Abstract

As part of an effort to define a unified formal semantics for beliefs, desires and action, this paper sketches a model theory for the axiological aspects of agent theory: hedonic states, likes, goals and values. Particular attention is paid to modelling the intensity of likes. The main intuition underlying the model theory is that the axiological aspects of agent theory can be modelled through computational generalisations of physical dynamics. Computational analogues of force, mass and potential are offered. Introduction An important part of agent theory appears to be the notion of desires. Several formulations of agent theory have adopted beliefs, desires and intentions as a set of basic notions (the so-called BDI models). However, to our knowledge, so far relatively little has been said explicitly in the AI literature about a theory of desires (Cohen and Levesque, 1985 and in press, Moore, 1985a; Kiss, 1988, Shoham, 1989). This paper takes some initial steps towards the explicit f...

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