to create consistent responses. This project falls within the EPSRC Engineering research area.