Ethical Reward Machine

The Ethical Reward Machine investigates reward design involving ethical constraints with reinforcement learning. Designed to promote good behaviour across specific domains, such as simulated driving and search-and-rescue scenarios, the Ethical Reward Machine explores ethical constraints based on Act Deontology and Utilitarianism. Our contribution to the literature is a novel algorithmic pipeline integrating ethical constraints into reinforcement learning through symbolic language. Our findings indicate ethical principles impact the system significantly if there is a dilemma, and that incorporating ethical principles does not increase runtime. Therefore, our results suggest that ethical considerations do not substantially burden computational resources. Ultimately, the overarching objective is to develop and validate a learning framework that ensures AI alignment with human learning and ethical policies.