SIKS/JURIX Masterclass on Normatics
10 December, 2003
On Wednesday December 10, a masterclass on "Normatics" will be at Utrecht University,
jointly organised by JURIX and SIKS.
The speakers will be Marek Sergot on
normative institutions, Trevor Bench Capon on
models of legal argumentation, Giovanni Sartor on law
and intelligent agents, and Tom van Engers on
large-scale applications of legal knowledge-based systems. Attendance (including lunch) is free for
SIKS-Ph.D.-students and for SIKS and JURIX members, while other attendees will be asked to pay a fee of 30 EURO.
Location
Faculty of Law, CIM, Kromme Nieuwegracht 80 (entrance on Herenstraat 24),
Room 0.06. How to reach CIM
printable map
Registration
- For SIKS and JURIX members: please register before December 5th, 2003 by email with
jurix03@jurix.nl or by telephone with Henry Prakken,
tel. +31-30-2532313.
- For other attendants: see the JURIX-03
conference registration page.
Programme
9.30-11.00: Marek Sergot (Department of Computing, Imperial College London):
Action Languages for Modelling Norms and Institutions. abstract
presentation
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11.00-11.30: Coffee break
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11.30-13.00: Trevor Bench-Capon (Department of Computer Science, The University
of Liverpool): Models of legal argumentation. abstract
presentation
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13.00-14.00: Lunch
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14.00-15.30: Tom van Engers
(Faculty of Law, University of Amsterdam / Dutch Tax and Customs Office):
Normative Systems Design, Dealing with Complexity: A Design
Methodology for Large-scale Applications of Legal Knowledge-based Systems.
abstract
presentation (part 1)
presentation (part 2)
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15.30-16.00: Tea break
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16.00-17.30: Giovanni Sartor
(Faculty of Law, University of Bologna):
Cognitive Automata and the Law.
abstract presentation (part 1)
presentation (part 2)
paper
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Abstracts
Marek Sergot (Department of Computing, Imperial College London):
Action Languages for Modelling Norms and Institutions.
We want to be able to represent and reason about procedures and
protocols in institutions---what actions are possible, permitted,
valid at each stage, what rights, powers, obligations are created
and destroyed as the protocol/procedure progresses, what kind of
normative or institutional relations are created when the protocol/procedure
reaches completion. We want to be able to determine from a recorded narrative
of what actions have been performed what actions are now possible, permitted,
valid, and what their effects will be; and we should also like to be able to
prove general properties of these protocols (termination, `fairness', that
such and such a protocol has a particular property, that two protocols have
identical effects, and so on). Typical examples include auction protocols,
rules of procedure, argumentation/dialogue games, negotiation protocols,
contract formation, business rules and procedures, procedural law.
The talk will present the development of an extended form of the
language C/C+ (Giunchiglia, Lee, Lifschitz, McCain, Turner), which is
a formalism developed in AI for specifying and reasoning about the
effects of actions and the persistence (`inertia') of facts over time.
The aims of the presentation are (i) to identify the basic concepts required
for modelling norm-governed institutions, (ii) to present a practical
action-based formalism and its associated computational tools, and (iii)
to compare briefly with other approaches in the literature.
Trevor Bench-Capon (Department of Computer Science, The University
of Liverpool): Models of legal argumentation.
In this talk I will begin by discussing some distinctions between the
notions of proof and argument. I shall then look at some approaches
to argument based on cases in AI and Law, starting with the HYPO system of Rissland
and Ashley and the CATO system of Ashley and Aleven, and going on to
look at rule based approaches to the problem.
I shall then look at models of argument form, illustrated by systems
using Toulmin's argument schema, and models of systems of arguments based on Dung's
framework.
I hope to conclude by briefly describing my recent work extending
Dung's framework to treat arguments based on different social purposes.
Tom van Engers
(Faculty of Law, University of Amsterdam / Dutch Tax and Customs Office):
Normative Systems Design, Dealing with Complexity: A Design
Methodology for Large-scale Applications of Legal Knowledge-based Systems.
Designing and implementing normative systems within governments and their
public administrations is a complex issue. The complexity is first of all
due to the intrinsic complexity of the legal basis for governmental actions
and this consequently reflects in the governmental processes and supporting
systems. Another causing factor is the overwhelming number of stakeholders
that are involved when new or changed legislation has to be implemented. I
will present an approach that was inspired by knowledge engineering that
supports the design and implementation of complex normative systems.
Important practical issues adressed are: improved legal quality, reduction
of time to market and reduction of total cost of ownership.
Giovanni Sartor (Faculty of Law, University of Bologna):
Cognitive Automata and the Law.
Our technological society is populated by more and more complex artificial entities,
which exhibit a flexible and multiform behaviour. Such entities
increasingly participate in legally relevant activities, and
in particular in negotiation. Today many contracts are made by computer
systems, without any human review. In particular, this happens through
software agents (SAs), who may execute autonomously the mandate that
has been assigned them, without any subsequent contact with their human users.
In this context, we naturally tend to apply also to artificial entities,
and especially to SAs, those interpretative models which we apply to humans.
In particular, we tend to explain the behaviour of such entities by attributing
them mental states (beliefs, desires, intentions ...). Consequently, we
tend to qualify their actions through legal notions which presuppose the
attribution of mental states. Consider, for example, the possibility that
a computer system enters into a contract (wants to make the contract, and
to realise the legal results it states), is the object of a fraud
(is cheated), makes a mistake (has a false belief), harms somebody
with malice (intentionally), etc.
Our natural tendency to attribute mental states to artificial systems,
and to apply the consequent legal qualifications, can be contrasted according
to the view that all mentalistic concepts only apply to humans. This thesis
would imply the necessity to undertake an extensive review of the existing
legal notions, in order to apply them also to the relation with or between
artificial systems. We would need to eliminate from such concepts any
connection with mental or spiritual attitudes: the element of will needs
to be eliminated from the notion of a contract, the element of having a
false belief from the notion of a mistake, the element of producing such
false belief from the idea of misrepresentation, the element of intention
from the notion of malice ...
We will affirm that this choice does not exhaust the available options.
It is possible to interpret mental concepts in a flexible and neutral way,
so that they become applicable also to some types of artificial entities.
This would allow us to preserve both the spirituality and the unity of the law,
even in a society which is increasingly characterised by automated information
processing.
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