Dear All,
Robert, all, I think it would be good to have progress in reviewing the
PARTHENOS model. It contains a quite elaborate model of e-services, and
makes subtle distinctions beteen maintainers, machines, and software
installed. A lot of aspects may already be resolved there. The model has
been implemented and used in a large EU Project.
Best,
Martin
On 9/28/2021 4:07 PM, Robert Sanderson wrote:
Yes, understood and agreed :) Was just trying to clarify the process.
And in particular, the properties (and class hierarchy) are very
important. Scope notes can be ignored by humans (at their peril), but
it's much harder to ignore the ontology definition.
For documentation practice, I think most systems I've seen would say
that software does things, especially in digital preservation where
the software's actions must be auditable (if not accountable). I do
worry about legal responsibility as a factor in deciding
agency/non-agency however, given different jurisdictions and legal
systems, but I also understand the rationale.
R
On Tue, Sep 28, 2021 at 8:34 AM Martin Doerr <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Dear Robert,
Please excuse my sloppy shorthand! Of course I meant that a
machine capable of causing events in reaction to external stimuli
in a controlled manner is a new class model, AND the reactive
events are another new class which should be related, it didn't
come to my mind it could be one😁
I just expressed my opinion. I have not made any decision. E39
Actor clearly excludes machines and animals so far. My argument is
neither philosophy about free will, nor an interpretation of the
word "agency", which would be a linguistic argument.
From a methodological point of view, the only thing that matters
are the properties we associate with these things in documentation
practice. Practice, and not philosophy, is, e.g., that a machine
cannot be sued, but those setting them up in this manner. This is
different from suing the owner of a tiger.
The first thing to look at, in a bottom-up manner we are committed
to, is to make ontological distinctions, not extending existing
concepts into new domains. There are, to my opinion, much more
things that differentiate Actors and Activities from robots and
their reactions which I have not listed.
Only after we have carefully investigated that there are enough
commonalities between originally distinct concepts, we can decide
if they warrant a common superclass.
Both I have not seen yet.
Would that make sense?
All the best,
Martin
On 9/27/2021 11:31 PM, Robert Sanderson wrote:
Could it be kept open until there's a clear cost / benefit
established, rather than philosophy around free will?
For example, if the ontology allows things that should be
perdurants to become endurants through agency, then we've messed
up a fundamental design decision. For example, a fire might
"carry out" the destruction of an object, but it's not an actor.
But a self-driving car seems to have more "agency" than the
cyanobacteria "responsible" for creating stromatolites
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stromatolite
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stromatolite>). A tiger escapes
its enclosure at a zoo and eats a child ... the tiger carried out
the eating, but can't be held legally accountable. The zoo on the
other hand maybe could be ... but the zoo did not eat the child.
There's lots to unpack ... it would be good to determine how far
we can unpack it as part of the process, while respecting core
design values.
R
On Mon, Sep 27, 2021 at 3:59 PM Martin Doerr via Crm-sig
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Dear Mercedes, all,
My position is that machines are not actors. They are robots,
that work on behalf of human actors, following human
instructions. Their use is regulated by laws concerning those
activating them, and not for suing the machine for its
initiatives. There is no fundamental difference to setting up
traps, no matter how complex the machine and its instructions
are. Non-human actors should be restricted to living beings.
Robots and traps and events set in action by them should be
each a different category, and this is a nice, but different,
challenge to model as well. Opinions?
All the best,
Martin
On 9/25/2021 1:33 AM, Mercedes Menendez Gonzalez wrote:
Thank you for the kind words, Martin.
A brief try, could we find a good example in chess
artificial intelligence? The human and the computer perform
equivalent roles as (participants) players. For instance,
the IBM computer named Deep Blue beated Kasparov in a
well-documented match on May 11, 1997, at the Equitable
Center in New York.
Also, with my apologies if I am misunderstanding things.
All the best,
Mercedes
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*De:* Martin Doerr <[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected]>
*Enviado:* miércoles, 22 de septiembre de 2021 22:14
*Para:* Mercedes Menendez Gonzalez <[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected]>; [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> <[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected]>
*Asunto:* Re: [Crm-sig] New Issue: Non-human Actors
Dear Mercedes,
Thank you for your good comments! What we would need now
most are real data examples tracing individuals.
All the best,
Martin
On 9/22/2021 4:31 PM, Mercedes Menendez Gonzalez wrote:
Dear all,
Although I am quite new to this, I would like to contribute
my opinion on this interesting topic, if I may.
I agree that the most suitable option seems to be to create
a class or some new classes for non-human actors. Going
back to Rob’s example, I would say that the bird carries
out an intentional action when it designs and builds the
nest with very specific purposes (to lay eggs that have a
specific size, to raise offspring). We could even think on
nest construction as an individual action as well as a
collective behavior.
Best,
Mercedes
*I take the opportunity to thank you for the invitation to
participate in this forum and to introduce myself. I am
Mercedes Menéndez, PhD candidate in Art History at the
University of Oviedo, Spain.
Enviado desde Correo
<https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> para Windows
*De: *Martin Doerr via Crm-sig <mailto:[email protected]>
*Enviado: *Tuesday, September 21, 2021 9:16 PM
*Para: *[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
*Asunto: *Re: [Crm-sig] New Issue: Non-human Actors
Dear Robert,
I support this.
I suggest the non-human Actors to go into CRMsci. It is a
straightforward extension of scope, and has been discussed
in the past. Non-human actors cannot be hold liable, and
will not report. They are obviously a sibling to the human
actors, and fall under a common generalization. In the same
way, we have generalized over physical things in CRMsci.
I think any opinion that animals in general cannot take
intentional actions has been proven non-sense. Conversely,
human actions are often enough instinct driven.
So far, I do not think we have evidence of conceptual
objects created by non-human actors. Whales may turn out
having oral traditions in the future. Bird songs are,
however, partially tradition and not innate, but we miss
the creator individual...
Best,
Martin
On 9/21/2021 5:13 PM, Robert Sanderson via Crm-sig wrote:
Dear all,
In working with our natural history museum, we have a
need to assign non-human "actors" to "activities",
which is not currently possible.
I think the easiest case to discuss is the construction
of a (collected) nest by a (known individual) bird.
We have an identity for the bird (and indeed, we have
the remains of the bird!) and we have an identity for
the nest that the bird constructed. We can estimate the
time when the nest was made, and we know exactly where
it was made (due to where it was collected from).
For example:
https://collections.peabody.yale.edu/search/Record/YPM-ORN-131036
<https://collections.peabody.yale.edu/search/Record/YPM-ORN-131036>
Or a dinosaur nest, where the adult and the eggs and
the nest are preserved.
If the bird (or dinosaur) could be an Actor, then it
would be easy - the bird carried out a Production,
during the TimeSpan, which produced the
(coughcough)MadeObject, at the Place. However the only
thing that can carry out activities is a human or group
thereof.
Similarly, the nest might have been built by a mated
pair of birds, thereby requiring a Group-like construct
for non-human actors as well.
At the moment it seems like the best we can do is
(beginning-of-existence-of-nest) P12 occurred in the
presence of (bird-as-biological-object), which seems
woefully inadequate semantically as it likely occurred
in the presence of a lot of things, including other
birds that didn't actually do anything. The closer
subproperty is P11 had participant, which we can't use
as birds cannot be actors.
This might also relate to other discussions, in particular:
* Instruments -- the instrument is somehow more
responsible for the measurement than the thing being
measured. It is at least "instrumental in" the
measurement, be it digitally or mechanically.
* Bias -- that animals cannot take intentional actions
is a pretty biased viewpoint. Canis virum mordet, not
only vir canem mordet. This might be extended to
un-observable agents -- a culture might believe that a
ghost, spirit, god, or other non-physical entity
carried out some action.
* Software "agents" -- even if the software is acting
totally deterministically at the behest of another
actor, a hard determinist might argue the same for humans.
We could add a property either something like
"instrumental in" with a broad range (Persistent Item,
as super-class of Actor?) that is less about intent and
responsibility, and more concerned with the
required-ness of the entity for the event. Or we could
go further and create some new classes between E77 and
E39 that allow limited performance of activities by non
Humans.
Rob
--
Rob Sanderson
Director for Cultural Heritage Metadata
Yale University
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--
------------------------------------
Dr. Martin Doerr
Honorary Head of the
Center for Cultural Informatics
Information Systems Laboratory
Institute of Computer Science
Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH)
N.Plastira 100, Vassilika Vouton,
GR70013 Heraklion,Crete,Greece
Vox:+30(2810)391625
Email:[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
Web-site:http://www.ics.forth.gr/isl <http://www.ics.forth.gr/isl>
--
------------------------------------
Dr. Martin Doerr
Honorary Head of the
Center for Cultural Informatics
Information Systems Laboratory
Institute of Computer Science
Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH)
N.Plastira 100, Vassilika Vouton,
GR70013 Heraklion,Crete,Greece
Vox:+30(2810)391625
Email:[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
Web-site:http://www.ics.forth.gr/isl <http://www.ics.forth.gr/isl>
--
------------------------------------
Dr. Martin Doerr
Honorary Head of the
Center for Cultural Informatics
Information Systems Laboratory
Institute of Computer Science
Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH)
N.Plastira 100, Vassilika Vouton,
GR70013 Heraklion,Crete,Greece
Vox:+30(2810)391625
Email:[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
Web-site:http://www.ics.forth.gr/isl <http://www.ics.forth.gr/isl>
_______________________________________________
Crm-sig mailing list
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
http://lists.ics.forth.gr/mailman/listinfo/crm-sig
<http://lists.ics.forth.gr/mailman/listinfo/crm-sig>
--
Rob Sanderson
Director for Cultural Heritage Metadata
Yale University
--
------------------------------------
Dr. Martin Doerr
Honorary Head of the
Center for Cultural Informatics
Information Systems Laboratory
Institute of Computer Science
Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH)
N.Plastira 100, Vassilika Vouton,
GR70013 Heraklion,Crete,Greece
Vox:+30(2810)391625
Email:[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
Web-site:http://www.ics.forth.gr/isl <http://www.ics.forth.gr/isl>
--
Rob Sanderson
Director for Cultural Heritage Metadata
Yale University
--
------------------------------------
Dr. Martin Doerr
Honorary Head of the
Center for Cultural Informatics
Information Systems Laboratory
Institute of Computer Science
Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH)
N.Plastira 100, Vassilika Vouton,
GR70013 Heraklion,Crete,Greece
Vox:+30(2810)391625
Email: [email protected]
Web-site: http://www.ics.forth.gr/isl
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