Predictable and Unpredictable Environments

Dynamic environments can be unpredictable. This means that not only is the world changing but it changes in a way that the agent can not (fully) comprehend. This often occurs when an agent's representation of the world is incomplete (or non-existent). Because of this unpredictability, it may be desirable that the agent's processing be interruptible, to handle unexpected, and urgent, contingencies.

A predictable environment is an environment for which an agent has an adequate (or perhaps complete) world model. For example, an agent that had a sophisticated, first-principles model of Newtonian physics could predict with reasonable accuracy the results of throwing, with a known force, objects of known mass. However, since such models are computationally prohibitive, most agents consider a dynamic world unpredictable as well.

This assumption does not hold for agent's that behave in simulated, dynamic worlds. Since those worlds can generally be predicted exactly (e.g., a grasp command always results in holding an object if the object is holdable and the agent is in the object's proximity), these dynamic environments can be considered to be predictable.


Go UP to the general description of environments. Go HOME to the Table of Contents. Go to NEXT document.