How to Do the Right Thing

Abstract

This paper presents a novel approach to the problem of action selection for an autonomous agent. An agent is viewed as a collection of competence modules. Action selection is modeled as an emergent property of an activation/inhibition dynamics among these modules. A concrete action selection algorithm is presented and a detailed account of the results is given. This algorithm combines characteristics of both traditional planners and reactive systems: it produces fast and robust activity in a tight interaction loop with the environment, while at the same time allowing for some prediction and planning to take place.