Toward cognitive habile agents

这个项目解决了智能代理-所谓的认知“habile”代理-在他们的环境中使用工具。这项研究的灵感来自于动物使用工具的例子，从黑猩猩用棍子抓昆虫到乌鸦用弯曲铁丝做成钩子。工具使用被视为智能行为的基础。该项目主要集中在三个方面：（1）建立认知Habile Agent的一般特征，包括开发工具分类及其使用;（2）识别可居住代理的核心能力，包括通过工具增强与环境交互的能力，对工具使用的假设场景进行详细的内部模拟，并利用工具和任务约束之间的对称性来识别适当动作的机会;以及（3）评估不同的控制体系结构（例如，分层的、迭代的）。它建立在PI最近NSF支持的关于代理和图形用户界面的工作之上，其中涉及控制和认知建模的问题。 这项工作的更广泛影响将通过与本科研究和研究生教育相关的两种方式实现：本科研究人员通过NCSU的AURICS（计算机科学加速本科研究）计划参与研究，以及一门新的研究生课程，专注于构建人工智能系统和与这项研究相关的主题（例如，具体代理，认知建模，控制架构）正在开发中。

This project addresses tool use by intelligent agents--so-called cognitive "habile" agents--in their environment. The research is inspired by examples of tool use among animals, ranging from chimpanzees that fish for insects with sticks to crows that bend wire into hooks. Tool use is viewed as a basis for intelligent behavior. The project focuses on three issues: (1) establishing general characteristics of cognitive habile agents, including development of a taxonomy of tools and their usages; (2) identifying core capabilities of habile agents, including their ability to enhance their interaction with the environment via tools, to perform detailed internal simulations of hypothetical scenarios for tool use, and to exploit symmetries in between tools and task constraints to identify opportunities for appropriate action; and (3) evaluating different control architectures (e.g., hierarchical, iterative) for such agents. It builds upon the PI's recent NSF-supported work on agents and graphical user interfaces, which involved issues of control and cognitive modeling. The Broader Impact of this work will be realized in two ways related to undergraduate research and graduate education: undergraduate researchers are being involved in the research through the AURICS (Accelerated Undergraduate Research in Computer Science) program at NCSU, and a new graduate course focusing on building AI systems and topics related to this research (e.g., embodied agents, cognitive modeling, control architectures) is being developed.