Intention as commitment toward time

in Artificial Intelligence and Law (2020), 283

In this paper we address the interplay among intention, time, and belief in dynamic environments. The first contribution is a logic for reasoning about intention, time and belief, in which assumptions of ... [more ▼]

In this paper we address the interplay among intention, time, and belief in dynamic environments. The first contribution is a logic for reasoning about intention, time and belief, in which assumptions of intentions are represented by preconditions of intended actions. Intentions and beliefs are coherent as long as these assumptions are not violated, i.e. as long as intended actions can be performed such that their preconditions hold as well. The second contribution is the formalization of what-if scenarios: what happens with intentions and beliefs if a new (possibly conflicting) intention is adopted, or a new fact is learned? An agent is committed to its intended actions as long as its belief-intention database is coherent. We conceptualize intention as commitment toward time and we develop AGM-based postulates for the iterated revision of belief-intention databases, and we prove a Katsuno-Mendelzon-style representation theorem. [less ▲]

Commitments and interaction norms in organisations

in Autonomous Agents & Multi-Agent Systems (2017), 31(2), 207-249

In an organisational setting such as an online marketplace, an entity called the ‘organisation’ or ‘institution’ defines interaction protocols, monitors agent interaction, and intervenes to enforce the ... [more ▼]

In an organisational setting such as an online marketplace, an entity called the ‘organisation’ or ‘institution’ defines interaction protocols, monitors agent interaction, and intervenes to enforce the interaction protocols. The organisation might be a software system that thus regulates the marketplace, for example. In this article we abstract over application-specific protocols and consider commitment lifecycles as generic interaction protocols. We model interaction protocols by explicitly-represented norms, such that we can operationalise the enforcement of protocols by means of norm enforcement, and we can analyse the protocols by a logical analysis of the norms. We adopt insights and methods from commitment-based approaches to agent interaction as well as from norm-based approaches to agent behaviour governance. First, we show how to use explicitly-represented norms to model commitment dynamics (lifecycles). Second, we introduce an operational semantics to operationalise norm enforcement. Third, we show how to logically analyse interaction protocols by means of commitment dynamics and norm enforcement. The model, semantics, and analysis are illustrated by a running example from a vehicle insurance domain. [less ▲]

AGM Revision of Beliefs about Action and Time

in Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (2015)

The AGM theory of belief revision is based on propositional belief sets. In this paper we develop a logic for revision of temporal belief bases, contain- ing expressions about temporal propositions (to ... [more ▼]

The AGM theory of belief revision is based on propositional belief sets. In this paper we develop a logic for revision of temporal belief bases, contain- ing expressions about temporal propositions (to- morrow it will rain), possibility (it may rain tomor- row), actions (the robot enters the room) and pre- and post-conditions of these actions. We prove the Katsuno-Mendelzon and the Darwiche-Pearl repre- sentation theorems by restricting the logic to for- mulas representing beliefs up to certain time. We illustrate our belief change model through several examples [less ▲]

Reasoning on Robot Knowledge from Discrete and Asynchronous Observations

in AAAI Spring Symposium 2014: Knowledge Representation and Reasoning in Robotics, Stanford, USA, 2015 (2014, March)

Robot knowledge of the world is created from discrete and asynchronous events received from its perception components. Proper representation and maintenance of robot knowledge is crucial to enable the use ... [more ▼]

Robot knowledge of the world is created from discrete and asynchronous events received from its perception components. Proper representation and maintenance of robot knowledge is crucial to enable the use of robot knowledge for planning, user-interaction, etc. This paper identifies some of the main issues related to the representation, maintenance and querying of robot knowledge based on discrete asynchronous events such as event-history management and synchronization, and introduces a language for simplifying developers’ job at making a suitable representation of robot knowledge. [less ▲]

A Library for Event-Processing and Adaptable Component Interactions in Autonomous Robot Software

Poster (2013, May 06)

A light-weight framework-independent software library is introduced to facilitate a modular and systematic development of sensory management components for an autonomous robot. Such components are used to ... [more ▼]

A light-weight framework-independent software library is introduced to facilitate a modular and systematic development of sensory management components for an autonomous robot. Such components are used to implement complex eventprocessing tasks such as content-based filtering, integration and transformation of sensory data. In addition, they can be used as mediators to provide a number of high-level interaction mechanisms among a robot’s software components. To this end, they enable components with subscription to their events of interest, asynchronous reception of events, maintaining necessary histories of events and querying of the histories at runtime. [less ▲]

Multi-Cycle Query Caching in Agent Programming

Scientific Conference (2013)

Event-processing in Autonomous Robot Programming

in Proceedings of the 2013 International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-agent Systems (2013)

When implementing the high-level control component of an autonomous robot, one needs to process events, generated by sensory components, to extract the information relevant to the control component. This ... [more ▼]

When implementing the high-level control component of an autonomous robot, one needs to process events, generated by sensory components, to extract the information relevant to the control component. This paper discusses the lack of support for event-processing when current agent programming languages (APLs) are used to implement the control component of autonomous robots. To address this issue, the use of information flow processing (IFP) systems is proposed to support the development of event-processing components (EPCs) for an autonomous robot. The necessary interaction mechanisms between a control component and EPCs are defined. These mechanisms allow run-time subscription to events of interest, asynchronous reception of events, maintaining necessary histories of events and run-time querying of the histories. Several implementation-related concerns for these interaction mechanisms are discussed. [less ▲]

Agent Programming Languages Requirements for Programming Cognitive Robots (extended abstract)

Scientific Conference (2012)

This paper presents various requirements for BDI-based agent programming languages to provide better support for implementing autonomous robotic control systems. Examples of such requirements are: 1 ... [more ▼]

This paper presents various requirements for BDI-based agent programming languages to provide better support for implementing autonomous robotic control systems. Examples of such requirements are: 1- Built-in support for integration with existing robotic frameworks such as ROS, 2- Real-time reactivity to events, 3- Management of heterogeneous sensory data and reasoning on complex events, and 4- Representation of complex plans and coordination of the parallel execution of plans. [less ▲]

Computational Logic in Multi-Agent Systems - 13th International Workshop, CLIMA XIII

in Computational Logic in Multi-Agent Systems - 13th International Workshop, CLIMA XIII (2012)