Interactive Algorithms 2005

A sequential algorithm just follows its instructions and thus cannot make a nondeterministic choice all by itself, but it can be instructed to solicit outside help to make a choice. Similarly, an object-oriented program cannot create a new object all by itself; a create-a-new-object command solicits outside help. These are but two examples of intra-step interaction of an algorithm with its environment. Here we motivate and survey recent work on interactive algorithms within the Behavioral Computation Theory project.