Trust, Control and Autonomy: A Dialectic Relationship - Trust Theory: A Socio-Cognitive and Computational Model - page 205

delegation (reliance) an agent Ag 1 needs or likes an action of another agent Ag 2 and includes
it in its own plan (see Section 2.9) .
In adoption (help) an agent Ag 2 acquires and has a goal as (long as) it is the goal of another
agent Ag 1 ,thatis,Ag 2 has the goal of performing an action because this action is included
in the plan of Ag 1 . So, also in this case Ag 2 plays a part in Ag 1 's plan (sometimes Ag 1 has no
plan at all but just a need, or a goal) since Ag 2 is doing something for Ag 1 .
We consider the action/goal pair ,g) as the real object of delegation, 21 and we called it τ = ( α

a 'task'. Then by ), to its resulting world state ( g ), or to both.

We introduce an operator of delegation with three parameters:

τ , we will refer to the action ( α

Delegates ( Ag 1 Ag 2 τ ) (7.7)

where Ag 1 , Ag 2 are agents and τ = ( α ,g) is the task. This means that Ag 1 delegates the task τ

to Ag 2 . In analogy with delegation we introduce the corresponding operator for adoption:

Adopts ( Ag 2 Ag 1 τ ) (7.8)

This means that Ag 2 adopts the task τ for Ag 1 : Ag 2 helps Ag 1 by caring about τ .

Dimensions of Delegation and Adoption

We consider three main dimensions of delegation/adoption: interaction-based , specification-
based , and control-based types of delegation/adoption (Castelfranchi and Falcone, 1998). Let
us analyze these cases more in detail.

Interaction-based types of delegation. Three general cases may be given: weak , mild and
strong delegation . They represent different degrees of strength of the established delegation.
In the following we synthesize (more formal details can be find in Section 2.9) the mental
ingredients of trust in the different delegation actions.

W-Delegates is the operator for representing weak delegation. So the expression:
W-Delegates(Ag 1 Ag 2 τ ) represents the necessary mental ingredients for Ag 1 trusting Ag 2

on the task , shown in Figure 2.11 and resumed in a less formal way in Table 7.1.

We consider in Table 7.1 ( a , b , c , and d ) what the agent Ag 1 views as a ' Potential for relying
on ' agent Ag 2 , its trust in Ag 2 ; and ( e and f ) what Ag 1 views as the ' Decision to rely on ' Ag 2 .

τ

21 We assume that delegating an action necessarily implies delegating some result of that action (i.e. expecting
some results from Ag 2 's action and relying on it for obtaining those results). Conversely, to delegate a goal state
always implies the delegation of at least one action (possibly unknown to Ag 1 ) that produces such a goal state as a
result (even when Ag 1 asks Ag 2 to solve a problem, to bring it about that g without knowing or specifying the action,
Ag 1 necessarily presupposes that Ag 2 should and will do some action and relies on this).