Execution Architectures and Compilation

This paper introduces a partition of the possible forms of knowledge according to their rela­ tionship to the basic objective of an intelligent agent, namely to act successfully in response to its environment. The resulting classes of knowl­ edge range from fully declarative to fully com­ piled. From these classes, it is possible to gen­ erate 1) a set of execution architectures, each of which combines some of the classes to produce decisions; and 2) a set of compilation methods, that transform knowledge into more efficient but (approximately) behaviourally equivalent, compiled forms. Existing compilation methods can be understood within this framework, and new compilation methods and execution archi­ tectures are indicated. It is proposed that sys­ tems with the ability to learn, use and trans­ form between all the types of knowledge may be able to achieve simultaneously higher levels of competence, efficiency and flexibility.

Authors

• Stuart J. Russell

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