Alcino Cunha

Citation:

Cunha A, Barros J B.  2003.  Towards Utility-based Programming.

Abstract:

Many programs have an objective that can be precisely stated as the maximization of a function defined over its local variables. This is the case of utility-based software agents, which are reactive entities that try to maximize their welfare, usually accessed by an utility function. This paper introduces a programming language suitable for explicit programming with utility functions. Starting from a standard concurrent programming language, we added primitives to allow the parametrization of each process with an utility function that should be maximized. For the moment, using techniques of Markov decision problems, we can compile sequential programs, written in a restricted version of this new language, into equally behaved programs written in the original one. Major problems in developing such utility-based programming language are the need to compare the utility of infinite executions or the need to deal with uncertainty.

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