A Reconsideration of Preconditions
Christopher Geib · ScholarlyCommons (University of Pennsylvania) · 1992
This paper is part of an attempt to introduce intentionality of the actor to planning decisions. As a first step in this process the usual representations for actions used by planning systems must be reevaluated. This paper argues for the elimination of preconditions and qualification conditions from action representation in favor of explicit representation of intention, situated reasoning about the results of the action and reactive failure mechanisms. The paper then describes a planning system that has explicit representation and use of intentions and uses act ion represent at ions that do not have preconditions. 1 Planning and intention The manner in which an agent chooses to accomplish a given task is often determined not only by the actual action or goal, but also by the agent's other intentions. For example, breaking the door off its hinges is a way of satisfying the goal of having a door open, however, this is not the first way one would think of to achieve that goal. We can see the role intentions play in our planning deliberations in two ways. First, they can be seen as the ends of our deliberations that is to say, those things that we want to achieve in the future. Second, they can