Intent-centric paradigm

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The Intent-centric Paradigm (ICP) is a research agenda within the field of cognitive science pursued by the Center for Advanced Defense Studies under the direction of Dr. Newton Howard. ICP describes processes which describe how a rational agent understands and interprets the actions of other agents in a particular context at a particular time. Furthermore, it defines a number of principles, such as the bounded physical non-determinism principle, which states that a finite set of actions uniquely determines every possible situation. Studies in the theory of intention awareness are an integral part of the ICP.

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[edit] ICP meta-model

Within the ICP, a meta-model has been developed which explains the relationship between actions and intentions.

[edit] Stages of Intention Processing

According to this meta-model, an agent processes intentions in five stages:

  • Observing stage, in which the agent records its own actions as well as those of the other agents in the environment.
  • Formulating stage, in which the agent derives intentions from the actions recorded during the observing stage.
  • Predicting stage, in which the agent predicts future intentions and actions.
  • Orienting stage, in which the agent refines the future actions and current and future intents postulated during the formulating and predicting stage and extracts possible consequences of actions.
  • Deciding stage, in which the agent finalizes its inferences about intentions and actions and decides which of its own intentions to pursue.

[edit] Mathematical Foundations

The entities and processes which are described in the ICP meta-model are defined formally using set theoretic notation. Each of the five phases in the meta-model has been described using this notation.

  • Actions, actors, and intentions are defined as variables which are organized into sets according to time and context.
  • A situation is defined as a set of objects, each of which is associated with a set of properties. The objects and their associated properties can therefore be organized into a matrix.
  • The effect of an action on a situation is described as a transformation of a situation matrix.

[edit] Project types within the ICP

The ICP can be applied to a number of more specific project types, including:

  • Improving requirements in engineering theory and practice in Command, Control, Communication, Intelligence (C3I) Systems to include theory of Intention Awareness as an augmentation to Situation Awareness
  • Designing cognitive models that encode cognitive attributes such as intention and sense-making in agent-based simulations
  • Designing architectures for intrusion detection, informational exchange, interoperability, and security that encode and extract users' intent (friendly and enemy) to improve system performance metrics
  • Exploring intent-centric techniques for automatic software generation