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Regulating autonomous agents facing conflicting objectives : a command and control example

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Smith, J. Q. and Dodd, Lorraine (2011) Regulating autonomous agents facing conflicting objectives : a command and control example. Working Paper. Coventry: University of Warwick. Centre for Research in Statistical Methodology. Working papers, Vol.2011 (No.12).

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Official URL: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/statistics/crism...

Abstract

UK military commanders have a degree of devolved decision
authority delegated from command and control (C2) regulators,
and they are trained and expected to act rationally and accountably. Therefore from a Bayesian perspective they should be subjective expected utility maximizers. In fact they largely appear
to be so. However when current tactical objectives conflict with
broader campaign objective there is a strong risk that fielded
commanders will lose rationality and coherence. By systematically analysing the geometry of their expected utilities, arising
from a utility function with two attributes, we demonstrate in
this paper that even when a remote C2 regulator can predict
only the likely broad shape of her agents' marginal utility functions it is still often possible for her to identify robustly those
settings where the commander is at risk of making inappropriate
decisions.

Item Type:

Working or Discussion Paper (Working Paper)

Subjects:

Q Science > QA Mathematics
U Military Science > U Military Science (General)

Divisions:

Faculty of Science > Statistics

Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):

Bayesian statistical decision theory, Command of troops -- Mathematical models, Tactics -- Mathematical models

Series Name:

Working papers

Publisher:

University of Warwick. Centre for Research in Statistical Methodology

Place of Publication:

Coventry

Official Date:

2011

Dates:

Date	Event
2011	Published

Volume:

Vol.2011

Number:

No.12

Number of Pages:

Status:

Not Peer Reviewed

Access rights to Published version:

Open Access

References:

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tional Command and Control Research and Technology Symposium June
Washington
[2] Dodd, L.(1997), "Command decision studies for future conflict" DERA
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[3] Dodd, L. Mo¤at, J. and Smith, J.Q.(2006) "Discontinuities in decision-
making when objective conflict: a military command decision case
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[4] Dodd, L. and Smith, J.Q. (2010) "Devolving Command Decisions in
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[5] French, S. and Rios Insua, D.(2000) "Statistical Decision Theory" Arnold
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[11] Smith, J.Q.(2010) "Bayesian Decision Analysis: Principles and Practice"
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[12] Zeeman E.C.(1977) "Catastrophe Theory: Selected Papers" Addison
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