intelligent agents & agent-oriented systems james harland school of computer science and it...

Intelligent Agents & Agent-oriented systems

James Harland

School of Computer Science and IT

Intelligent Agents & Agent-oriented systems

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Why do we need Intelligent Systems?

• New York Stock Exchange

• 33% of shares (by volume) traded by machines

• 40% of shares (by value) traded by machines

• Needs fast response time

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Why do we need Intelligent Systems?

“The Robots are coming! The Robots are coming!”

• Mars Rover

• Home systems – vacuum, lawn mower, gutter cleaner

• Military systems --- mine clearance, sensing, weapons control, autonomous vehicles, …

• Sensor networks

• Exoskeletons and artificial limbs

• Rescue robots

• Fish, birds, dogs, insects, …

• …

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Robots

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What is Intelligence?

talk “Hello! How are you today. Could I please have a coffee?”

hear Interpret “er… so.. um… as I was saying, what? No! Coffee please!”

read Interpret “Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.”

think “Low on fuel, it’s getting dark, no clue where I am … Hmmmm….”

act Pick things up, move them, walk, build things, …

see Distinguish moving objects from static ones, colours, textures, …

adapt This isn’t working, so let’s try something else …

paint Make judgements about what is pleasing and what is not

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Intelligent Systems in CS & IT

• Agent oriented programming

• Software that observes, thinks, acts and reacts

• Natural language processing and generation

• Software that can have a dialogue with humans

• Computational reasoning

• Software that can work out what to do

• Machine learning

• Software than can analyse, adapt and be trained

• Evolved Art

• Artistic collaboration with School of Media and Communication

• Interactive Toys

• Collaboration with XSiVE on toys which interact with children and grow with them

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What is an agent?

situated: in an environment which can be sensed and acted onpro-active: pursues its agenda, despite the environmentreactive: responds appropriately to changes in the environmentautonomous: can act on its own, without waiting to be instructedsocial: can interact with other agents, and possibly humans ….

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Beliefs, Desires, Intentions

• Agents often described in terms of mental attitudes (Beliefs, Desires, Intentions)

• Based on philosophical analysis of human reasoning by Bratman

• Developed in the early 1990s by Rao and Georgeff (in Melbourne!)

• Many variations since then

Beliefs: What it currently understands as the state of the world

Desires: States of the world that it would like to be true

Intentions: Ways of getting from current state to desired states

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‘Observe, think, act’

How does this work?

Observe

ObserveReceive and process

information about the environment

ThinkDetermine which plan should be

running

ActExecute part of chosen plan

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Example

Vacuum cleaner has to clean three rooms

It can move, or polish, and can sense whether a room is clean or dirty.

Beliefs:

clean(1), dirty(2), dirty(3), in(1)

Goals:

clean(1), clean(2), clean(3)

Plan:

move(1,2) then polish(2) then move(2,3) then polish(3)

Observe

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Example

Vacuum cleaner has to clean three rooms

It can move, or polish, and can sense whether a room is clean or dirty.

Beliefs:

clean(1), dirty(2), dirty(3), in(2)

Goals:

clean(2), clean(3)

Plan:

polish(2) then move(2,3) then polish(3)

Observe

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Example

Vacuum cleaner has to clean three rooms

It can move, or polish, and can sense whether a room is clean or dirty.

Beliefs:

clean(1), clean(2), dirty(3), in(2)

Goals:

clean(3)

Plan:

move(2,3) then polish(3)

Observe

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Example

Vacuum cleaner has to clean three rooms

It can move, or polish, and can sense whether a room is clean or dirty.

Beliefs:

clean(1), clean(2), dirty(3), in(2)

Goals:

clean(3)

Plan:

polish(3)

Observe

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Agents

• Applied in many contexts --- robots, finance, air traffic control, simulations,movies,….

• Prometheus design methodology (like UML for agents)

• Agent-oriented software engineering

• Agent programming languages

• Model-checking for agents

• Reasoning about agents, beliefs, goals,…

• Agents that learn

• Bushfire simulation

• Simulation of populations

• …

Observe

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Questions?