Constraint Satisfaction In "Conscious" Software Agents--A Practical Application

ABSTRACT The U.S. Navy has been trying for many years to automate its personnel assignment process. Periodic assignment of personnel to new jobs is mandatory according to Navy policy. Though various software systems are used regularly, the process is mainly done manually and sequentially by Navy personnel called detailers. This paper is a case study in applying cognitive theories implemented via new AI techniques to produce flexible adaptive human-like software. In it we present a sketch of an intelligent distribution agent that aims to largely automate the detailer's tasks. In particular, we look inside its constraint satisfaction, which is mainly responsible for satisfying the requirements of the Navy's policies, the command's needs, and the sailor's preferences in order to achieve “satisfactory” job assignments, according to ever-evolving Navy standards.

[1]  Stan Franklin,et al.  Realizing consciousness in software agents , 1999 .

[2]  Hong Hong,et al.  Human Cognition and Social Agent Technology , 2001, J. Educ. Technol. Soc..

[3]  Stan Franklin,et al.  A behaviour instantiation agent architecture , 2000, Connect. Sci..

[4]  Kaspar Althoefer,et al.  Neural Network World , 2000 .

[5]  Jeffery L. Kennington,et al.  Assignment with En route training of navy personnel , 1993, Naval Research Logistics (NRL).

[6]  Lee McCauley,et al.  IDA: a cognitive agent architecture , 1998, SMC'98 Conference Proceedings. 1998 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (Cat. No.98CH36218).

[7]  Lakhmi C. Jain,et al.  Innovations in intelligent systems , 2004 .

[8]  Michael R. Genesereth,et al.  Software agents , 1994, CACM.

[9]  T. Kellam,et al.  Artificial Minds , 1996, Inf. Process. Manag..

[10]  Michael C. Mozer,et al.  Using Relevance to Reduce Network Size Automatically , 1989 .

[11]  B. Baars.  In the Theater of Consciousness , 1997 .

[12]  B. Baars.  A cognitive theory of consciousness , 1988 .

[13]  Ravikumar Kondadadi,et al.  An Evolutionary Approach for Job Assignment , 2000, ISCA Conference on Intelligent Systems.

[14]  Piero Mussio,et al.  Toward a Practice of Autonomous Systems , 1994 .

[15]  Stan Franklin,et al.  Deliberation and Voluntary Action in "Conscious" Software Agents , 2000 .

[16]  Arthur C. Graesser,et al.  Is it an Agent, or Just a Program?: A Taxonomy for Autonomous Agents , 1996, ATAL.

[17]  L. Shapley,et al.  College Admissions and the Stability of Marriage , 1962 .

[18]  Melanie Mitchell,et al.  The emergence of understanding in a computer model of concepts analogy-making , 1990 .

[19]  Arpad Kelemen,et al.  Constraint satisfaction as a support for decision making in software agents , 2002 .

[20]  D. Spalding.  The Principles of Psychology , 1873, Nature.

[21]  Robert Kozma,et al.  Action selection under constraints: dynamic optimization of behavior in machines and humans , 2002, Proceedings of the 2002 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks. IJCNN'02 (Cat. No.02CH37290).

[22]  Pentti Kanerva,et al.  Sparse Distributed Memory , 1988 .

[23]  F. Varela,et al.  Toward a Practice of Autonomous Systems: Proceedings of the First European Conference on Artificial Life , 1992 .

[24]  T. Liang,et al.  Improving the utilization of training resources through optimal personnel assignment in the U.S. Navy , 1988 .

[25]  Melanie Mitchell,et al.  The Copycat project: a model of mental fluidity and analogy-making , 1995 .

[26]  Robert Kozma,et al.  Optimizing intelligent agent's constraint satisfaction with neural networks , 2003 .

[27]  P. Maes.  How to Do the Right Thing , 1989 .

[28]  Deliberative Decision Making in “ Conscious ” Software Agents , 2000 .

[29]  Stephanie Forrest,et al.  Analogies with immunology represent an important step toward the vision of robust, distributed protection for computers. , 1991 .