The Unknown Unknowns Are Not Totally Unknown
David Garlan · 2021
The question of whether “handling unanticipated changes is the ultimate challenge for self-adaptation” is impossible to evaluate without looking closely at what “unanticipated” means. In this position paper I try to bring a little clarity to this issue by arguing that the common distinction between “known unknowns” and “unknown unknowns” is too crude: for most systems there are changes that are not directly handled by “first-order” adaptation, but can, with appropriate engineering, be addressed naturally through “second-order” adaptation. I explain what I mean by this and consider ways in which such systems might be engineered.