Francisco Andrade | Universidade do Minho (original) (raw)
Papers by Francisco Andrade
Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Pattern Recognition in Information Systems, 2004
Electronic Contracting as an object of legal studies is getting more and more complex. Computers ... more Electronic Contracting as an object of legal studies is getting more and more complex. Computers are currently being used not only as a way of searching and processing information, but also as communication tools, as automatic operators and already as a way of developing and accessing new forms of intelligent behaviour through the use of intelligent devices. New ways of electronic communicating and contracting have appeared and with them different kinds of interactions that must be analysed in electronic contracting: human interaction through electronic devices, human interaction with electronic devices, automated computer interaction and intelligent computer interaction. This led Brazilian legal doctrine to establish a specific way of classifying electronic contracts: Interpersonal Electronic Contracting, when computer is used as a mere communication tool, allowing both simultaneous (through Chat, Video-Conference) and non-simultaneous (through electronic mail, mobile phone written messages) contracting; Interactive Electronic Contracting, when interaction is effected between a human party and an informatics system, either through means of semiautomatic interactive connection (a natural person interacting with a previously programmed device automatically "declaring the will of its owner") or through means of human communication with an "intelligent device"; and Inter-systemic Electronic Contracting, when offer and acceptance derive from an electronic dialogue (and acting) between electronic systems or devices which are able to act on their own, without any human intervention. As far as Inter-systemic Electronic Contracting is concerned we can also distinguish two important subgroups: "automatic inter-systemic electronic contracting", as the informatics systems on their own execute in an automatic way the instructions previously incorporated in the programme (EDI), and "intelligent inter-systemic electronic contracting", for the special case of electronic devices contracting through the only intervention and interaction of autonomous intelligent systems, capable of acting, learning, reasoning, modifying program instructions and taking decisions. Inter-systemic Electronic Contracting is most challenging for legal theory, especially in what declaration of will and consent are concerned. In all the other above mentioned kinds of contracts the parties can still totally control the process of contract formation, either when both parties actually perform the acts embodying offer and acceptance, or at least when one party electronically "adhere" to contractual clauses predisposed and offered to the public by the other party. But in Inter-systemic Electronic Contracting, the whole process of communication is "between applications" without any human intervention. As far as "automatic inter-systemic contracting" is concerned, there are two main ways of facing the problem of consent: either by requiring an expression of will for each message exchanged, which lead us to the question of the electronic or digital signature (however, these transactions require full automated process, which means that it would be completely useless to require a personally digitised signature for each message); or by having a single expression
Signal Processing for Security Technologies, 2016
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this p... more The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
Virtual environments, such as Online Dispute Resolution, don’t have the rich context of tradition... more Virtual environments, such as Online Dispute Resolution, don’t have the rich context of traditional environments do. We are developing a computational environment that can better support the decision-making process of experts by providing access to meaningful context information, allowing the intervenor to take better supported decisions. The resulting system is able to transparently acquire information about user’s state, including stress or conflict resolution style.
IFIP — The International Federation for Information Processing
Recent trends in the field of Artificial Intelligence, brought along new ways of formalizing and ... more Recent trends in the field of Artificial Intelligence, brought along new ways of formalizing and expressing wills and declarations. Its application to Virtual Enterprises requires an analysis of the interactions among agents, frameworks and users, as well as technical and legal analysis, in order to discover the rules to be applied, to solve a particular problem under a prospective scenario. Credibility, trust and security issues must be taken under consideration, especially concerning authenticity, confidentiality, integrity and nonrepudiation. In order to increase the use of agents in Virtual Enterprises, besides the analysis and research of legal solutions in the commercial arena, it is essential to assure that agents will meet requirements of credibility and trust, insuring a transparent and secure way for their commercial acting, now capable of generating legal relations. This paper shows how to construct a dynamic virtual world of complex and interacting entities or agents, in which fitness is judged by a quality of information criterion.
The progressive aging of the population requires new kinds of social and medical intervention and... more The progressive aging of the population requires new kinds of social and medical intervention and the availability of different services provided to the elder population. New applications have been developed and some services are now provided at home, allowing the older people to stay home instead of having to stay in hospitals. But an adequate response to the needs of the users will imply a high percentage of use of personal data and information, including the building up and maintenance of user profiles, feeding the systems with the data and information needed for a proactive intervention in scheduling of events in which the user may be involved. Fundamental Rights may be at stake, so a legal analysis must also be considered.
Nas últimas décadas, a expectativa de vida aumentou exponencialmente. A combinação desse aumento ... more Nas últimas décadas, a expectativa de vida aumentou exponencialmente. A combinação desse aumento na esperança média de vida e de uma simultânea diminuição do número de nascimentos acarretou profundas modificações no modo como as pessoas vivem o seu quotidiano 1. Há uma evidente necessidade de repensar o planeamento e a prestação dos cuidados de saúde, de modo a melhorar a qualidade de vida do ser humano comum, em especial dos idosos. As tecnologias e as ciências da computação vêm progredindo no sentido do desenvolvimento de novas aplicações nos domínios médico e social, como é o caso das aplicações de software de monitorização, passíveis de serem usadas para auxiliar o utilizador na execução das suas tarefas quotidianas 2 .
Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications, 2009
The advances observed in the last years in telecommunication technologies rapidly brought along n... more The advances observed in the last years in telecommunication technologies rapidly brought along new ways of doing business. This new reality, however, has not been so rapidly followed by the entities responsible for dealing with the conflicts that arise from these interactions, now undertaken in an electronic format. Traditional paper-based courts, designed for the industrial era, are now outdated. The answer to this problem may rely on the new tools that can be built using new artifacts from fields such as Artificial Intelligence. Using these tools the parties can simulate outcomes, thus having a better notion of the possible consequences of a legal dispute, namely in terms of the Best and Worst Alternative to Negotiated Agreements. In this paper, we present our agent-based architecture for such a tool, UMCourt, placing special emphasis on a particular agent that, based on the concept of legal precedent, gives its users a set of possible outcomes of a case, based on the observation of past similar cases and learns new cases in order to enrich its knowledge base about the Portuguese labor law.
Revista Democracia Digital E Governo Eletronico, 2014
This contribution presents a new approach to online dispute resolution. In this article we aim to... more This contribution presents a new approach to online dispute resolution. In this article we aim to assess whether the synergy and the performativity of Ambient Intelligent Systems (AmI), by inserting sensors in mobile devices that are familiar to us, can enhance the communication and the decision-making process in online dispute resolution. With these new contributions, we provide a perspective of the main legal implications of using this ubiquitous technology in ODR. We will portray the main criticisms and concerns addressed to Ambient Intelligence and we conceptualize them in the prism of online mediation. We will examine the relevance, applicability and adequacy of privacy and data protection legislation in the prospect of the emerging challenges of AmI.
Proceedings of the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law, 2007
1. INTRODUCTION According to Portuguese Law (Decree 7/2004 article 33) the general rules on error... more 1. INTRODUCTION According to Portuguese Law (Decree 7/2004 article 33) the general rules on error in electronic contracting without human intervention will apply only in case of human error in programming (it will be applied the rules considered for human error in the ...
The use of intelligent software agents brings along a lot of new issues in what contracting is co... more The use of intelligent software agents brings along a lot of new issues in what contracting is concerned. Actually, to speak about contracts there must be two or more declarations of will, containing a consensual agreement, consisting of an offer and of an acceptance. But intelligent software agents operate in electronic commerce without any direct intervention of humans, and they have a control on their own actions and on their own inner state. So, legal difficulties obviously arise in such situations of contracting through the only intervention and interaction of autonomous intelligent systems. Thus being, the analysis of the process of formation of will and of issuing of declaration in electronic contracts negotiated (and eventually performed) by electronic software agents will be crucial to the development of intelligent inter-systemic electronic contracting. But, may the the rules of will defects be adapted to software agent contracting?
Global Approaches and Issues, 2010
Inter-systemic contracting may be based upon autonomous intelligent behaviour. Autonomy is an imp... more Inter-systemic contracting may be based upon autonomous intelligent behaviour. Autonomy is an important advantage of software agents. Yet, it brings along several issues concerning the legal consideration (e.g. legal personality/attribution) and the legal consequences of software agent's behaviour. The intervention of software agents in corporate bodies and the consideration of its roles must also be referred. All this intends interactions based on contracts and relations of trust, at an individual, at a community and at a systemic level. In this regard, it does make sense to speak of the relation between good faith and trust in inter-systemic contracting. And at the systemic level there is a need to focus on special protocols intended to enhance trust in electronic commerce. Smart contracts may be considered in this respect as a way of enhancing trust and of achieving enforcement in electronic contracting. t © 2010, IGI Global.
Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications, 2015
IFIP International Federation for Information Processing, 2004
The Law has long been recognizing that, besides natural persons, other entities socially engaged ... more The Law has long been recognizing that, besides natural persons, other entities socially engaged must also be subject of rights and obligations. Western laws usually recognize Corporate Bodies as having legal personality and capacity for every right and obligation needed or convenient to the prosecution of its social goals. But can we foresee a similar attribution of such a regime to software agents? In other words, are intelligent software agents capable of being personified? One of the main characteristics of a personality is the existence of a physical being or organization provided with its own will. In that sense, intelligent software agents are quite close to human beings. Indeed, they have a physical existence, and they have the capability of learning and of having a will of their own.
Global Approaches and Issues, 2010
The growing use of telematic ways of communication and of the new developments of Artificial Inte... more The growing use of telematic ways of communication and of the new developments of Artificial Intelligence, brought along new ways of doing business, now in an electronic format, and requiring a new legal approach. Thus, there is an obvious need for legal changes and adaptations, not only concerning a new approach of traditional legal institutes, but also concerning a need for new developments in procedural means.
Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Pattern Recognition in Information Systems, 2004
Electronic Contracting as an object of legal studies is getting more and more complex. Computers ... more Electronic Contracting as an object of legal studies is getting more and more complex. Computers are currently being used not only as a way of searching and processing information, but also as communication tools, as automatic operators and already as a way of developing and accessing new forms of intelligent behaviour through the use of intelligent devices. New ways of electronic communicating and contracting have appeared and with them different kinds of interactions that must be analysed in electronic contracting: human interaction through electronic devices, human interaction with electronic devices, automated computer interaction and intelligent computer interaction. This led Brazilian legal doctrine to establish a specific way of classifying electronic contracts: Interpersonal Electronic Contracting, when computer is used as a mere communication tool, allowing both simultaneous (through Chat, Video-Conference) and non-simultaneous (through electronic mail, mobile phone written messages) contracting; Interactive Electronic Contracting, when interaction is effected between a human party and an informatics system, either through means of semiautomatic interactive connection (a natural person interacting with a previously programmed device automatically "declaring the will of its owner") or through means of human communication with an "intelligent device"; and Inter-systemic Electronic Contracting, when offer and acceptance derive from an electronic dialogue (and acting) between electronic systems or devices which are able to act on their own, without any human intervention. As far as Inter-systemic Electronic Contracting is concerned we can also distinguish two important subgroups: "automatic inter-systemic electronic contracting", as the informatics systems on their own execute in an automatic way the instructions previously incorporated in the programme (EDI), and "intelligent inter-systemic electronic contracting", for the special case of electronic devices contracting through the only intervention and interaction of autonomous intelligent systems, capable of acting, learning, reasoning, modifying program instructions and taking decisions. Inter-systemic Electronic Contracting is most challenging for legal theory, especially in what declaration of will and consent are concerned. In all the other above mentioned kinds of contracts the parties can still totally control the process of contract formation, either when both parties actually perform the acts embodying offer and acceptance, or at least when one party electronically "adhere" to contractual clauses predisposed and offered to the public by the other party. But in Inter-systemic Electronic Contracting, the whole process of communication is "between applications" without any human intervention. As far as "automatic inter-systemic contracting" is concerned, there are two main ways of facing the problem of consent: either by requiring an expression of will for each message exchanged, which lead us to the question of the electronic or digital signature (however, these transactions require full automated process, which means that it would be completely useless to require a personally digitised signature for each message); or by having a single expression
Signal Processing for Security Technologies, 2016
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this p... more The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
Virtual environments, such as Online Dispute Resolution, don’t have the rich context of tradition... more Virtual environments, such as Online Dispute Resolution, don’t have the rich context of traditional environments do. We are developing a computational environment that can better support the decision-making process of experts by providing access to meaningful context information, allowing the intervenor to take better supported decisions. The resulting system is able to transparently acquire information about user’s state, including stress or conflict resolution style.
IFIP — The International Federation for Information Processing
Recent trends in the field of Artificial Intelligence, brought along new ways of formalizing and ... more Recent trends in the field of Artificial Intelligence, brought along new ways of formalizing and expressing wills and declarations. Its application to Virtual Enterprises requires an analysis of the interactions among agents, frameworks and users, as well as technical and legal analysis, in order to discover the rules to be applied, to solve a particular problem under a prospective scenario. Credibility, trust and security issues must be taken under consideration, especially concerning authenticity, confidentiality, integrity and nonrepudiation. In order to increase the use of agents in Virtual Enterprises, besides the analysis and research of legal solutions in the commercial arena, it is essential to assure that agents will meet requirements of credibility and trust, insuring a transparent and secure way for their commercial acting, now capable of generating legal relations. This paper shows how to construct a dynamic virtual world of complex and interacting entities or agents, in which fitness is judged by a quality of information criterion.
The progressive aging of the population requires new kinds of social and medical intervention and... more The progressive aging of the population requires new kinds of social and medical intervention and the availability of different services provided to the elder population. New applications have been developed and some services are now provided at home, allowing the older people to stay home instead of having to stay in hospitals. But an adequate response to the needs of the users will imply a high percentage of use of personal data and information, including the building up and maintenance of user profiles, feeding the systems with the data and information needed for a proactive intervention in scheduling of events in which the user may be involved. Fundamental Rights may be at stake, so a legal analysis must also be considered.
Nas últimas décadas, a expectativa de vida aumentou exponencialmente. A combinação desse aumento ... more Nas últimas décadas, a expectativa de vida aumentou exponencialmente. A combinação desse aumento na esperança média de vida e de uma simultânea diminuição do número de nascimentos acarretou profundas modificações no modo como as pessoas vivem o seu quotidiano 1. Há uma evidente necessidade de repensar o planeamento e a prestação dos cuidados de saúde, de modo a melhorar a qualidade de vida do ser humano comum, em especial dos idosos. As tecnologias e as ciências da computação vêm progredindo no sentido do desenvolvimento de novas aplicações nos domínios médico e social, como é o caso das aplicações de software de monitorização, passíveis de serem usadas para auxiliar o utilizador na execução das suas tarefas quotidianas 2 .
Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications, 2009
The advances observed in the last years in telecommunication technologies rapidly brought along n... more The advances observed in the last years in telecommunication technologies rapidly brought along new ways of doing business. This new reality, however, has not been so rapidly followed by the entities responsible for dealing with the conflicts that arise from these interactions, now undertaken in an electronic format. Traditional paper-based courts, designed for the industrial era, are now outdated. The answer to this problem may rely on the new tools that can be built using new artifacts from fields such as Artificial Intelligence. Using these tools the parties can simulate outcomes, thus having a better notion of the possible consequences of a legal dispute, namely in terms of the Best and Worst Alternative to Negotiated Agreements. In this paper, we present our agent-based architecture for such a tool, UMCourt, placing special emphasis on a particular agent that, based on the concept of legal precedent, gives its users a set of possible outcomes of a case, based on the observation of past similar cases and learns new cases in order to enrich its knowledge base about the Portuguese labor law.
Revista Democracia Digital E Governo Eletronico, 2014
This contribution presents a new approach to online dispute resolution. In this article we aim to... more This contribution presents a new approach to online dispute resolution. In this article we aim to assess whether the synergy and the performativity of Ambient Intelligent Systems (AmI), by inserting sensors in mobile devices that are familiar to us, can enhance the communication and the decision-making process in online dispute resolution. With these new contributions, we provide a perspective of the main legal implications of using this ubiquitous technology in ODR. We will portray the main criticisms and concerns addressed to Ambient Intelligence and we conceptualize them in the prism of online mediation. We will examine the relevance, applicability and adequacy of privacy and data protection legislation in the prospect of the emerging challenges of AmI.
Proceedings of the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law, 2007
1. INTRODUCTION According to Portuguese Law (Decree 7/2004 article 33) the general rules on error... more 1. INTRODUCTION According to Portuguese Law (Decree 7/2004 article 33) the general rules on error in electronic contracting without human intervention will apply only in case of human error in programming (it will be applied the rules considered for human error in the ...
The use of intelligent software agents brings along a lot of new issues in what contracting is co... more The use of intelligent software agents brings along a lot of new issues in what contracting is concerned. Actually, to speak about contracts there must be two or more declarations of will, containing a consensual agreement, consisting of an offer and of an acceptance. But intelligent software agents operate in electronic commerce without any direct intervention of humans, and they have a control on their own actions and on their own inner state. So, legal difficulties obviously arise in such situations of contracting through the only intervention and interaction of autonomous intelligent systems. Thus being, the analysis of the process of formation of will and of issuing of declaration in electronic contracts negotiated (and eventually performed) by electronic software agents will be crucial to the development of intelligent inter-systemic electronic contracting. But, may the the rules of will defects be adapted to software agent contracting?
Global Approaches and Issues, 2010
Inter-systemic contracting may be based upon autonomous intelligent behaviour. Autonomy is an imp... more Inter-systemic contracting may be based upon autonomous intelligent behaviour. Autonomy is an important advantage of software agents. Yet, it brings along several issues concerning the legal consideration (e.g. legal personality/attribution) and the legal consequences of software agent's behaviour. The intervention of software agents in corporate bodies and the consideration of its roles must also be referred. All this intends interactions based on contracts and relations of trust, at an individual, at a community and at a systemic level. In this regard, it does make sense to speak of the relation between good faith and trust in inter-systemic contracting. And at the systemic level there is a need to focus on special protocols intended to enhance trust in electronic commerce. Smart contracts may be considered in this respect as a way of enhancing trust and of achieving enforcement in electronic contracting. t © 2010, IGI Global.
Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications, 2015
IFIP International Federation for Information Processing, 2004
The Law has long been recognizing that, besides natural persons, other entities socially engaged ... more The Law has long been recognizing that, besides natural persons, other entities socially engaged must also be subject of rights and obligations. Western laws usually recognize Corporate Bodies as having legal personality and capacity for every right and obligation needed or convenient to the prosecution of its social goals. But can we foresee a similar attribution of such a regime to software agents? In other words, are intelligent software agents capable of being personified? One of the main characteristics of a personality is the existence of a physical being or organization provided with its own will. In that sense, intelligent software agents are quite close to human beings. Indeed, they have a physical existence, and they have the capability of learning and of having a will of their own.
Global Approaches and Issues, 2010
The growing use of telematic ways of communication and of the new developments of Artificial Inte... more The growing use of telematic ways of communication and of the new developments of Artificial Intelligence, brought along new ways of doing business, now in an electronic format, and requiring a new legal approach. Thus, there is an obvious need for legal changes and adaptations, not only concerning a new approach of traditional legal institutes, but also concerning a need for new developments in procedural means.