or software agent) has a problem if there is a mismatch between the current state and some desired state and no preexisting algorithm is available for transforming the current state to the desired state. Problems can be categorized according to whether starting state, ending state, and allowable transformations are well-defined or ill-defined. Proving a Euclidean Theorem is an example of a completely well-defined problem while designing a house, a useful software system, a new business process, and writing a teaching story are examples of completely ill-defined problems. There are many software tools for helping people solve various types of welldefined problems; however, relatively few tools exist for helping people solve ill-defined problems such a
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