Computational Trust

Joana Urbano
joana.urbano@fe.up.pt

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

Trust in ANTE

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

Why Trust?
Social and economic relationships are uncertain and bring
vulnerability to the interacting partners.
Trust allows to reduce the complexity of relationships.
Following the sociological view of trust, trust allows social life
(Luhmann, 1979).

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

Why Computational Trust?

Enabler technology for the automatization & virtualization of
business:
E-procurement (B2B).
E-commerce & auctions (B2C, C2C, C2B).
Management of distributed resources (grid, cloud).

Desired feature of social networks.

It has received attention from national and EU funding:
eRep, eTrustCom, COST Action IC0801 (WG5), LIACC FCT project,

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

What is Trust?
Still no definition accepted by all.

Probably the most consensual definition:

Trust is both a positive expectation that the trustee will act as expected,
and a willingness or intention to accept vulnerability (Mayer:1995).

Some well know properties:

It depends on the evaluator (I trust X as a vendor but Y does not).

It depends on the role (I trust X as a vendor but not as a buyer).

It depends on the context (I trust X as an exporter of cotton to Europe but not as an
exporter of chiffon to the USA).

It depends on time (I used to trust X, but i do not trust it anymore).

It does not depend necessarily on reputation (I trust X despite its bad reputation).

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

Different Approaches to Trust

Psychology: trust is considered at the individual level, as a personality
trait (questionnaire surveys, other psychometric scaling techniques, trust games).
Social psychology and Sociology: trust is understood as a property of
ongoing dyads, groups, and collectivities.
Neuroscience: activation of the amygdala in kinship relationships, brain
damage and trust, etc.
Economy: how trust is affected by incentives, norms, institutions, and
other governance mechanisms.
Management and Organizations: the relation between trust, power,
opportunism and betrayal, amongst others.

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

The Computational Trust Approach

Question: how computer scientists deal with all this
diversity of trust concepts and approaches?
Answer: very badly!
Real implementations are too simplistic (Amazon.com,
eBay.com, epinions.com, etc.).
Research on computational trust tend to forget the social
nature of trust.

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

Agenda
In this talk:
1. Simple computational trust algorithms in e-commerce.
2. Overview of research on computational trust.
3. New trends on computational trust.

4. LIACCs current approach.

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

Simple Trust Systems in the Internet

Amazon.com (B2C), eBay.com (C2C)

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

Amazon.com Trust in Products

five star classification

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

10

Amazon.com Credibility of Reviewers

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

11

Amazon.com Reviewers Rank

A reviewer's rank is determined by the overall helpfulness of all their reviews,
factoring in the number of reviews they have written. More weight is given to
recent reviews.

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

12

Amazon.com Trust in Sellers

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

13

Amazon.com Trust in Sellers

Amazon Tips
Look for clues within a
sellers feedback that
indicate the following:
the ability to fulfil
and ship orders in a
timely fashion.
a sellers willingness
to resolve
transaction disputes.
an indication that
the quality of the
products shipped
matches the
description supplied
by the seller.

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

14

eBay.com Trust in Sellers

Trust on Sellers add detailed seller rankings, contact of seller, web of favorite
sellers.

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

15

eBay.com Top-Rated Sellers

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

16

eBay.com Trust in the System

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

17

Considerations About Trust in Amazon & eBay

Trust measures are simple or weighed means.

Much is left to comments written in natural language (e.g.,

delivery, quality, resolution of disputes) context is not
addressed in an automatic way.
Long-term relationships are not the pattern.
eBay foruns report retalliation cases.

A few negative classifications remove a seller from business.

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

18

Research on Computational Trust

Traditional Approaches

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

19

Traditional Approaches to Computational Trust

Trust is a Cognitive Construct: it builds on existing
past evidence about the trustees behavior
1. Alice reported that Bob was a very good tour guide when
they visited Trondheim at night
2. Jim reported that Bob was a lousy tour guide when they
visited Bergen under stormy weather

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

20

Traditional Approaches to Computational Trust

Trust is about Trustworthiness
I trust Bob as a tour guide under normal conditions
because a lot of people (and probably myself) reported
that he is trustworthy under these conditions

Trust is Contextual
I trust Bob as a tour guide under normal conditions but I
do not trust him under stormy weather

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

21

Trustworthiness Computation
How to compute the trustworthiness of this agent?
fabric
cotton
cotton
cotton
voile
voile
cotton
voile
voile
cotton
voile
voile
voile
cotton
cotton
voile
voile
voile

quantity
medium
high
medium
medium
high
high
medium
high
low
medium
medium
medium
low
high
medium
medium
medium
Joana Urbano,

del. time
big
medium
big
medium
low
medium
big
big
big
medium
big
medium
big
medium
low
big
low
April 2013

outcome
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
violate
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
violate
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
22

Trustworthiness Computation
Weighted Means by Recency
Trustworthiness of trustee is given by aggregating evidence using
weighted means by recency:
N 1

T (N )

w .v
i 0
N 1

w
i 0

, wi e

ti

d
,
ln(0.5)

Model: Fire (Huynh, Jennings, Shadbolt, 2006)

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

23

Weighted Means By Recency

N 1

d = 5, t = 16
lambda = -5/log(0.5)
wi = exp (-delta/lambda)
fabric
cotton
cotton
cotton
voile
voile
cotton
voile
voile
cotton
voile
voile
voile
cotton
cotton
voile
voile
voile

quantity
medium
high
medium
medium
high
high
medium
high
low
medium
medium
medium
low
high
medium
medium
medium

T (N )

w .v
i 0
N 1

outcome
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
violate
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
violate
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill

Joana Urbano,

v
1
1
1
1
-1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
-1
1
1
1

April 2013

w
i 0

del. time
big
medium
big
medium
low
medium
big
big
big
medium
big
medium
big
medium
low
big
low

t
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16

, wi e

ti

d
ln(0.5)

delta
16
15
14
13
12
11
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0

w
0,38
0,41
0,43
0,46
0,49
0,52
0,55
0,58
0,62
0,66
0,70
0,74
0,79
0,83
0,89
0,94
1,00
10,96
tw =

w*v
0,38
0,41
0,43
0,46
-0,49
0,52
0,55
0,58
0,62
0,66
0,70
0,74
0,79
-0,83
0,89
0,94
1,00
8,32

0,76
24

Trustworthiness Computation
Beta Reputation System
Trustworthiness and
reputation are modeled as
the expectation of a beta
PDF (Josang et al., 2002)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Beta_distribution_pdf.png

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

25

Beta Reputation System

lambda = 0,9; delta = 16
r_total = r_total + r_opinion *pow(lambda, delta-i)

fabric
cotton
cotton
cotton
voile
voile
cotton
voile
voile
cotton
voile
voile
voile
cotton
cotton
voile
voile
voile

quantity
medium
high
medium
medium
high
high
medium
high
low
medium
medium
medium
low
high
medium
medium
medium

del. time
big
medium
big
medium
low
medium
big
big
big
medium
big
medium
big
medium
low
big
low

outcome
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
violate
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
violate
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill

Joana Urbano,

r_opinion
1,0
1,0
1,0
1,0
0,0
1,0
1,0
1,0
1,0
1,0
1,0
1,0
1,0
0,0
1,0
1,0
1,0

April 2013

s_opinion
0,0
0,0
0,0
0,0
1,0
0,0
0,0
0,0
0,0
0,0
0,0
0,0
0,0
1,0
0,0
0,0
0,0

t
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16

r_total s_total
0,185
0,000
0,391
0,000
0,620
0,000
0,874
0,000
0,874
0,282
1,188
0,282
1,537
0,282
1,924
0,282
2,355
0,282
2,833
0,282
3,364
0,282
3,955
0,282
4,611
0,282
4,611
1,011
5,421
1,011
6,321
1,011
7,321
1,011
48,38
6,59
tw = 0,87

26

Trustworthiness Computation
Weighted Means by Similarity of Situation
Situation is represented as point in a multi-dimensional context space
N 1

T (N )

w .v
i 0
N 1

w
i 0

, wi e d ( c1,c 2 )

Model: CSRC (Rehak et al. 2008)

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

27

Weighted Means By Similarity of Situation

fabric
cotton
cotton
cotton
voile
voile
cotton
voile
voile
cotton
voile
voile
voile
cotton
cotton
voile
voile
voile

quantity
medium
high
medium
medium
high
high
medium
high
low
medium
medium
medium
low
high
medium
medium
medium

del. time
big
medium
big
medium
low
medium
big
big
big
medium
big
medium
big
medium
low
big
low

Joana Urbano,

outcome
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
violate
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
violate
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill

April 2013

N 1

T (N )

w .v
i 0
N 1

w
i 0

, wi e d ( c1,c 2 )

28

Weighted Means By Similarity of Situation

It may be hard to tune the distance functions!

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

29

Trustworthiness Computation
Contextual Fitness LIACCs approach to situation-aware trust.
fabric
cotton
cotton
cotton
voile
voile
cotton
voile
voile
cotton
voile
voile
voile
cotton
cotton
voile
voile
voile

quantity
medium
high
medium
medium
high
high
medium
high
low
medium
medium
medium
low
high
medium
medium
medium

del. time
big
medium
big
medium
low
medium
big
big
big
medium
big
medium
big
medium
low
big
low

outcome
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
violate
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
violate
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill

Gain( S , A) Entropy( S )

| Sv |
Entropy( Sv )
vValues ( A) | S |

quantity

low medium
fulfill

high

fulfill

dtime

low medium
violate

big

fulfill

fulfill

Failure tendency: (*, high, low)

Model: Contextual Fitness (Urbano, Rocha, Oliveira, 2010)
Joana Urbano,

April 2013

30

Trustworthiness Computation
Other approaches:
Dirichlet distributions: beta distributions for each
dimension of evidence and correlation of dimensions.
Nave Bayesian networks: P(Y|X) = (P(X|Y).P(Y))/P(X).
LIACCs approach: Sinalpha:

Model: Sinalpha (Urbano, Rocha, Oliveira, 2009)

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

31

Using Reputational Information

Bob has a good reputation as a tour guide

Is he?
Who said that?
Are these people credible?
Do they believe it?
Is Bob a good tour guide or a good guy?
etc ..

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

32

Computational Reputational
Issues on computational reputation:

Credibility of sources.
Credibility of transmitted information.
Relevance of transmitted information.
Heterogeneity (both syntactic and semantic) of the
reputation score being transmitted.
Incentives to referrals.
Bad mouthing.

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

33

Research on Computational Trust

New Trends

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

34

New Approaches Are Needed!

Traditional approaches fail to correctly model trust:
1. Trust is a socio-cognitive concept.
2. Trustworthiness is not single dimensional.
3. Trust is more than trustworthiness.

4. Approaches are evaluated using extremely simple models

of agents behavior.

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

35

Conceptual Model of Mayer et al. (1995)

Trust is more than trustworthiness, and trustworthiness is
multi-dimensional.

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

36

Computational Model of Kelton et al. (2008)

Identification, context and reputation are added.

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

37

Socio-Cognitive Model of Trust

A true computational trust model using Fuzzy Cognitive Maps,
but not entirely implemented (Castelfranchi & Falcone, 2010)

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

38

Research on Computational Trust

Our Approach

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

39

The SOLUM Framework

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

40

The Ability Evaluation Function

is obtained with Contextual Fitness

Results:

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

41

The Benevolence Evaluation Function

We claim that our model is truly social!
We analyze the past evidence in light of the relationships
existing between the trustees and the trusters
fabric
cotton
cotton
cotton
voile
voile
cotton
voile
voile
cotton
voile
voile
voile
cotton
cotton
voile
voile
voile

quantity
medium
high
medium
medium
high
high
medium
high
low
medium
medium
medium
low
high
medium
medium
medium

del. time
big
medium
big
medium
low
medium
big
big
big
medium
big
medium
big
medium
low
big
low

outcome
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
violate
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill
violate
fulfill
fulfill
fulfill

Joana Urbano,

Different benevolence stages

or benevolence relationships
may explain the different
outcomes.

April 2013

42

The Social Tuner Component

We model benevolence as the trustees attachment toward the truster

1. Get Coefficient of Benevolent Actions

2. Calculate the Trustees Benevolence

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

43

The Social Tuner Component

Trustworthiness evaluation function that understands the
stage of the relationship:

benevolence

ability

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

44

The Social Tuner Component

So far, the results are very promising!

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

45

The Integrity Tuner

We model integrity as the consistency of past actions and the accordance to what
was established

Get Coefficient of Integrity

Calculate the trustees Integrity

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

46

Evaluation of Our Approach

We proposed and formalized different models of partners behavior based
on empirical work in different areas of research.
These models considered different characteristics of trusters and trustees:

Dispositional and mutualistic benevolence, ability, integrity, value of

agreement, satisfaction with partner, value of betrayal,

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

47

Publications
A. International Journals:

Joana Urbano, Ana Paula Rocha, Eugnio Oliveira, An Approach to Computational Social Trust,
AICommunications, IOS Press, 2013, accepted February 2013.
Joana Urbano, Henrique Lopes Cardoso, Ana Paula Rocha, Eugnio Oliveira (2012), Trust and Normative
Control in Multi-Agent Systems, Advances in Distributed Computing and Artificial Intelligence Journal, Vol. I,
No. 1, July 2012, pp. 43-52.
Joana Urbano, Ana Paula Rocha, Eugnio Oliveira, A Situation-Aware Computational Trust Model for
Selecting Partners, in N.T. Nguyen (Ed.), Transactions on Computational Collective Intelligence V, LNCS 6910,
pp. 84-105, 2011, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011.

B. Book chapters:

Henrique Lopes Cardoso, Joana Urbano, Ana Paula Rocha, Antnio J. M. Castro, Eugnio Oliveira (2013).
Chap. 32: ANTE: Agreement Negotiation in Normative and Trust-enabled Environments, in S. Ossowski
(ed.), Agreement Technologies, Law, Governance and Technology Series, Volume 8, Springer, ISBN 978-94007-5582-6, pp. 549-564.
Joana Urbano, Ana Paula Rocha, Eugnio Oliveira (2013). Chap. 23: A Socio-Cognitive Perspective of Trust,
in S. Ossowski (ed.), Agreement Technologies, Law, Governance and Technology Series, Volume 8, Springer,
ISBN 978-94-007-5582-6, pp. 419-429.
Joana Urbano, Ana Paula Rocha, Eugnio Oliveira, Extracting Trustworthiness Tendencies Using the
Frequency Increase Metric, Enterprise Information Systems, LNBIP, 2011, Volume 73, Part 3, 208-221
Joana Urbano, Ana Paula Rocha and Eugnio Oliveira. "Trust Evaluation for Reliable Electronic Transactions
between Business Partners", in Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, 2012, Volume 98, Part 3,
219-237, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-28563-9_12
Joana Urbano,

April 2013

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Publications
C. International Conferences

Joana Urbano, Henrique Lopes Cardoso, Ana Paula Rocha and Eugnio Oliveira. "Trust and Normative
Control in Multi-agent Systems: An Empirical Study", in Highlights on Practical Applications of Agents and
Multi-Agent Systems, Series: Advances in Intelligent and Soft Computing, 2012, Volume 156/2012, 207214, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-28762-6_25
Henrique Lopes Cardoso, Joana Urbano, Pedro Brando, Ana Paula Rocha and Eugnio Oliveira. "ANTE:
Agreement Negotiation in Normative and Trust-Enabled Environments", in Advances on Practical
Applications of Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, Series: Advances in Intelligent and Soft Computing, 2012,
Volume 155/2012, 261-264, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-28786-2_33
Joana Urbano, Ana Paula Rocha, Eugnio Oliveira, Dynamic Agents Behavior Model for Computational
Trust. L. Antunes and H.S. Pinto (Eds.): EPIA 2011, LNAI 7026, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, pp. 536
550, 2011
Joana Urbano, Ana Paula Rocha, Eugnio Oliveira, Trust-Based Selection of Partners, C. Huemer and T.
Setzer (Eds.): EC-Web 2011, LNBIP 85, pp. 221232, 2011. Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011
Joana Urbano, Henrique Lopes Cardoso, Eugnio Oliveira (2010). Making Electronic Contracting
Operational and Trustworthy, in Advances in Artificial Intelligence Proceedings of the 12th IberoAmerican Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IBERAMIA 2010), Lecture Notes on Artificial Intelligence V.
6433, Springer, ISBN 978-3-642-16951-9, pp. 264-273, Baha Blanca, Argentina, November 1-5, 2010
Joana Urbano, Ana Paula Rocha, Eugnio Oliveira (2010). "Trustworthiness Tendency Incremental
Extraction Using Information Gain, Proceedings of the 2010 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference on
Web Intelligence and Intelligent Agent Technology, Toronto, Canada, 1-3 September, 2010, pp. 411-414.

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

49

Publications

Joana Urbano, Ana Paula Rocha and Eugnio Oliveira (2010), "In the Search of Better Deals Using Trust",
proceedings of ECCAI'10 Workshop IAT4EB, pp.25-30, July, Lisboa, Portugal.
Joana Urbano, Ana Paula Rocha, Eugnio Oliveira (2010). Refining the Trustworthiness Assessment of
Suppliers through Extraction of Stereotypes", 12th International Conference on Enterprise Information
Systems (ICEIS 2010), Funchal, Portugal, 8-12 June 2010, pp. 85-92. BEST PAPER AWARD inTrack "Artificial
Intelligence and Decision Support Systems.
Joana Urbano, Ana Paula Rocha, Eugnio Oliveira (2010). Trust Estimation Using Contextual Fitness", 4th
International KES Symposium on Agents and Multi-agent Systems Technologies and Applications, Gdynia,
Poland 23 - 25 June 2010, LNAI 6070, pp.42-51
Agnieszka Danek, Joana Urbano, Ana Paula Rocha, Eugnio Oliveira (2010). Engaging the Dynamics of Trust
in Computational Trust and Reputation Systems", 4th International KES Symposium on Agents and Multiagent Systems Technologies and Applications, Gdynia, Poland 23 - 25 June 2010, LNAI 6070, pp. 22-31
Joana Urbano, Ana Paula Rocha, Eugnio Oliveira, "A Trust Aggregation Engine that Uses Contextual
Information", EUMAS 2010- 7th European Workshop on Multi-Agent Systems, 12pp., Ayia Napa, Cyprus,
December 2009.
Joana Urbano, Ana Paula Rocha and Eugnio Oliveira. "Computing Confidence Values: Does Trust Dynamics
Matter?", in L. Seabra Lopes, N. Lau, P. Mariano & L. M. Rocha (eds.), Progress in Artificial Intelligence 14th
Portuguese Conference on Artificial Intelligence (EPIA 2009), Springer, ISBN 978-3-642-04685-8, pp. 520-531,
Aveiro, Portugal, October 12-15, 2009.
Joana Urbano, Ana Paula Rocha, and Eugenio Oliveira (2009) "Trust Evaluation for Reliable Electronic
Transactions between Business Partners" in Klaus Fischer, Jorg P. Muller, James Odell, Arne J. Berre (eds.),
Proceedings of The AAMAS09 Workshop on Agent-based Technologies and applications for enterprise
interOPerability, pp. 85-96, Budapest, Hungary, May 12, 2009.
Joana Urbano,

April 2013

50

People Working on Trust at LIACC

Active:
Joana Urbano (PhD student)
Ana Paula Rocha and Eugnio Oliveira (Coordinators)
Henrique Lopes Cardoso (trust & norms)

Past collaboration:
Agnieszka Danek (3 month grant)
Filipe Silva (MIEIC dissertation)
Srgio Moura (MIEIC dissertation)

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

51

Obrigada!
(joana.urbano@fe.up.pt)

Joana Urbano,

April 2013

52