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11 - Actions and agents

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2014

By
Eduardo Alonso
Edited by
Keith Frankish  and
William M. Ramsey
Eduardo Alonso
Affiliation:
City University London
Keith Frankish
Affiliation:
The Open University, Milton Keynes
William M. Ramsey
Affiliation:
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
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Summary

Introduction

Classical artificial intelligence (AI) approaches to action tended to focus on single, isolated software systems that acted in a relatively inflexible way, automatically following pre-set rules. However, new technologies and software applications have created a need for artificial entities that are more autonomous, flexible, and adaptive, and that operate as social entities in multi-agent systems. This chapter introduces and surveys this emerging agent-centered AI and highlights the importance of developing theories of action, learning, and negotiation in multi-agent scenarios such as the internet.

Action in AI

Historically, the “Physical Symbol System Hypothesis” in AI (Newell and Simon 1976) has been embedded in so-called deliberative systems. Such systems are characterized by containing symbolic models of the world, and decisions about which actions to perform are made via manipulation of these symbols. To get an AI system to “act” it is enough to give it a logical representation of a theory of action (how systems make decisions and act accordingly) and get it to do a bit of theorem proving.

Keywords

social behaviortelecommunications systemsbusiness process managementmulti-agent behaviormulti-agent learningtheory of actionautonomous behavioradaptive behavioragent-centered artificial intelligence
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Artificial Intelligence , pp. 232 - 246
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2014

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  • Actions and agents
  • Edited by Keith Frankish, The Open University, Milton Keynes, William M. Ramsey, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
  • Book: The Cambridge Handbook of Artificial Intelligence
  • Online publication: 05 July 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139046855.015
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  • Actions and agents
  • Edited by Keith Frankish, The Open University, Milton Keynes, William M. Ramsey, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
  • Book: The Cambridge Handbook of Artificial Intelligence
  • Online publication: 05 July 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139046855.015
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Actions and agents
  • Edited by Keith Frankish, The Open University, Milton Keynes, William M. Ramsey, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
  • Book: The Cambridge Handbook of Artificial Intelligence
  • Online publication: 05 July 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139046855.015
Available formats
×