Autonomous Causally-Driven Explanation of Actions

Garrett E. Katz, Dale Dullnig, Gregory P. Davis, Rodolphe J. Gentili, James A. Reggia

Research output: Chapter in Book/Entry/PoemConference contribution

Abstract

We propose a cause-effect reasoning mechanism with which an autonomous system can justify planned actions to a human end user. The mechanism is based on a structure we call a 'causal plan graph,' which encodes the causal relationships between the actions, intentions, and goals of the autonomous system. Causal chains within this graph can potentially serve as intuitive, human-friendly justifications for the autonomous system's planned actions. A prototype of this mechanism is tested in simulation on a set of planning problems from an autonomous maintenance scenario. We demonstrate empirically that shortest path algorithms can effectively reduce a very large number of possible causal chains to a small, intelligible subset that might reasonably be inspected and ranked by a human. Consequently this work can serve as the basis for an experimental platform for future end user studies with human participants.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings - 2017 International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence, CSCI 2017
EditorsFernando G. Tinetti, Quoc-Nam Tran, Leonidas Deligiannidis, Mary Qu Yang, Mary Qu Yang, Hamid R. Arabnia
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages772-778
Number of pages7
ISBN (Electronic)9781538626528
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 4 2018
Externally publishedYes
Event2017 International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence, CSCI 2017 - Las Vegas, United States
Duration: Dec 14 2017Dec 16 2017

Publication series

NameProceedings - 2017 International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence, CSCI 2017

Other

Other2017 International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence, CSCI 2017
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityLas Vegas
Period12/14/1712/16/17

Keywords

  • cause-effect reasoning
  • explainable artificial intelligence (XAI)
  • imitation learning
  • robotics

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Computer Science (miscellaneous)
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Computer Networks and Communications
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality

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