1. Social Institutions Dynamics in
Social Institutions Dynamics in the Tragedy of the Commons
the Tragedy of the Commons
Student: Luis Oliva Felipe
Advisor: Ulises Cortés
loliva@lsi.upc.edu
Thesis proposal, Barcelona, February 2013
https://kemlg.upc.edu

2. Outline
Social Institutions Dynamics in the Tragedy of the Commons
 Introduction
 State of the art
 Taxonomy of goods
 Collective action
 Social dilemmas
 Tragedy of the commons
 Appropriation and provision
 Hypothesis and Proposed models
 Summary, Tasks and Publications
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3. Introduction: What is the Tragedy?
Social Institutions Dynamics in the Tragedy of the Commons
 Hardin: Each man is locked into a system that compels
him to increase…without limit. …Ruin is the destination…
 Open access resource consumed by rational agents
 Individual gain and shared cost
 Leads to overexploitation and, inexorably, to depletion
 G. Hardin “The Tragedy of the Commons“ (1968)
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Introduction | State of the Art | Hypothesis & Proposed Models | Summary, Tasks & Publications

4. Introduction: old problem
Social Institutions Dynamics in the Tragedy of the Commons
“…people give most attention to
their own property, less to what is
communal, or only as much as falls
Individualistic
to them to give. For apart from
Capitalism
anything else, the thought that
Property
someone else is attending to it makes
them neglect it the more.”
Aristotle – Politics
“A state arises, as I conceive, out of
the needs of mankind; no one is Groupal
self-sufficing, but all of us have Communism
many wants.” Sharing
Plato – Republic
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Introduction | State of the Art | Hypothesis & Proposed Models | Summary, Tasks & Publications

5. Introduction: interesting problem
Social Institutions Dynamics in the Tragedy of the Commons
 It belongs to the group of social problems
 No technical solution
 Technical improvements postpone the problem
 It can be applied to different domains:
 Utilities: water, bandwidth
 Food, energy
 Pollution
 Infrastructure: non-tolled highways/roads, bridges
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Introduction | State of the Art | Hypothesis & Proposed Models | Summary, Tasks & Publications

6. Outline
Social Institutions Dynamics in the Tragedy of the Commons
 Introduction
 State of the art
 Taxonomy of goods
 Collective action
 Social dilemmas
 Tragedy of the commons
 Appropriation and provision
 Hypothesis and Proposed models
 Summary, Tasks and Publications
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7. A taxonomy of goods
Social Institutions Dynamics in the Tragedy of the Commons
Exclusive Non-exclusive
Private good Common good
(Common-pool resources)
Rivalrous
Club good Public good
Non-rivalrous
 Rivalry: One‟s consumption diminishes other‟s consumption
 Excludability: Ability to prevent others from consuming
 P. Samuelson “The Pure Theory of Public Expenditure“ (1954)
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Introduction | State of the Art | Hypothesis & Proposed Models | Summary, Tasks & Publications

8. A taxonomy of goods: Provision of private good
Social Institutions Dynamics in the Tragedy of the Commons
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Introduction | State of the Art | Hypothesis & Proposed Models | Summary, Tasks & Publications

9. A taxonomy of goods: Provision of public good
Social Institutions Dynamics in the Tragedy of the Commons
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Introduction | State of the Art | Hypothesis & Proposed Models | Summary, Tasks & Publications

10. Collective action
Social Institutions Dynamics in the Tragedy of the Commons
 Olson: Rational, self-interested individuals will not act to
achieve their common… interest
 Good provision in terms of group size and perceptibility
of actions
 Small
 Medium
 Privileged
 Intermediate
 Latent
 Large
 To ensure provision:
 Coercive mechanisms
 Exogenous benefit
 M. Olson “The Logic of Collective Action: public goods and the theory of
groups“ (1971)
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Introduction | State of the Art | Hypothesis & Proposed Models | Summary, Tasks & Publications

11. Social dilemmas
Social Institutions Dynamics in the Tragedy of the Commons
 Prisoner‟s dilemma:
 Rational individual behaviour produces bad
outcomes
Can be perfectly modelled
in Game Theory
 Free riding dilemma
Can be modelled in Game
 Get the good Theory
 But do not pay for it
Other approaches give
 Tragedy of the Commons better results
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Introduction | State of the Art | Hypothesis & Proposed Models | Summary, Tasks & Publications

12. Tragedy of the Commons
Social Institutions Dynamics in the Tragedy of the Commons
 A metaphor to explain the conflict between
 A common good
 A set of agents that seek to maximize their own benefit
 Ends with the good exhausted because either
• The agents expand their capacity to consume the good…
• The agents‟ population grows…
• …beyond the good renewal capacity
• Usually it is not being managed
 G. Hardin “The Tragedy of the Unmanaged Commons“ (1994)
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Introduction | State of the Art | Hypothesis & Proposed Models | Summary, Tasks & Publications

13. Tragedy of the Commons
Social Institutions Dynamics in the Tragedy of the Commons
 A common good can be seen as a facility that:
 Sustains a stock of resource units which produces a flow of
resources units over time
 Which divides the Tragedy into two problems
 Appropriation: Allocating the flow of resource
 Provision: Maintaining the stock of resource
 E. Ostrom, R. Gardner, J. Walker “Rules, games and Common-Pool Resources“
(2006)
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Introduction | State of the Art | Hypothesis & Proposed Models | Summary, Tasks & Publications

14. Appropriation
Social Institutions Dynamics in the Tragedy of the Commons
 The problem lies on
the flow
 Excluding potential
beneficiaries
 Allocating the
subtractable flow
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Introduction | State of the Art | Hypothesis & Proposed Models | Summary, Tasks & Publications

15. Provision
Social Institutions Dynamics in the Tragedy of the Commons
 The problem lies on
the stock
 Creating, maintaining
a resource
 Improving production
capabilities
 Avoiding the
destruction of the
resource
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Introduction | State of the Art | Hypothesis & Proposed Models | Summary, Tasks & Publications

16. Outline
Social Institutions Dynamics in the Tragedy of the Commons
 Introduction
 State of the art
 Taxonomy of goods
 Collective action
 Social dilemmas
 Tragedy of the commons
 Appropriation and provision
 Hypothesis and Proposed models
 Summary, Tasks and Publications
16

17. Hypothesis
Social Institutions Dynamics in the Tragedy of the Commons
 We consider a world with two kinds of agents:
 Individualistic, selfish agents
 Communal, altruistic agents
 Being selfish
 Does not mean not having/caring about group interests
 Individual interests are more valued
 Being communal
 Does not mean not having personal interests
 Group interests are more valued
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Introduction | State of the Art | Hypothesis & Proposed Models | Summary, Tasks & Publications

18. Proposed models
Social Institutions Dynamics in the Tragedy of the Commons
 Plato (Republic, 462b-c) argued that collective ownership
was necessary to promote common pursuit of the
common interest, and to avoid the social divisiveness that
would occur „when some grieve exceedingly and others rejoice
at the same happenings.‟
 Aristotle responded by arguing that private ownership
promotes virtues like prudence and responsibility:
„[W]hen everyone has a distinct interest, men will not complain
of one another, and they will make more progress, because
every one will be attending to his own business‟
(Aristotle, Politics, 1263a).
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Introduction | State of the Art | Hypothesis & Proposed Models | Summary, Tasks & Publications

19. Proposed models
Social Institutions Dynamics in the Tragedy of the Commons
Aristotelian agents Platonic agents
 Capitalistic/rational  Polis – focused on
agents communal good
 They only care on  Traders
appropriating according  Warriors
to their own benefit  Philosophers
 Individualism  Protocommunism:
 Communal ownership
 Private property
 Equality
 Deemphasis on material
wealth
 Utopian society
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Introduction | State of the Art | Hypothesis & Proposed Models | Summary, Tasks & Publications

20. Hypothesis
Social Institutions Dynamics in the Tragedy of the Commons
1. A set of agents with Platonic behavioural traits, can
work together and exhibit a certain group behaviour
that is optimal in terms of provision or conservation of
resources
2. A set of agents with Aristotelian behavioural traits, can
work together and exhibit a certain group behaviour
that is optimal in terms of appropriation or exploitation
of resources
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Introduction | State of the Art | Hypothesis & Proposed Models | Summary, Tasks & Publications

21. Proposed models
Social Institutions Dynamics in the Tragedy of the Commons
 A model composed of
 MAS approach: To run social simulations
 Provenance-aware monitoring: To capture actions
 Complex networks: To represent social interaction
 To analyse similar scenarios
 Behavioural patterns
 Norm or structural changes to avoid the Tragedy
 Network structures
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Introduction | State of the Art | Hypothesis & Proposed Models | Summary, Tasks & Publications

22. Multi-agent system
Social Institutions Dynamics in the Tragedy of the Commons
 Deontic norms to guide agents‟ behaviour
 Allows studying norms dynamics
 Close to human written norms (expressivity)
 An agent acts according to
• What happens in the system,
• Social norms,
• Its personality
 J. Vázquez-Salceda “The Role of Norms and Electronic Institutions in Multi-
Agent Systems: The HARMONIA Framework“ (2004)
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Introduction | State of the Art | Hypothesis & Proposed Models | Summary, Tasks & Publications

23. Bounded rationality
Social Institutions Dynamics in the Tragedy of the Commons
 Game theory has significant drawbacks
 It does not allow changing norms while “in game”
 Resource managers are, somehow, out of the system
 Bounded rationality
 Humans have limited knowledge
 Agents look for a suitable solution, not an optimal
 Multi-goal
 A. Newell “The Knowledge Level“ (1981)
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Introduction | State of the Art | Hypothesis & Proposed Models | Summary, Tasks & Publications

24. Provenance-aware monitoring
Social Institutions Dynamics in the Tragedy of the Commons
 Stores events and agents‟ actions
 Graph-based: nodes-events | edges-causal
relations
 Retrodiction analysis:
 What has produced the current situation
 Detection of what should be prevented/promoted
 wrt. norms
 J. Vázquez-Salceda, S. Álvarez-Napagao. "Using SOA Provenance to Implement
Norm Enforcement in e-Institutions“ (2008)
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Introduction | State of the Art | Hypothesis & Proposed Models | Summary, Tasks & Publications

25. Causal models
Social Institutions Dynamics in the Tragedy of the Commons
 Actors communicate the
action and what caused it
 Causal models describe
the preorder of actions
 Used as a blueprint to
detect causal patterns in
the provenance
 S. Miles, P. Groth, S. Munroe, S. Jiang, T. Assandri, L. Moreau. “Extracting causal
graphs from an open provenance data model“ (2008)
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Introduction | State of the Art | Hypothesis & Proposed Models | Summary, Tasks & Publications

26. Complex networks analysis
Social Institutions Dynamics in the Tragedy of the Commons
 Analysis of the agents‟ social structures
 How social structures
influence
 Stability
 Behaviour spreadness
 Emphasis on mesolevel (communities)
 D. Villatoro “Social norms for self-policing multi-agent systems and virtual
societies“ (2011)
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Introduction | State of the Art | Hypothesis & Proposed Models | Summary, Tasks & Publications

27. Example
Social Institutions Dynamics in the Tragedy of the Commons
If (#cowsInPrairie ≥ 8) →
O(retain_less_than(#Cows/#Cowboys))
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Introduction | State of the Art | Hypothesis & Proposed Models | Summary, Tasks & Publications

28. Example
Social Institutions Dynamics in the Tragedy of the Commons
I
I
If (#cowsInPrairie ≥ 8) →
O(retain_less_than(#Cows/#Cowboys))
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Introduction | State of the Art | Hypothesis & Proposed Models | Summary, Tasks & Publications

29. Example
Social Institutions Dynamics in the Tragedy of the Commons
II
If (#cowsInPrairie ≥ 8) → III
O(retain_less_than(#Cows/#Cowboys))
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Introduction | State of the Art | Hypothesis & Proposed Models | Summary, Tasks & Publications

30. Example
Social Institutions Dynamics in the Tragedy of the Commons
IV
If (#cowsInPrairie ≥ 8) →
O(retain_less_than(#Cows/#Cowboys))
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Introduction | State of the Art | Hypothesis & Proposed Models | Summary, Tasks & Publications

31. Example
Social Institutions Dynamics in the Tragedy of the Commons
If (#cowsInPrairie ≥ 8) → V
O(retain_less_than(#Cows/#Cowboys))
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Introduction | State of the Art | Hypothesis & Proposed Models | Summary, Tasks & Publications

32. Outline
Social Institutions Dynamics in the Tragedy of the Commons
 Introduction
 State of the art
 Taxonomy of goods
 Collective action
 Social dilemmas
 Tragedy of the commons
 Appropriation and provision
 Hypothesis and Proposed model
 Summary, Tasks and Publications
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33. Summary: Relevance to AI
Social Institutions Dynamics in the Tragedy of the Commons
 Use of provenance-aware and network analysis (as a
supportive/auxiliary tool) to further agents‟ dynamic
research
 Two opposite philosophical approaches to manage a
common good
 Study emergent behaviour to self-organised institutional
arrangements
 Can be applied to different domains:
 river basins
 smart cities
 virtual goods
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Introduction | State of the Art | Hypothesis & Proposed Models | Summary, Tasks & Publications

34. Tasks/Gantt diagram
Social Institutions Dynamics in the Tragedy of the Commons
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Introduction | State of the Art | Hypothesis & Proposed Models | Summary, Tasks & Publications

35. Publications
Social Institutions Dynamics in the Tragedy of the Commons
1. L. Oliva, S. Álvarez-Napagao, J. Vázquez-Salceda. “Towards a framework for the
analysis of regulative norm performance in complex networks”
2. I. Gómez-Sebastià, S. Álvarez-Napagao, J. Vázquez-Salceda, L. Oliva. “Towards
runtime support for norm change from a monitoring perspective”
• 1st International Conference on Agreement Technologies, 15th-16th October
2012, Dubrovnik, Croatia
3. S. Álvarez-Napagao, I. Gómez-Sebastià , S. Panagiotidi, A. Tejeda, L. Oliva, J.
Vázquez-Salceda. “Socially-aware emergent narrative”
• AEGS 2011: AAMAS-2011 Workshop on the uses of Agents for Education,
Games and Simulations 2 May 2011, Taipai, Taiwan
4. L. Ceccaroni, L. Oliva. “Ontologies for the Design of Ecosystems”
• Chapter book in Universal Ontology of Geographic Space: Semantic Enrichment
for Spatial Data. Ed. Tomaž Podobnikar and Marjan Čeh. Hershey: IGI Global,
2012. 207-28. Print.
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Introduction | State of the Art | Hypothesis & Proposed Models | Summary, Tasks & Publications

36. Social Institutions Dynamics in the Tragedy of the Commons
Luis Oliva Felipe
(loliva@lsi.upc.edu)
https://kemlg.upc.edu
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