Normative Testimony and Belief Functions: A Formal Theory of Norm Learning

The ability to learn another’s moral beliefs is necessary for all social agents. It allows us to predict their behavior and is a prerequisite to correcting their beliefs if they are incorrect. To make AI systems more socially competent, a formal theory for learning internal normative beliefs is thus needed. However, to the best of our knowledge, a philosophically justified formal theory for this process does not yet exist. This paper begins the development of such a theory, focusing on learning from testimony. We make four main contributions. First, we provide a set of axioms that any such theory must satisfy. Second, we provide justification for belief functions, as opposed to traditional probability theory, for modeling norm learning. Third, we construct a novel learning function that satisfies these axioms. Fourth, we provide a complexity analysis of this formalism and proof that deontic rules are sound under its semantics. This paper thus serves as a theoretical contribution towards modeling learning norms from testimony, paving the road towards more social AI systems.