Goal Reasoning: Emerging Applications, a Foundation, and Prospects

Goal reasoning (GR) has a bright future as a foundation for research on intelligent agents and as a methodology for developing applications. GR is the study of agents that can deliberate on and self-select their goals/objectives, which is a desirable capability for deliberative autonomy. While it has been studied for several decades in multiple disciplines, GR has only recently been the focus of intense interest. In this presentation, I will introduce GR, relate it to other AI topics, summarize some emerging applications, describe our foundation for GR, and discuss some current and future research directions.