Dynamic Specifications for Norm-Governed Systems

We have been developing a framework for executable specification of norm-governed multi-agent systems. In this framework, specification is a design-time activity; moreover, there is no support for runtime modification of the specification. Due to environmental, social, or other conditions, however, it is often desirable, or even necessary, to alter the system specification during the system execution. In this chapter we extend our framework by allowing for ‘dynamic specifications’, that is, specifications that may be modified at run-time by the members of a system. The framework extension is motivated by Brewka’s ‘dynamic argument systems’ — argument systems in which the rules of order may become the topic of the debate. We illustrate our framework for dynamic specifications by presenting: (i) a dynamic specification of an argumentation protocol, and (ii) an execution of this protocol in which the participating agents modify the protocol specification.