The semantics of behavior

Abstract

The BDI architecture is one of the most popular architectures for agents with symbolic reasoning capabilities. To formally define the notions of Beliefs, Desires and Intentions, different formal logics have been proposed in the literature. Although these proposals often refer to the work of Bratman [2], none, however, correctly capture the form of practical reasoning that Bratman describes. What is lacking, is a proper characterization of the agent's behavior. The formal logics proposed so far, do not allow for an adequate characterization of the refinement of behaviors that Bratman describes. This paper focuses on describing an agent's behavior. The proposed behavioral descriptions allow for the specification of abstract behaviors, which can subsequently be refined. The approach enables a more accurate characterization of Bratman's BDI model.