Factorized Machine Self-Confidence for Decision-Making Agents

Algorithmic assurances from advanced autonomous systems assist human users in understanding, trusting, and using such systems appropriately. Designing these systems with the capacity of assessing their own capabilities is one approach to creating an algorithmic assurance. The idea of `machine self-confidence' is introduced for autonomous systems. Using a factorization based framework for self-confidence assessment, one component of self-confidence, called `solver-quality', is discussed in the context of Markov decision processes for autonomous systems. Markov decision processes underlie much of the theory of reinforcement learning, and are commonly used for planning and decision making under uncertainty in robotics and autonomous systems. A `solver quality' metric is formally defined in the context of decision making algorithms based on Markov decision processes. A method for assessing solver quality is then derived, drawing inspiration from empirical hardness models. Finally, numerical experiments for an unmanned autonomous vehicle navigation problem under different solver, parameter, and environment conditions indicate that the self-confidence metric exhibits the desired properties. Discussion of results, and avenues for future investigation are included.

"DaveI can assure youthat it's going to be all right" -- A definition, case for, and survey of algorithmic assurances in human-autonomy trust relationships

People who design, use, and are affected by autonomous artificially intelligent agents want to be able to \emph{trust} such agents -- that is, to know that these agents will perform correctly, to understand the reasoning behind their actions, and to know how to use them appropriately. Many techniques have been devised to assess and influence human trust in artificially intelligent agents. However, these approaches are typically ad hoc, and have not been formally related to each other or to formal trust models. This paper presents a survey of \emph{algorithmic assurances}, i.e. programmed components of agent operation that are expressly designed to calibrate user trust in artificially intelligent agents. Algorithmic assurances are first formally defined and classified from the perspective of formally modeled human-artificially intelligent agent trust relationships. Building on these definitions, a synthesis of research across communities such as machine learning, human-computer interaction, robotics, e-commerce, and others reveals that assurance algorithms naturally fall along a spectrum in terms of their impact on an agent's core functionality, with seven notable classes ranging from integral assurances (which impact an agent's core functionality) to supplemental assurances (which have no direct effect on agent performance). Common approaches within each of these classes are identified and discussed; benefits and drawbacks of different approaches are also investigated.