Skip to main content

Prioritized Goals and Subgoals in a Logical Account of Goal Change – A Preliminary Report

  • Conference paper

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 5948))

Abstract

Most previous logical accounts of goal change do not deal with prioritized goals and do not handle subgoals and their dynamics properly. Many are restricted to achievement goals. In this paper, we develop a logical account of goal change that addresses these deficiencies. In our account, we do not drop lower priority goals permanently when they become inconsistent with other goals and the agent’s knowledge; rather, we make such goals inactive. We ensure that the agent’s chosen goals/intentions are consistent with each other and the agent’s knowledge. When the world changes, the agent recomputes her chosen goals and some inactive goals may become active again. This ensures that our agent maximizes her utility. We also propose an approach for handling subgoals and their dynamics. We prove that the proposed account has some intuitively desirable properties.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Buying options

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Cohen, P.R., Levesque, H.J.: Intention is Choice with Commitment. Artificial Intelligence 42(2-3), 213–361 (1990)

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  2. Sadek, M.D.: A Study in the Logic of Intention. In: Third Intl. Conf. on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR&R 1992), Cambridge, MA, pp. 462–473 (1992)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Konolige, K., Pollack, M.E.: A Representationalist Theory of Intention. In: Thirteenth Intl. J. Conf. on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI 1993), Chambéry, France, pp. 390–395 (1993)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Singh, M.P.: Multiagent Systems – A Theoretical Framework for Intentions, Know-How, and Communications. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 799. Springer, Heidelberg (1994)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Shapiro, S., Lespérance, Y., Levesque, H.J.: Goals and Rational Action in the Situation Calculus - A Preliminary Report. In: Working Notes of the AAAI Fall Symposium on Rational Agency: Concepts, Theories, Models, and Applications, Cambridge, MA, November 1995, pp. 117–122 (1995)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Sardina, S., Shapiro, S.: Rational Action in Agent Programs with Prioritized Goals. In: Second Intl. J. Conf. on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Sys (AAMAS 2003), Melbourne, Australia, pp. 417–424 (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Shapiro, S., Brewka, G.: Dynamic Interactions Between Goals and Beliefs. In: Twentieth Intl. J. Conf. on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI 2007), India, pp. 2625–2630 (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Winikoff, M., Padgham, L., Harland, J., Thangarajah, J.: Declarative and Procedural Goals in Intelligent Agent Systems. In: Eighth Intl. Conf. on Principles and Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR&R 2002), Toulouse, France, pp. 470–481 (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Bordini, R.H., Dastani, M., Dix, J., Fallah-Seghrouchni, A.E. (eds.): Multi-Agent Programming: Languages, Platforms and Applications. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  10. Bratman, M.E.: Intentions, Plans, and Practical Reason. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (1987)

    Google Scholar 

  11. McCarthy, J., Hayes, P.J.: Some Philosophical Problems from the Standpoint of Artificial Intelligence. Machine Intelligence 4, 463–502 (1969)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  12. Reiter, R.: Knowledge in Action. Logical Foundations for Specifying and Implementing Dynamical Systems. MIT Press, Cambridge (2001)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  13. DeGiacomo, G., Lespérance, Y., Levesque, H.J.: ConGolog, a Concurrent Programming Language Based on the Situation Calculus. Artificial Intelligence 121, 109–169 (2000)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  14. Levesque, H.J., Pirri, F., Reiter, R.: Foundations for a Calculus of Situations. Electronic Transactions of AI (ETAI) 2(3-4), 159–178 (1998)

    MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  15. Moore, R.C.: A Formal Theory of Knowledge and Action. In: Hobbs, J.R., Moore, R.C. (eds.) Formal Theories of the Commonsense World, pp. 319–358. Ablex, Greenwich (1985)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Scherl, R., Levesque, H.: Knowledge, Action, and the Frame Problem. Artificial Intelligence 144(1-2), 1–39 (2003)

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  17. Rao, A.S., Georgeff, M.P.: Modeling Rational Agents with a BDI-Architecture. In: Fikes, R., Sandewall, E. (eds.) Second Intl. Conf. on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR&R 1991), San Mateo, CA, pp. 473–484. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, San Francisco (1991)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Shapiro, S., Lespérance, Y., Levesque, H.J.: Goal Change in the Situation Calculus. J. of Logic and Computation 17(5), 983–1018 (2007)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  19. Sardina, S.: deSilva, L., Padgham, L.: Hierarchical Planning in BDI Agent Programming Languages: A Formal Approach. In: Fifth Intl. J. Conf. on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS 2006), Hakodate, Japan, pp. 1001–1008 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  20. van Riemsdijk, M.B., Dastani, M., Dignum, F., Meyer, J.J.C.: Dynamics of Declarative Goals in Agent Programming. In: Leite, J., Omicini, A., Torroni, P., Yolum, p. (eds.) DALT 2004. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 3476, pp. 1–18. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  21. van Riemsdijk, M.B., Dastani, M., Meyer, J.J.: Ch.: Semantics of Declarative Goals in Agent Programming. In: Fourth Int’l J. Conf. on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Sys. (AAMAS 2005), pp. 133–140 (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  22. van Riemsdijk, M.B., Dastani, M., Meyer, J.J.Ch.: Goals in Conflict: Semantic Foundations of Goals in Agent Programming. International Journal of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (JAAMAS) 18(3), 471–500 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Khan, S.M., Lespérance, Y. (2010). Prioritized Goals and Subgoals in a Logical Account of Goal Change – A Preliminary Report. In: Baldoni, M., Bentahar, J., van Riemsdijk, M.B., Lloyd, J. (eds) Declarative Agent Languages and Technologies VII. DALT 2009. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 5948. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-11355-0_8

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-11355-0_8

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-11354-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-11355-0

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics