Agent's Goals

Taken from 'On the Generation of Bipolar Goals in Argumentation-Based Negotiation' (2005), by Leila Amgoud and Souhila Kaci

Typology of Goals

Recent studies on psychology claim that goals are bipolar and there are at least two kinds of goals: the positive goals representing what the agent wants to achieve and the negative goals representing what the agent rejects.

Beware that, positive goals do not just mirror what is not rejected since a goal which is not rejected is not necessarily pursued. This category of goals which are neither negative nor positive are said to be in abeyance.

Note however that positive and negative goals are related by a coherence condition which says that what is pursued should be among what is not rejected.

The Origins of Goals

Agent's goals come generally from two different sources:
- from beliefs that justify their existence. So, the agent believes that the world is in a state that warrants the existence of its goals. These goals are called the initial ones or also conditional goals. They are conditional because they depend on the beliefs.
- an agent can adopt a goal because it allows him to achieve an initial goal. These are called sub-goals or adopted goals.

A conditional rule is an expression of the form
R: c1 & ... & cn => g,
which expresses the fact that if c1 ... cn are true then the agent will have the goal g.

A planning rule is an expression of the form
P: g1 & ... & gn |-> g,
which means that the agent believes that if he realizes g1, ..., gn then he will be able to achieve g.