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arXiv · 2402.01673

Legal and ethical implications of applications based on agreement technologies: the case of auction-based road intersections

José-Antonio Santos·Alberto Fernández·Mar Moreno-Rebato·Holger Billhardt·José-A. Rodríguez-García·Sascha Ossowski
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Abstract

Agreement Technologies refer to a novel paradigm for the construction of distributed intelligent systems, where autonomous software agents negotiate to reach agreements on behalf of their human users. Smart Cities are a key application domain for Agreement Technologies. While several proofs of concept and prototypes exist, such systems are still far from ready for being deployed in the real-world. In this paper we focus on a novel method for managing elements of smart road infrastructures of the future, namely the case of auction-based road intersections. We show that, even though the key technological elements for such methods are already available, there are multiple non-technical issues that need to be tackled before they can be applied in practice. For this purpose, we analyse legal and ethical implications of auction-based road intersections in the context of international regulations and from the standpoint of the Spanish legislation. From this exercise, we extract a set of required modifications, of both technical and legal nature, which need to be addressed so as to pave the way for the potential real-world deployment of such systems in a future that may not be too far away.

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José-Antonio Santos, Alberto Fernández, Mar Moreno-Rebato, Holger Billhardt, José-A. Rodríguez-García, Sascha Ossowski. 2024-01-18. Legal and ethical implications of applications based on agreement technologies: the case of auction-based road intersections. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10506-019-09259-8

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