Requirements analysis of an agent's reasoning capability

Contains fulltext : 56937.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)The aim of requirements analysis for an agent that is to be designed is to identify what characteristic capabilities the agent should have. One of the characteristics usually expected for intelligent agents is the capability of reasoning. This paper shows how a requirements analysis of an agent's reasoning capability can be made. Reasoning processes may involve dynamically introduced or retracted assumptions: 'reasoning by assumption'. It is shown for this type of reasoning how relevant dynamic properties at different levels of aggregation can be identified as requirements that characterize the reasoning capability. A software agent has been built that performs this type of reasoning. The dynamic properties have been expressed using the temporal trace language TTL and can and have been checked automatically for sample traces.7th International Bi-Conference Workshop, AOIS 2005, Utrecht, Netherlands, July 26, 2005, and Klagenfurt, Austria, October 27, 200

Patterns in World Dynamics Indicating Agency

In this paper, the question is addressed which patterns in world dynamics are an indication for a conceptualisation of a world’s process as an agent. Six criteria are discussed that provide an indication for the world to show a form agency, and allows for suitable agent-based conceptualisation. The criteria take the form of relationships between the occurrence of certain patterns in the world’s dynamics, and are expressed as second-order properties of world dynamics. They are formalised in a reified temporal predicate (meta-)logical language and their use is illustrated in a case study, supported by automated support in the form of simulation and verification.