Social Order and Adaptability in Animal and Human
Cultures as Analogues for Agent Communities:
Toward a Policy-Based Approach
Paul J. Feltovich, Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, Renia Jeffers, Niranjan Suri, Andrzej Uszok
Institute for Human and Machine Cognition/University of West Florida
40 S. Alcaniz, Pensacola, FL 32501
{pfeltovich, jbradshaw, rjeffers, nsuri, auszok}@ihmc.us
Abstract. In this paper we discuss some of the ways social order is maintained
in animal and human realms, with the goal of enriching our thinking about
mechanisms that might be employed in developing similar means of ordering
communities of agents. We present examples from our current work in human-
agent teamwork, and we speculate about some new directions this kind of
research might take. Since communities also need to change over time to cope
with changing circumstances, we also speculate on means that regulatory
bodies can use to adapt.
1. Introduction
As computational systems with increasing autonomy interact with humans in more
complex ways—and with the welfare of the humans sometimes dependent on the
conduct of the agents—there is a natural concern that the agents act in ways that are
acceptable to people [7; 51]. In addition to traditional concerns for safety and
robustness in such systems [12], there are important social aspects relating to
predictability, control, feedback, order, and naturalness of the interaction that must be
attended to [8; 10; 50]. In this paper we investigate just some of the ways social order
is maintained in animal and human realms (sections 2 and 3), with the goal of
enriching our thinking about mechanisms that might be employed to enhance order in
mixed human-agent teams.
1
We present examples of such systems that have been
created to support agent-based applications (section 4), and we speculate about new
directions this kind of research might take (section 5). Since enduring communities
also need to change over time to cope with changing circumstances, we speculate
briefly on means that regulatory bodies can utilize for supporting adaptation (section
6). Finally, we present some concluding observations (section 7).
1 In this sense, we agree with the conjecture of Norman: “Technology recapitulates phylogeny”
[50, p. 134].
2. Some Sources of Order in the Animal World
We start by examining some of the ways that animals cooperate and maintain order.
Why would individuals ever choose to cooperate with others to pursue their aims,
rather than “going it alone”? In the animal realm, ethnologists and evolutionary
biologists have taken a fairly common stance with regard to this question. Speaking of
the process of mutual “attunement” (roughly, “getting to know one another”) among
individuals, a component process of cooperation, biologist W.J. Smith states:
Such attunement is necessary when no single individual can fully control an
encounter—when participants in encounters must depend on each other for a
useful outcome. The value of that outcome need not be equal for each
participant, but it must exceed for each the average payoff that would come
from eschewing the interaction [61, p. 366].
Smith goes on to discuss two main benefits that accrue from such processes of
cooperation or “joint activity.” The first is that certain tasks get accomplished that
could not have been accomplished by any individual. The second is that these kinds of
activities, over time, yield increased inter-predictability among the parties; they come
to know each other’s ways. This can have constructive benefits: for instance,
knowledge of the other’s capabilities might be tapped during future cooperation. It
can also yield protective benefits: for example, learning the other’s “hot buttons” that
tend to invoke hostility. But the main benefit of predictability is the social order it
contributes to the group. Gross, mutual unpredictability is almost definitional of
disorder. Predictability and order are so important to animals that they seem to go to
great lengths to build but also maintain it: For instance:
[Some male birds] remember how to recognize previous neighbors by their
individually distinctive songs and remember the location in which each
neighbor belongs. Relationships with known neighbors are valuable and those
with strangers are problematic. Known mutual boundaries can be
reestablished with much less effort and uncertainty than goes into the task of
working out relationships with new neighbors [61, p. 365].
Animals engage in joint activities, in which they get to know each other, in part
through processes of signaling and display that are associated with predictable kinds
of behaviors. That is, display and signaling behavior among animals supports joint
activity by providing more or less rough clues to others concerning what each
individual is about to do. Displays and signals can range widely in form (e.g.,
vocalizations, body posture, facial expressions):
Each individual has a repertoire of behavior made up of all the many kinds of
acts it can perform. It can be thought of as continuously choosing among these
acts, even at times when its behavior is unchanging (among the choices
available at any instant is to do whatever was done in the previous instant).
Any choice can be called a ‘behavioral selection.’
Each kind of display has a consistent and specifiable relationship to certain
choices. It is performed in correlation with some kinds of behavior and not
others. Thus, to know that an individual is performing a particular display is
to learn something about the behavior it may select—every display can thus be
described as encoding messages about behavioral selections [60, p. 87].
Hence, display behavior has an anticipatory, predictive (but only a probabilistically
predictive) function. It is a clue, sometimes highly indicative, sometimes much less
so,
2
to what an individual is about to do. It also decouples actual action from a kind of
notice that it is about to happen.
3
This decoupling both invites and enables others to
participate in coordination, support, or avoidance with respect to what might occur.
This joint engagement in an activity would not be possible if the activity were merely
executed and not signaled in advance. In this sense, display is an important ingredient
in enabling things like coordination and teamwork.
While signaling and display can take many and complicated forms, even in the
animal world, biologist Smith has advanced ten signal-behavior couplings that appear
to be pervasive in almost all vertebrates, although they might manifest different
physical forms in different species [60, pp. 87-126]. The fact that these are so
pervasive suggests they may be particularly fundamental. We will briefly describe
each of these types of displays and signals along with possible functions they could
serve within agent communities.
2.1. Interactional Displays
Interactional displays indicate availability or unavailability to participate in joint
activity. These displays “primarily provide information about the communicator’s
readiness or lack of readiness, to join in acts that involve other individuals” [60, p.
88]. Since they may be associated with more than one kind of interaction, they do not
specify any one kind. They might indicate readiness to copulate, associate, attack an
intruder, and so forth. Hence, they are anticipatory to various kinds of intended joint
activity, simply signaling a readiness (or lack thereof) to join in association with
others.
This category also includes displays indicating absence of opportunity to interact.
These displays essentially signal that an individual is alone and has nobody else to
interact with, for example, when an individual is the last remaining at the nest or
territory. This category also includes signals of shunning interaction. These are
simply signals that the initiator does not want interaction with others, and this
intention can range from mild to fierce.
Example interactional forms. Kinds of chirping. Various forms of bowing.
“Tidbitting”—offering a morsel of food. Forms of touching. Signals from a
2 Sometimes the ambiguity of the signal itself serves an important function, for example as an
indicator that the signaler’s next move may depend on the response its current move evokes.
3 To see why this may be useful, consider the signaling functions of the lights on the back of a
car: “[W]e use turn signals and brake lights to tell others of our actions and intentions. In the
case of brake lights, we signal actions as we carry them out. In the case of turn signals, we
signal our intentions before we actually commit them into action. In either case, we allow
others to know our future actions so that we can ensure that there is no conflict” [50, p. 129].
subordinate to a dominant, the purpose of which is to test the dominant’s willingness
to interact, to tolerate interaction.
Absence of opportunity: Loud sounds, loud singing, howling (e.g., one jackal howls,
and all the rest in the area howl in response), assuming high, visible physical
positions, special kinds of flight patterns or displays.
Shunning: Interestingly, various forms of displaying the tongue. Chittering barks.
Vocalizations at special, unusual frequencies.
Possible functions in agent communities. Displays in this general category clearly
have benefits for coordination among groups of agents by providing information
about which are or are not in a position to interact with others, in what ways, when,
and so forth, e.g.: Call me. I am open for calls. I need to talk to someone. May I
interject, may I say something?
Absence of opportunity: I am out of touch. I am working all alone. I have no help. I
have lost contact with everybody.
Shunning: Do not attempt to communicate with me for whatever reason, e.g., my line
is bugged, or I am involved in something that cannot be interrupted. Leave me alone.
While the general interactional displays just discussed are non-specific in the
activity they portend, others are more specific.
2.2. Seeking Displays
Displays indicating that one is seeking joint activity are similar to the interactional
ones in that they indicate a readiness to participate in some kind joint activity but
differ in that they indicate active attempt at engaging in a particular kind of activity
rather than just a general state of availability or receptiveness:
“Animals may display while seeking the opportunity to perform some kind of
activity during what ethnologists call ‘appetitive’ behavior as distinguished
from ‘consummatory’ behavior in which activity is completed. The behavioral
selection about which a display provides information if it is done only in this
way can be termed ‘seeking.’ What a communicator is seeking to do is
encoded in the same display by a second behavioral selection message. The
display is interpreted as providing not just the information that a
communicator is ready to do this second selection, but that its behavior
includes seeking or preparing to seek an opportunity” [60, p. 118].
The seeking display can be associated with many kinds of activities, seeking, for
example, to interact, associate, copulate, attack, or escape.
Example forms. These are associated with so many kinds of behaviors that their
particular forms vary widely.
Possible functions in agent communities. Agents that indicate to others what they
are trying to do can elicit the right form of aid from others, can contribute to possible
coordination among tasks, and the like.
2.3. Receptiveness Displays
Displays indicating receptiveness are the inverse of seeking displays, i.e., they
indicate a specific response to the seeking of particular kinds of activities by others:
“Some displays indicate the behavioral selections that a communicator will
accept, not those it is prepared to perform. At least two behavioral selection
messages must be provided by such a display, one indicating that the
communicator will behave receptively and another indicating the class of acts
to which it is receptive. Effectively, the communicator adopts the role of
soliciting acts from another individual; it does not offer them” [60, p. 122].
The display indicating receptiveness indicates that the communicator is willing to
engage in a behavior, or set of behaviors, initiated by another. An interesting form of
soliciting has to do with being receptive to “aid or care” and is common among
infants who indicate receptiveness to feeding, grooming, shading, and so forth.
Although often associated with the young, these displays sometimes carry over into
adult relationships, as when a female mate solicits various forms of “help with the
nest” from her male partner [60, p. 125].
Example forms. As with seeking displays, receptivity displays are so diverse that
they defy general description.
Possible functions in agent communities. As with the seeking displays, receptivity
displays can contribute to cooperation in the conduct of activity and to the
coordination among activities.
2.4. Attack and Escape Displays
Displays indicating attack and escape:
“are said to encode either, or both, of attack and escape messages when all
their occurrence is correlated with a range of attack- or escape-related
behavior. Behavioral indices of attack differ among and within species, but
include acts that, if completed, will harm another individual. Escape behavior
can be any appropriate form of avoidance, ranging from headlong fleeing to
turning aside, or even freezing and other ways of hiding” [60, p. 93].
Attack and escape displays may differ, but they are sometimes more or less the
same display, differing only in degree or subtle nuance. They have value both
between and within groups, for instance, to muster help against an intruder or to avoid
inadvertent flare-ups (e.g., one group member coming upon another by surprise).
Various choreographies of interactive displays relating to attacking and escaping can
more often than not serve to avoid actual combat. Actual fighting is more likely to
happen among relatively unfamiliar groups [60, p. 94], partly because they have less
mutual predictability, including prediction of each other’s reaction to display
activities that can fend off real fighting.
Example forms. Body posture and orientation. Head bobbing. Forms of jumping.
Baring teeth.
