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The Social Concept of Trust as Enabler for Robustness in Open Self-Organising Systems

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Trustworthy Open Self-Organising Systems

Abstract

The participants in open self-organising systems, including users and autonomous agents, operate in a highly uncertain environment in which the agents’ benevolence cannot be assumed. One way to address this challenge is to use computational trust. By extending the notion of trust as a qualifier of relationships between agents and incorporating trust into the agents’ decisions, they can cope with uncertainties stemming from unintentional as well as intentional misbehaviour. As a consequence, the system’s robustness and efficiency increases. In this context, we show how an extended notion of trust can be used in the formation of system structures, algorithmically to mitigate uncertainties in task and resource allocation, and as a sanctioning and incentive mechanism. Beyond that, we outline how the users’ trust in a self-organising system can be increased, which is decisive for the acceptance of these systems.

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Acknowledgements

This research is partly sponsored by the research unit OC-Trust (FOR 1085) of the German Research Foundation.

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Anders, G. et al. (2016). The Social Concept of Trust as Enabler for Robustness in Open Self-Organising Systems. In: Reif, W., et al. Trustworthy Open Self-Organising Systems. Autonomic Systems. Birkhäuser, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29201-4_1

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