System to establish trust between policy systems and users

Abstract

A system and method are provided to establish trust between a user and a policy system that generates recommended actions in accordance with specified policies. Trust is introduced into the policy-based system by assigning a value to each execution of each policy with respect to the policy-based system, called the instantaneous trust index. The instantaneous trust indices for each one of the policies, for the each execution of a given policy or for both are combined into the overall trust index for a given policy or for a given policy-based system. The recommended actions are processed in accordance with the level or trust associated with a given policy as expressed by the trust indices. Manual user input is provided to monitor or change the recommended actions. In addition, reinforcement learning algorithms are used to further enhance the level of trust between the user and the policy-based system.

1 . A method for incorporating user trust into a policy-based system, the method comprising: 
 identifying at least one policy governing operational aspects of an application;    determining a level of trust associated with using the identified policy to govern the operational aspects of the application; and    using the determined level of trust to select an operational trust state that defines a level of autonomy with which the policy operates to govern operational states of the application.    
   
   
       2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the step of identifying at least one policy further comprises identifying a plurality of polices, each policy capable of governing operational aspects of the application, and the step of determining a level of trust further comprises determining a level of trust for all identified policies.  
   
   
       3 . The method of  claim 2 , further comprising combining each level of trust from each identified policy into an overall trust level.  
   
   
       4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the step of determining a level of trust further comprises determining a new level of trust upon each use of the policy to govern operational aspects of the application.  
   
   
       5 . The method of  claim 4 , further comprising aggregating each new level of trust into an overall trust level.  
   
   
       6 . The method of  claim 5 , wherein the step of using the determined level of trust further comprises using the overall trust level to dictate the operational trust state that defines the level of autonomy with which the policy operates to govern operational states of the application.  
   
   
       7 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising identifying at least one policy recommended action to affect the operational aspects of the application; 
 wherein the step of determining the level of trust further comprises identifying any modifications made to the policy recommended action prior to implementation of the policy recommended action to affect operational aspects of the application.    
   
   
       8 . The method of  claim 7 , wherein the step of determining the level of trust further comprises calculating an instantaneous trust index using the identified modifications.  
   
   
       9 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein the step of calculating the instantaneous trust index further comprises normalizing the instantaneous trust index to a value between zero and one.  
   
   
       10 . The method of  claim 7 , wherein he step of identifying the modifications comprises identifying a quantity of modifications made, a quality of each modification made and combinations thereof.  
   
   
       11 . The method of  claim 7 , further comprising identifying a plurality of policy recommended actions to affect the operational aspects of the application, wherein the step of determining the level of trust further comprises identifying a quantity of modifications made to the recommended actions prior to implementation, a quality of each modification made to the recommended actions prior to implementation, a quantity of recommended actions implemented without modification and a quantity of recommended actions discarded without being implemented, and calculating an instantaneous trust index using the identified modifications.  
   
   
       12 . The method of  claim 7 , wherein the step of determining the level of trust further comprises identifying any modifications made to the policy recommended action prior to each one of a plurality of implementations of the policy recommended action to affect operational aspects of the application, and calculating a separate instantaneous trust index for each one of the plurality of implementations using the identified modifications associated with that modification.  
   
   
       13 . The method of  claim 12 , further comprising calculating an overall trust index using all of the separate instantaneous indices.  
   
   
       14 . The method of  claim 13 , further comprising normalizing the overall trust index to have a value between zero and one.  
   
   
       15 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising using reinforcement learning to maximize the level of trust.  
   
   
       16 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the step of using the determined level of trust to select an operational trust state further comprising selecting the operational trust state from a plurality of operational trust states.  
   
   
       17 . The method of  claim 16 , wherein the step of selecting the operational trust state further comprises selecting the operational trust state from a fully supervised trust state, a partially modifiable trust state or an unsupervised full trust state.  
   
   
       18 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising increasing the selected operational trust state in response to an increase in the level of trust.  
   
   
       19 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising decreasing the operational trust state in response to a decrease in the level of trust.  
   
   
       20 . The method of  claim 1 , associating the level of trust with the identified policy, and using the associated level as a parameter to determine when to select the identified policy to govern the operational aspects of the application.  
   
   
       21 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the step determining the level of trust comprises using user-defined criteria to determine the level of trust.  
   
   
       22 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising associating the determined level of trust with an operating mode of the policy-based system and modifying the level of trust by changing the operating mode.  
   
   
       23 . The method of  claim 7 , further comprising assigning a trust weighted value to each policy recommended action to maximize a likelihood of the policy being accepted by a user and to increase an overall trust level of the policy-based system.  
   
   
       24  The method of  claim 1 , further comprising displaying the determine level of trust for the policy and using the displayed level of trust in selecting the policy for use in governing the operational aspects of the application.  
   
   
       25 . A computer readable medium containing a computer executable code that when read by a computer causes the computer to perform a method for incorporating user trust into a policy-based system, the method comprising: 
 identifying at least one policy governing operational aspects of an application;    determining a level of trust associated with using the identified policy to govern the operational aspects of the application; and    using the determined level of trust to select an operational trust state that defines a level of autonomy with which the policy operates to govern operational states of the application.    
   
   
       26 . The computer readable medium of  claim 25 , wherein the step of determining a level of trust further comprises determining a new level of trust upon each use of the policy to govern operational aspects of the application.  
   
   
       27 . The computer readable medium of  claim 26 , further comprising aggregating each new level of trust into an overall trust level.  
   
   
       28 . The computer readable medium of  claim 25 , further comprising identifying at least one policy recommended action to affect the operational aspects of the application; 
 wherein the step of determining the level of trust further comprises identifying any modifications made to the policy recommended action prior to implementation of the policy recommended action to affect operational aspects of the application.    
   
   
       29 . The computer readable medium of  claim 28 , wherein the step of determining the level of trust further comprises calculating an instantaneous trust index using the identified modifications.  
   
   
       30 . The computer readable medium of  claim 29 , wherein the step of calculating the instantaneous trust index further comprises normalizing the instantaneous trust index to a value between zero and one.