UNIVERSITY OF HERTFORDSHIRE
             COMPUTER SCIENCE RESEARCH COLLOQUIUM

                            presents

             "Towards a Formal Agent Definition for
                     Artificial Universes"

                          Martin Biehl
           (Adaptive Systems Research Group, School of
            Computer Science, University of Hertfordshire)

                  15 October 2014 (Wednesday)
                          1 pm - 2 pm

                  Hatfield, College Lane Campus
                       Seminar Room D102

                  Everyone is Welcome to Attend

                  Refreshments will be available

Abstract:

We are interested in an agent definition valid for agents that exist
*within* an isolated process. For inspiration we think of a biological
agent e.g. an animal within our universe. Here the universe is the
isolated process. We argue that current agent definitions are not
sufficient for this point of view. This sets the stage for our endeavor
to develop a *formal* agent definition suitable for our point of view.
An important point is that we deliberately restrict the isolated processes
(we call them *universe* processes) to finite Markov chains. The main
formal methods we use are Bayesian networks and information theory.
In this setting we present our investigations of decompositions of Markov
chains into two processes. This aimed at an agent definition based on
improving predictability of the universe process. We also present our
work towards an agent definition based on partial observations of the
universe process and *apparently* causal interaction of those.
The talk will close with an outlook on our future work which aims to
define apparent actions and apparent goal-directedness as building blocks
for a complete agent definition.


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Hertfordshire Computer Science Research Colloquium
http://cs-colloq.stca.herts.ac.uk